7. Chapter 7
seven
What did I do to deserve this? I’m not a bad person. I messed up when I was young, but since then I’ve walked the line. I don’t lie. I don’t cheat. I don’t steal.
I don’t let myself lose my temper.
But I’m not sure I can do this.
Her. Back here. It’s too tempting.
For fuck’s sake, once you’ve had your flesh burned off from the heart out, you ought to have sense enough not to walk back into the fire—but I couldn’t resist her. I saw the panic on her face. Watched her weave through trucks at a breakneck speed, found her with her back to the wall.
Heard her whispering to no one.
My feet wouldn’t stop. I had to ask. Had to see her up close. Smell her. Touch her. I couldn’t believe she was real.
Laurel.
Even more beautiful now than she was at eighteen, and I didn’t know that was possible.
Thick, long chestnut hair—glossy, the kind your fingers slide into without trying.
That little dimple in her chin—the one she used to swear she hated—it quivered.
Just barely. Enough to tell me she was fighting her emotions with everything she had.
Her skin’s still like light honey, like she carries sunlight under it.
And her hazel eyes… swinging from brooding brown to winter wheat green, depending on her mood and the light. They landed on me, and something in my ribs shifted—something I wasn’t braced for.
She looked tired. Worn down. Still strong though. And I hate how fast I felt it—that knot twisting in my gut, shooting straight up into my chest when I saw her standing there.
And yeah, she’s taken the ring off, but that doesn’t mean she won’t put it back on.
I can’t let myself get any closer than I got tonight.
She said, “You know I loved you,” and a part of me knows she did, in her own way.
That’s the difference between us.
No man, no power on Earth could’ve made me leave Laurel back then. I’d have fought the devil himself before I’d have let that happen.
I guess love comes in different depths and strengths.
Anger boils in my chest as I rake both hands through my hair, gripping the back of my neck. She gave in. She robbed us of what could have been. He could’ve been my son.
“My son!” I yell at the sky, my voice shattering the night. “He could’ve been mine!”
“He can still be yours.”
Fucking Tanner’s behind me. How did I not hear him drive up?
I spin, heart hammering against my ribs. “Fuck off.”
“Not happening.” He digs in the ice chest, pulling out a beer. “I knew I’d find you here.”
“Good for you. Now get lost.”
The bottle hisses as he cracks it open. “What part of not happening didn’t you understand?”
If I can’t get rid of him, we can at least talk about something else. “What’d they decide in the meeting?”
“For a guy who was going to have to run the damn thing, you were conspicuously absent.”
“Chief had it handled. What’d they decide?”
Tanner hikes a shoulder. “We’ll take whatever legal steps we have to, to get Lone Star Wind to replace the truck we lost. In the meantime, we’re just down one truck. We do the best we can do.”
“Brown County had a hell of a fire today.”
“I heard. Five hundred acres. Nolan County’s got one burning right now. Already two-thousand acres. We’re due. This kind of drought, it doesn’t take much.” Tanner tugs on his beer, eyeing me. “What happened between you and Laurel?”
“Nothing. What are you doing here anyway? How’d you know?”
“How do you think I’d know? After the meeting, Mercy took Laurel home and came straight to me. She said Laurel was a mess. I figured if she was, you were, too.”
He’s been my brother since we were kids, DNA be damned.
“Why would you say that bullshit to me earlier? The boy’s not mine. He can’t be mine.” I pace, my hands clasping the back of my neck, staring at the sky like somewhere, up there, if I can just look hard enough, I’ll find some answers.
“Pull your head out of your ass. Just because you weren’t the sperm donor doesn’t mean a kid can’t consider you their father. If she left whatever-the-fuck-his-name is, she had a good reason. The kid’s probably better off without him.”
He’s right.
Laurel’s never been an impulsive person.
“What the hell am I going to do?” I haven’t been able to breathe right since she landed.
“I don’t know, Calder.” He takes a long drink of his beer and tips the bottle my way. “Take it one day at a time. That’s all any of us can do.”
“I haven’t let myself think about her in—hell, I don’t know how long. I blocked it all out.”
“Yeah.”
“I was such a fuck-up.”
“No, you weren’t. Her old man was a snob. Is a snob.”
“She texted me that night, I love you. I never answered.” I scrub my hands over my face. “If I had, maybe things would’ve been different.”
He scoffs, wagging his head. “I know. Heard it before. Here’s the thing about what-ifs. Nobody will ever know the answer to any of them so just don’t let yourself go there.”
“If I just hadn’t—”
“You made a mistake, man. Let it go.”
“I was drunk.”
“I was there, remember?”
“Thank fuck you were.”
He shakes his head and whispers, “You could’ve killed him if I hadn’t gotten you off.”
Like, I don’t know.
I sit heavily on the tailgate, my hands braced behind me, staring at the stock tank. Tanner joins me, shoulder to shoulder, neither one of us looking at the other. “I was just so… I don’t know—”
“Mad at the world.”
“A year behind bars.” It scrapes out—unwelcome—something I buried right alongside the memory of her. “You know what that does to your soul?” I tilt my head back, staring at the star-studded, cloudless sky again. I like the sky. Day or night.
“No. Glad I don’t. Sorry you do.”
“Makes you feel a peg below the rest of the world. Dirty. From then on.”
He digs in the chest for another beer. “Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not below anyone and nobody thinks you are.”
“Tell that to the country club crowd.”
“Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.”
“You’re going to have to cover for me a few days. Make sure Darla steps up at the store.”
“Where are you going?”
“Not into town. I need some space, at least for a few days. I need to cut hay anyway. There’s plenty to do out here.” I stand, bracing my hands on the tailgate, grounding myself.
“I’m not going to let you sulk too long, man.”
“I won’t.”