Chapter 28
JAKE
If I didn’t hate Cole Evans already, I hated him now.
I’d been about ready to bare all to Shelby May Tucker, though, something I’d been trying my hardest not to do. I was still trying to figure out what to do with my feelings for Shelby, so until I figured that out, maybe Cole had come at a good time.
I released Shelby and stepped back.
She swore while she shimmied out of the rope tied around her waist. In spite of myself, I had to bite back a smile.
Somehow, with her beside me, it became easier to separate myself from him.
Cole Evans was a character in my life. That was it.
He wasn’t my whole life. He would never be my whole life, and that thought eased something inside of me.
“I’ll hold his arms. You throw the punches,” Shelby whispered as my dad turned the truck off and pushed open the door.
“That’s probably a good idea. Your right hook sucks.”
“Hey, Jake. Hey, Shelby.”
I hadn’t had time to study him too closely when we were in the hospital.
I’d been too blindsided by his presence.
But looking at him now, he was just a man.
An average man, at that. He had always seemed untouchable, but here and now he just looked weathered.
Worn. He stood tall, north of six feet by a couple of inches, but some of that might be his boots.
He wore a bright-blue flannel shirt and jeans that looked more expensive than practical.
I didn’t know what to call him. I wouldn’t be saying the word Dad to him. And sir was out of the question.
“Hi.” My voice sounded clipped.
To his credit, he looked slightly relieved at my greeting. He nodded toward Shelby. “I see you two are still attached at the hip.”
To my surprise, Shelby smiled softly, moving forward to shake his hand.
“How are you, Mr. Evans?”
The traitor.
“I’m alright.”
Cole turned to me. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Flashbacks of my time with him in the hospital bit my memory, but I kept myself in check.
Shelby gave my arm a squeeze before saying, “I’m going to go brush down the horses.”
There were no horses that needed to be brushed down. Shelby walked away, leaving me glaring at her back before I turned back to Cole, both of us awkward and unsure. Finally, he motioned behind me to our makeshift arena. “You practicing for tomorrow?”
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
“When did you stop?” he asked.
I bit back the surge of anger at his audacity in asking me anything personal. After a moment, collecting myself, I shrugged. “A few years after high school. I got married and moved away and never picked it back up.”
He nodded.
“Are you riding tomorrow?” I asked.
I should have figured that was why he was back in town. It wasn’t for my mom or me but most likely the chance to show off in front of his old hometown buddies.
But to my surprise, he only shrugged. “They’ve asked me, but I’m not sure yet. It’ll be good to see some old familiar faces, though. It’s been too long.”
I hadn’t thought about my dad having much of a life before he left.
My entire childhood had been marred by his leaving, even tainting the good memories.
But he did have a life here once. Friends.
A wife and son. He’d been a local rodeo star.
Suddenly, memories of my dad having poker nights with his buddies in the basement when I was a kid came flying back to me.
I could still hear their raucous laughter and the way my mom would bang on the floor upstairs as a warning to them when the language began to get colorful.
I had wanted to be just like him when I grew up.
Before I could stop it, memories I thought I’d buried flitted through my consciousness. Those times my dad would push me on the swings or teach me to get on a horse without any help. I used to be this man’s shadow. A skinny scrap of a kid with overgrown cowboy boots and a pocketknife.
I cleared my throat and got a grip on myself.
“I guess that’s what happens when people move away.”
I kept the anger out of my voice. Cole probably didn’t notice the effort it took, but Shelby would have been proud. There were lots of emotions swirling inside of me, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook just because he decided, after sixteen years, to finally show up for his family.
Suddenly, my hands itched to do something. To move. I needed to be moving.
“I’ve got to go feed cows in the next corral.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected him to do, but to my surprise, he followed me.
“Listen,” he began. “I know you don’t want me here, and that’s completely on my head.
But I’ve been talking with your mom. She’s ready for rehab, and she’s agreed to let me pay to move her back home.
She’ll have to spend a few days at the rehab center to make sure she’s good, but then she’ll get to go home and have whatever she needs.
I’ll take care of everything. I don’t want her being at home to be a burden to you. ”
Icy daggers shot through my gut at his statement. My attempt at altruism was over. It had lasted a whole thirty seconds. Which, to be fair to me, was longer than I thought I could pull off. I’d just tell Shelby it didn’t work out. I turned toward him, fists clenched and ready for battle.
But before I could retort, he held up his hands, backtracking. To his credit, shame filled his face.
“No. I didn’t mean…I’m sorry. I know your mom would never be a burden to you.
I just meant that by not having her at a facility with round-the-clock care, I didn’t want you to worry about her getting hurt at home or something.
She’ll have therapists and home health care in and out of her house the whole time. ”
My anger, somewhat reluctantly, abated as he continued. “I just thought she might be more comfortable at home. And she…gave me her approval.”
I picked up a bale of hay and dropped it into the manger, cutting the string holding it together in two stiff movements.
She would be more comfortable at home. My mom hated hospitals.
That was the part that I hated about all of this.
Her meager insurance from the diner wouldn’t pay for it.
They’d pay in part if it were a facility but not the expense of home health, as we’d learned recently.
“Sounds like you got it all figured out, then,” I said.
Cole moved to stand next to me, kicking the hay and spreading it out before the cows came in for their food.
“You’re gonna get those fancy boots dirty if you keep doing that,“ I remarked before lifting another bale and dropping it in the manger, farther down the line.
“It’s good for me. I’ve been going soft for a while now.”
I didn’t say anything, but we developed a system for him to spread the hay I was bringing to the manger. I didn’t need the help; in fact, I’d have preferred him not to be there at all, but it did cut my feeding time down by almost half. We finished up and stood, with shifting eyes and feet.
He cleared his throat. “Listen, Jake. I’m doing this for your mom, with or without your blessing. That’s between me and her. But I’d like your blessing all the same.”
I stared at him. He stared back, hands in his pockets and waiting.
Here was a man whose actions had done nothing but cause me pain almost my entire life.
Somewhere in my mind, I had built him up to be something selfish and evil.
He had been the common enemy of my mom and me. A black hole in my life.
But seeing him now, that hole didn’t seem as big as it used to be.
This giant of a man had shrunk in my eyes.
Maybe it was the effect of getting older myself, but his physical presence felt remarkably less impressive.
It was still him, but his hair was now speckled with gray, his face seemed tired, his shoulders slouched. And his eyes shone with regret.
I was tired too.
Tired of the hate.
Tired of this man holding such a negative weight in my life.
He was waiting for me to respond. When I finally found my voice, I said, “You don’t have my blessing. You haven’t earned that. But I am grateful to you for helping my mom be more comfortable.”
He held my gaze for a few seconds before he finally nodded. He then lifted a hand to wave at me before he climbed back into his truck and drove away.
I wasn’t at peace watching him drive away. I was learning that anger and hurt had sharp edges and jagged peaks that took time to smooth and round out. But I did feel lighter, and the path to peace didn’t feel as impossible as it once had.
The next afternoon, I sat by my mom’s hospital bed, watching her eat the split pea soup and stale bread the hospital offered her. I had an iron stomach, always had, but even I had trouble keeping my cool watching that go down.
“Mom, let me run down to Chad’s and get you something edible. You want a meatloaf sandwich?”
She made a face and took a sip. “I think Chad only keeps that on the menu for you. Besides, I can’t eat anything greasy. But it’s not that bad.” She put on a brave face, swallowed, and then promptly dry heaved.
“It smells like somebody already ate it and peed it out of their body.”
My mom had been about to take another bite before she shot me a look and set the bowl down.
“Jake Nancy Evans! Now that’s all I can smell.”
I grinned at her and handed her a granola bar.
She sighed gratefully. “Thank you.”
“How are you feeling?”
She took a bite of the bar and lay back against her headrest. “I’m fine. Just annoyed by all of this.” She motioned to herself in a hospital bed. “All the fuss it’s caused. It’s going to take so long to get me back on track.”
“They told me the guy who hit you is going into surgery, but he should be okay too. They don’t have insurance.”
She rubbed her eyes. “I heard that too. I’m glad he’s okay.”
I cleared my throat. “Have you talked to your ex-husband lately?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but my words were clipped. I didn’t want to have this conversation, but we needed to.