Chapter 2 #2
Liam stood, crossing to the window where Dad had been standing. "It means it’s time to face her and what happened, so you can either fix it or move on for good.”
His words hung heavy in the air. Outside, the cattle lowed, the sound of real life continuing while we sat frozen in this moment.
"The decision's made," Dad said with finality. "Ivy arrives Monday. You'll all treat her with professional courtesy and respect."
"Professional courtesy," I repeated, the words tasting like ash. "Right."
I headed for the door, needing air, needing space, needing to be anywhere but in this room with their sympathy and their meddling and their complete inability to understand that some wounds don't heal just because time passes.
"Wyatt," Mom called after me.
I stopped but didn't turn around.
"She didn't leave because she didn't love you," she said softly. "I've always believed that. There’s more to that night than any of us know."
The words were meant to comfort, but they were gasoline on a fire that had never really gone out.
"No," I said, not looking back. "She left in spite of it. That's worse."
I walked out, letting the screen door bang shut behind me. The late afternoon sun was brutal, but I welcomed it. Physical discomfort was easier than the emotional hurricane tearing through my chest.
I headed for the barn, needing the familiar rhythm of work to steady myself. The horses nickered as I passed, and I stopped at Tempest's stall. The black stallion nudged my shoulder, sensing my turmoil the way animals always do.
"She's coming back," I told him, as if he could understand. Like it mattered to anyone but me. "After all this time, she's just waltzing back in here as if nothing happened."
Tempest snorted and stamped his foot, agitated by my mood.
"Yeah, that's what I think too."
I grabbed a shovel and started mucking stalls, attacking the task with more violence than necessary. Physical labor had always been my therapy, my way of working through things that were too big for words. But today, even the familiar burn in my muscles couldn't quiet my mind.
Ivy.
I could still see her that last night, silver in the moonlight like something out of a dream.
Could still feel the weight of her in my arms, the way she'd whispered my name like it was the only word that mattered.
We'd made love by the creek, and I'd given her that necklace, and I'd thought—God, I'd been so fucking naive—I'd thought we were beginning something.
Instead, we'd been ending.
I'd woken up alone in the truck bed, confused and cold. Drove home expecting to find her waiting, maybe in my room with that smile that made my knees weak. Instead, I'd found the note and necklace on my pillow, and my whole world had crumbled.
Her house, a rundown thing made of family secrets and lost dreams, showed no trace of her.
Her father came out with a shotgun, screaming at me to get gone before he blew my head off my shoulders.
Her mother had just stood in the doorway, silent tears streaming down her face, a fresh bruise blooming on her cheek that she didn't even try to hide.
I'd torn the county apart looking for her. Checked every bus station, every train depot, called every relative I could find a number for. Ivy Garrison had vanished like smoke, leaving nothing but questions and a heart that felt like it had been carved out with a dull knife.
"You okay?" Liam asked, tearing me from my thoughts.
"Peachy."
"For what it's worth, I don't think this was Aunt Lou and Uncle Owen's idea. Not entirely."
I paused, looking at him. Liam had always been too perceptive for his own good, even as a kid. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Ivy Garrison is the best at what she does. If Uncle Owen wants to modernize, she's the logical choice." He hesitated, then added, "Maybe she needs to come back as much as you need her to."
"I don't need her," I said automatically.
"No?" Liam pushed off the door. "Then why do I catch you looking at that necklace? Why do you still go to the creek? Why haven't you been able to let anyone else in since?"
I didn't answer because we both knew he was right.
“I need to tell you something before she gets here," he said quietly. My stomach twisted, and I stopped working. "The night she left... I saw her."
My head snapped up. "What?"
"I never told you because she asked me not to. Begged me not to’s more like it.
" He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of discomfort I rarely saw from him.
"She was in your room, leaving the note.
She was crying, Wyatt. Sobbing like her heart was breaking.
Said you deserved better than someone like her.
Said something terrible would happen if she stayed. "
The shovel slipped from my numb fingers. "You knew? All this time, you knew?"
"I knew she was scared," he said. "I knew she was running from something that wasn't you. And I knew that if I told you that night, you would have gone after her, and maybe that would have made things worse."
"Worse?" I laughed bitterly. "How could it have been worse?"
"I don't know. But she was terrified, Wyatt. Not sad, not conflicted—terrified. And when someone's that scared, there's usually a damn good reason."
His words rearranged something in my chest, but I wasn't ready to examine it.
"Maybe," Liam continued, "this is a chance to finally get answers. To finally understand. To finally move on—either with her or without her, but at least knowing why."
"Or maybe," I countered, "this is just another chance for her to destroy what's left of me."
Liam didn't argue with that. He just clapped me on the shoulder and left me alone with my thoughts and my anger and my fear that seeing her again might undo all the careful walls I'd built to keep functioning.
That night, I sat on the porch of the cabin I'd built on the north pasture—the one I'd started for her and finished for spite.
It was exactly what we'd talked about all those years ago.
Two bedrooms for the kids we'd planned. A kitchen with windows facing east for morning sun.
A porch swing where we could sit and watch our grandkids play.
I'd finished it three years after she left, working myself to exhaustion every night after ranch work.
Everyone thought I was crazy. Maybe I was.
But I needed to build something, to create rather than destroy, to prove that I could still make beautiful things even with broken hands and a shattered heart.
The irony wasn't lost on me—I'd built her dream house, and now I lived in it alone like some gothic tragedy.
The empty rooms echoed with ghosts of conversations we'd never have, children's laughter that would never fill the halls, a life that existed only in the parallel universe where she'd stayed.
I pulled out my phone and did what I'd sworn I'd never do—I googled her.
Ivy Garrison, Summit Range Livestock Consulting.
The photos that came up showed a polished professional in a suit that probably cost more than most people's monthly salary.
Her honey-blonde hair was shorter, styled in a way that screamed city sophistication.
She stood with other suits in sterile offices, smiling that professional smile that didn't reach her eyes.
But it was still her. Still the girl who'd punched Tommy Faulkner for making fun of me in seventh grade. Still the girl who'd helped birth calves and race horses and dance in barn lofts. Still the girl who'd promised me forever and given me nothing but goodbye.
"You think this'll fix him?" I'd heard Mom ask Dad when they thought I was out of earshot.
"No," he'd replied. "But maybe she will."
They were both wrong. There was no fixing this. No fixing me. But in five days, Ivy Garrison was coming home.
And God help me, part of me—the stupid, hopeful, masochistic part that still went to our spot by the creek—could hardly wait.