Chapter 7
Seven
Tessa
Ijerked upright, heart pounding, the seatbelt cut into my shoulder, glancing around at the unfamiliar surroundings.
“You’re alright,” Wyatt said, calm as ever. His voice grounded me faster than the scenery did.
I blinked against the light and pushed my sunglasses back up my nose.
“I fell asleep,” I said, brilliant as ever.
“You needed it,” he said.
I rubbed the side of my face where it had been pressed to the seat. “Did I snore?”
“Little bit.”
“Oh God,” I groaned.
His mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile. “I’ve heard worse.”
I stared out the window instead of at his profile. The sky felt too big. The colours were too clear. The air through the cracked window smelled like dust and sun-warmed grass, a scent I’d spent years trying to forget and now wanted to bottle and keep in my hands.
“How long was I out?” I asked.
“About an hour.”
“Seriously?” I swallowed hard as we turned off the highway onto a narrower road I recognized, and my stomach dipped.
The truck rattled over a rough patch. Cattle grazed along a far fence line, dark shapes against the pale grass.
A hawk rode the air in slow, lazy circles above a stand of poplars.
The windmills on the horizon turned lazy arcs.
I hated this drive when I was a teenager. It felt like the road to nowhere. Like, once you came out here, the rest of the world shrank. “We’re almost there,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he replied quietly.
I clenched my hands together in my lap. My fingers were cold even though the cab was warm.
“Can we, uh, not just drive straight up?” The words came out before I could swallow them. “I need a second.”
“We can pull off by the river,” he said without hesitating.
He turned onto the gravel road that led deeper into the valley.
Dust rose in the truck’s wake. On either side of us, pasture opened like pages.
There were differences if you knew where to look.
New fencing on one property. A metal equipment shed where I remembered an old slanting barn. But the bones were the same.
Wyatt eased the truck off onto a small turnout near a stand of willows I remembered from fishing trips with Ray. The river ran quietly behind them, water glinting through the leaves.
“I don’t know how to walk in there,” I admitted, staring straight ahead. “I keep thinking if I don’t see it, it won’t be real.”
“That isn’t how it works,” he said. “But I won’t rush you.”
I risked a look at him. His hands rested on the steering wheel. Big hands. Calloused. Relaxed but ready. His profile was all hard lines and sun, and a day’s worth of stubble.
“Thank you,” I whispered, “for going to check.” My voice wobbled on the last word. “For coming to get me. For all of it.”
“That’s what you do for people like Ray,” he said simply. “Drive each other to town. Pull each other out of ditches. Make phone calls when it’s time.”
I bit my lip.
He shifted slightly, the leather creaking. “You want to see the place from here first?”
My heart lurched. “Can you see it?”
He nodded toward the windshield. “Look past that stand of poplars on the right.”
I followed where he pointed, and at first, all I saw were trees and the curve of the valley.
But then I found the house peeked over the hills, low and familiar, grey shingles darkened by time.
I could see the weathered red of the old barn with the tin roof, and the windmill tower that had been broken my entire life, still stubbornly jutting into the sky.
My breath hitched. The image blurred. Tears slipped free before I could stop them. I swiped them away with the heel of my palm.
“I should’ve come sooner,” I choked out. “I should’ve been here before this.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted that for you.” He said it like he knew. It made something hot and sharp flare in my chest.
“What if I wanted it?” I snapped, anger lashing outward before I could catch it. “What if I wanted to be there instead of getting a visit from some stranger who knew him better than I did at the end?”
Silence slammed down.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“Tessa, you’re grieving,” he said. “You get to be mad.”
I gave a half-hearted laugh. “What’s the acceptable behavior toward the man who drove hours to come collect your sorry ass? Because I don’t think I’ve been all that pleasant.”
“One or two swings,” he said. “After that, I’ll start swinging back.”
I glanced at him. The corner of his mouth turned up slightly as he stared out the windshield. And somehow that helped.
“I’m still sorry,” I muttered.
“Accepted.”
We sat there a little longer. “Okay,” I finally whispered. “I’m ready. Or as close as I’m going to get.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted. “But if we sit here any longer, I’m going to run.”
He nodded once. “Then we go.”
He eased the truck back onto the road. Gravel crunched under the tires. Every metre closer made my skin crawl, not because I didn’t want to be there, but because I did. Desperately. And it was too late.
When we turned into the lane, my breath stalled. The ranch came full into view. The front fence sagged more than I remembered. The green gate into the coral leaned crooked, one hinge rusted and half pulled from the post. And burdock and dandelions crowded the corners of the paddock.
“This looks,” I let my voice trail off because I couldn’t find the right word.
“Tired,” Wyatt finished.
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
He drove slowly up the lane. The house loomed closer. The white paint had gone chalky and thin, streaked with grey. The front steps were the same cracked concrete Ray always cursed but never fixed. One of the eavestroughs hung crooked near the corner, dripping rust stains down the siding.
Wyatt parked beside the house and shut off the engine. The sudden quiet roared in my ears. No traffic. No neighbours yelling. Just the far-off sound of wind running through dry grass and a magpie arguing with itself on the fence.
I opened the door before I could think too long. My feet crunched on the gravel. The yard looked smaller than I remembered. The garden, overgrown with weeds, had once been my happy place. I didn’t let myself look too close, one thing at a time.
Wyatt came around the truck. “You want to go in first?” he asked.
I stared at the front door. The screen still had the same tear in the corner, mended with duct tape. The welcome mat was the one I’d bought Ray as a joke that said Wipe Your Damn Feet. It had faded to a soft, stubborn ghost of letters.
“Yes,” I said.
I pushed the door open like I’d done every day for most of my life. The house breathed out at us. Old air. Stale coffee. Dust. The faintest trace of him under it all, wrapped around the walls and floors and furniture in a way that made my vision blur.
I stepped over the threshold, and the grief hit hard and fast because there wasn’t anyone yelling out asking who it was.
This was where he’d cooked me breakfasts and lectured me and tucked me in after movies.
Where I’d slammed doors when I was sixteen, convinced he didn’t understand anything.
Where I’d made the decision to leave for school at eighteen and not come back, and he’d hugged me so hard my ribs ached even though his face stayed mostly dry.
I swallowed hard and forced my feet to move. The living room opened up to the right. Same worn couch with the ugly plaid blanket draped over the back. Same scuffed coffee table. Same sagging bookshelf stacked with Western paperbacks and old manuals.
And there, in the centre of it all, facing the television that probably never left the news channel, sat Ray’s recliner.
Empty.
The air went out of my lungs.
I stepped closer. The dent in the cushion was deep, more so than when I’d left years ago. The blanket over the back of it had slid sideways. On the end table beside it, his coffee mug sat half full, ring of dried brown along the inside.
I grabbed the back of the chair. My knees finally gave out.
I didn’t sob. It wasn’t dramatic. It was worse. Silent, shaking breaths that tore through my chest while my fingers dug into the worn upholstery.
“He’s gone,” I whispered. “He’s really gone.”
Behind me, the floorboard creaked. Wyatt stayed inside the doorway. He didn’t move toward me. He didn’t look away.
“He loved that chair more than any person,” I said, the words tumbling out because if I didn’t talk, I’d scream. “He used to say if the world ended, he’d ride it out right there, beer in one hand, remote in the other.”
“Sounds like him,” Wyatt said.
I wiped my face with shaking hands and turned away from the chair before I tried to climb into it and never move again. The kitchen door stood open, the worn linoleum catching the light.
“I can make coffee,” I said, because the alternative was curling into a ball. “He’d want that. Coffee first, I’ll cry more later.”
“You don’t need to make me coffee,” Wyatt said.
“It’s not for you, it’s for him.”
He dipped his head, conceding the point. “Then I’ll drink it,” he said. “On his behalf.”
Something about that steadied me. I walked into the kitchen on autopilot. The counters were cluttered, but in a way I understood. A plate left drying. A jar of instant coffee. The sugar canister I’d painted as a kid, still chipped along the rim.
My hands found what they needed without me having to think. Filters. Mismatched mugs. The sound of water running into the carafe filled the silence.
Behind me, Wyatt moved through the house. His footfalls were slow and respectful. Not snooping. Just taking stock. He paused near the back door, probably looking out over the yard.
“How long have things been like this?” I asked, measuring coffee that had probably been sitting there for months.
“Depends what you mean by this,” he said.
“The house. The yard. Him.”
“A while,” he admitted.
I shut my eyes. “And he didn’t call me.”
“He didn’t ask for help from anyone.” Wyatt leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms, watching my every movement around the room.
“It seems like you helped him.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “When he let me.”
The coffee machine gurgled to life. The smell hit me hard. I leaned my palms into the counter to keep my legs under me.
“Are you going to tell me the rest now?” I asked quietly. “About the ranch.”
Wyatt did not pretend to know what I meant. His boots shifted on the tile. When I turned, he was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. He looked too big for the small kitchen, like the room shrunk around him.
He held my gaze. “Are you sure you want it today?”
“No,” I said. “But I’d rather not get knocked over by surprises on top of everything else.”
He nodded once, something like respect in the gesture.
“Alright,” he said. “Then we’ll start with the truth.”