Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
CORD
What Darkness Brings
Lanie works well with the boys. Her determination rises, giving her a greater focus and strength than any muscle definition could. My girl might not be as physically strong as the men sloughing dirt beside her in the yard, but she is no stranger to long work hours.
The practice ring begins to form up, the rhythm of yard work somewhat settling the cold beast inside me.
“You need to look after your girl.” West pauses to gulp water that’s turned hot beneath the early-afternoon sun.
I shrug, all pretense gone, though the hurt and self-loathing remain as a constant echo. “I’m not sure she’s mine any longer.”
“Lanie told me about last night.”
My stomach clenches. That she’d gone to my best friend riles me more than anything else, though God knows I deserve the break in trust for ruining hers.
Blowing out a short breath, I push my personal pity party aside and let my battered ego take over, shielding me from a pain of my own making.
“Have a good little chat, did you? All the sordid details?” I sneer, slamming the bolt down on the temporary corral.
“You’re lucky she didn’t slap you. Or leave you. Though there’s always hope.” West’s eyes glimmer, bringing out the hotheaded beast he reserves for whenever emotion gets the better of him.
“What, you want a turn?”
“Fuck you. And grow the fuck up,” he snaps.
“I’d already slept with her by the time you all crawled into my house and cozied up to her.
” Even as a throwaway comment, the layer of bullshit grips my gut.
She can’t leave. I can’t lose her. And yet I push both Lanie and everyone else in my life away with every word I utter.
I twist on my heel, seeking her out. “Maybe I need the change, West. Tired of the same old.”
My best friend ignores me. “By the time you get through your temper tantrum, you won’t have any shoulders left to cry on.”
“Is that what this is?” I muse, my voice an emotionless void.
“Dunno what you’ve got, man. The last time I saw you like this was after they told you that you might not walk again.
The house was half-finished, and I thought I’d be building that big bastard alone.
” West leans forward, propping his fists on the railing.
“But after your temper tantrum at the world, typical Rand returned, refusing to stay in that damn chair. You refused to be influenced by something as menial as science.”
“I remember,” I say, quietly. “But I try not to.” Unless someone shoves the memory in my face.
West glares at me, a look that’s leveled lesser men. Today, I might as well join them. “Are you trying to forget what makes you you, Rand? You’ve never been a coward.”
“You have never faced—”
“I did face it. Every damn day, right alongside you. Do yourself a favor and find that man before I punch this one and break his fucking neck a second time.”
West stalks away. He grabs an oversized jerry in one hand and hefts a hay bale over his other shoulder. His strides are long, ignoring the weight that should bow his back.
I swallow the bile that coats my throat.
He’s right. I know he’s right, and he’s the only man who has the right to say those words to me because he did stand there, every day, every single hour, beside me as I struggled to get my ass out of that chair and forced my legs to do what every surgeon denied that I would ever be able to do again.
My palms are clean, but I wipe them on my jeans anyway, though the taint lingering beneath my skin remains.
The months stuck in the damn chair were filled with self-loathing at both my physical weakness that stopped me from moving forward and what I considered, at the time, my pathetic mental state.
Which brings me straight back to last night.
I’ve abused the trust of the woman I invited into my home, and I’m still fighting the man who loves me like a brother.
Who spent more time with me in his darkest days than anyone in my family ever had, apart from maybe my sister.
All because I made a fast decision that I let myself be pushed into, knowing there were better ways to achieve my goals.
Healthier ones. I made the bet and now I have to live with it.
Shaking my head, I slap my hat on my thigh, wondering what else I can do to screw up today.
Lanie stands a dozen paces away, frozen, clutching a plate of sandwiches in her arms. A muscle jumps in my cheek as at the sight of her so skittish around me. I did that, which means I have a whole lot of fixing to do, and my best groveling before she’ll forgive me, no matter what she says.
Because she’s right. Just like West. But I’ll deal with the big guy a little differently than I will with my girl. No matter what, I’m not giving up on her.
“Levi asked me to bring these over,” she murmurs, her grip bowing the thin tray. It masks some of the tiny trembles in her hands, and I pretend not to notice.
“You heard all that, huh?” I flex my jaw.
No better time to start on that road to forgiveness than right now.
Unclenching my teeth cracks, and she winces.
I exhale slowly, wishing I’d been the one to go inside and mangle a plate of food to offer up to her.
Maybe that should be my next magic trick. “D’you want to go for a drive?”
Lanie nods again, setting the plate of food down near Billy, who takes a sandwich without looking while he works.
I don’t know what music to play while we drive this time, so in the end, I don’t play anything. Lanie stares at the passing landscape, either counting cows or lost in her own head. The chasm between us deepens as the afternoon sun covers the grasslands in burnished gold.
When I turn the truck up a steep incline beyond where the forest begins, Lanie finally faces me, a question blazing in her eyes.
I preempt her curiosity. “There’s a place I want to show you.” A place I promised myself I’d show her, knowing I want Lanie to fill the house that never got to be a home until she walked into it.
I remember the last time I said that, but I have no expectations that this afternoon will end anything like that one did.
Maybe, if she lets me, I’ll get to hold her again, but I flat out refuse to push her.
Last night was a gift. I know that. Anything more…
That she’s with me now offers a fragment of hope I cling to like a bull rider with a single second left on the clock.
The track grows rockier, and my concentration drifts to focus on the terrain beneath my tires. The changes since the last time I used this path remind me how long it has been since I spent time on the property I gambled.
Losing Coyote Falls will ruin me like little else can. But as I briefly study Lanie tucked into my passenger seat—her usually energetic, positive outlook set on mute—I know the land alone isn’t what I value most.
“You tried to tell me it’s not about the place.” I grip the steering wheel tight under the pretense of navigating a challenging precipice. “That it’s about the people on the land. And you’re right. I’m sorry it took me so damn long to come around and see it through your eyes and theirs, Lanie.”
“I want to say it’s okay.” She stares out the windshield, her hands pressed between her knees.
I don’t reach for her, strangling the steering wheel instead.
“It’s not okay. Don’t say it.” A large rock skitters out from beneath the truck, and I swear liberally.
“Hold on, okay? This section gets a little rough.” I promise myself the track was never this bad before.
Just how long have I let myself be tucked away from the place that I love, distracted with other work?
Now, when I stand on the eve of losing it all, it matters more that anything.
Like her.
A proverb rattles about in the back of my mind about destruction and a fall. Lanie grips the edge of her seat, but her hands relax as the windshield levels out.
“Cord?” A glimmer of her old energy flares in her eyes as she takes in the vista presenting before us.
“You wanted to see Coyote Falls.” I let a smile form across my face, the first real one since last night.
Because when I first found this piece of land and scouted it alone, this was the spot I came to.
And stopped.
Lanie glances across at me, holding my gaze for a single second.
A second long enough to take in the change in my expression, my demeanor.
Then her seat belt slides off before she flies out of my truck, the door swinging shut behind her.
Her steps are sure as she pads across the rocky flats to the edge of the pool.
Water flows down the granite mountainside in a steep deluge that collects into a shallow basin before it tips over the edge a second time.
The view from here delves deep into the Rockies, where white-tipped caps cover the mountains.
Lanie’s silhouette is cast against them, her hair blazing in the last of the day’s light, lifting in the breeze before the sun sets.
I turn the truck around, park, and open the tailgate. Lanie looks back at me once and then returns to soaking in the incredible vista.
“The house should be here,” she says in a definite tone. “You could wake up to this every morning.”
I smile. Strange that her thoughts now echo my own past ones.
“I used to. Before I built the house, I used to sleep here in a bedroll every night. Back then, I woke up to a nose in my face and the fright of my life. A band of coyotes milled around, calling to each other. It was odd. I expected to be dinner for six different mouths, but they loitered around me for a while, with me too scared out of my mind to move. Then they wandered off.” I shrug, like being accosted by a mini mafia of coyotes and living to tell the tale happens every day.
Except here it kind of does. “I bought the land, named the place, and West helped me to draw up plans the next day. He’s a qualified architect, more than a foreman. God only knows why he puts up with me.”