Chapter 22 #2
“Oh, there’s no way at all,” he agrees, exhaling slowly. “But if I can kiss you, I’d like that. Then, let me pass out.”
His mouth finds mine, the gentle, hesitant stroke of lips and tongue like a whole new first time. I smile against his mouth.
“What about everyone else?” I think of the boys waiting outside, of Winnie and Sally.
“Screw everyone else. I need you.”
The homestead fills with a single sound—Cord’s snores.
That’s become a regular feature in the weeks since he’s returned home.
Darkness descends over the house as I pad though its otherwise quiet halls.
The heavy sense of anticipation from before his ride has long dissipated.
Sally sleeps in her usual room. West has given in—badly—to staying near the girls under the pretense that if I can’t manage Cord on my own, then he can help.
I don’t resent his presence in the big house, more the opposite.
I’m in well over my head in terms of helping Cord recover, and I’m hyperaware that failing at my current task could be catastrophic for more than one person.
The pressure of caring for a man who knows his limits but refuses to hold to them is beyond terrifying.
Cord tends to remove himself from the world, but hiding from those who love and support him has other ramifications. Isolation being one of them.
But this is different from before. Then, he was working toward the event and had a purpose, a function I understood.
Now… Cord is powering through each day just to survive while I tap away, pretending to work or make sandwiches.
Caring for a man who refuses to be cared for is far from easy.
Often I wonder if my presence at Coyote Falls actually stops him from healing.
Like I have no place in his world anymore.
Or maybe I never did in the first place and I was only kidding myself the entire time, trying to fit in to his life, and everyone just… accommodated me with all the grace of Coyote Falls’ usual welcoming committee that I’ve come to know—and fell in love with.
Cord has an entire wing of the homestead reserved for his use, but he emerges at mealtimes, establishing a sort of habit after a few days that stretch into long weeks.
His life goes on as normal. A new normal, creating his version of this next segment of his life, while I wait in the wings, hovering.
So I wander about the homestead in the dark when no one else is awake in a pity party for one.
I locate the kitchen bench with my hand before I earn myself a stack of bruises, walking along it in the gloom until I find my phone.
My water bottle should be right behind it.
Somewhere. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
Gurgling water upside down from a tap in Cord’s bathroom, knowing I’ll wear half of it down my front, doesn’t have quite the same appeal.
Naturally, I can’t find what I’m looking for at all.
Loathe to turn on the light in case I manage to wake anyone—unlikely, but we’re all still running on close to empty—I fumble around on the bench, finally giving up and flick on my phone’s flashlight app.
“Augh, turn it off!” a feminine voice cries.
I swing the light toward the voice. Hands bat at the brightly lit air, and a body dives to hide beneath a pillow on the sofa. “Winnie? What are you doing out here?”
A half-full wineglass rises above her head in surrender. “Now, can you turn out the light? Please?”
I spot my water bottle on the other side of the sink, miles from where I’d been poking about. Grabbing it, I dull the flashlight and climb over the back of the sofa to plop beside Winnie.
“You’re far too agile,” she mumbles.
“I have a new appreciation for movement after sleeping in hospital chairs.” My rear still hasn’t forgiven me for my five-day tenure. Sleeping on the ground is kinder than attempting to nap in those things, and I have lengthy experience in that matter.
“I understand.” Winnie’s glass clinks against her teeth as she takes a long sip. “You’ve moved right in here, huh?”
Her huh and Cord’s huh are two different beasts. I’m not tired enough to pretend otherwise. Cord’s simply means that he’s come to a conclusion.
Winnie’s contains an accusation that I can’t ignore.
“I love your brother, Winnie. You know that.” I smile in the dark, though it doesn’t carry quite the level of emotion I want it to hold tonight.
“Yeah.” The fake perkiness in her voice sinks, something not quite sarcasm dripping from it. Apparently, we’re sharing a moment.
“Is that guilt?” I poke her with my toe. “Out with it.”
“Feet,” Winnie hisses.
I withdraw said toe.
“Better. Out with what?”
I snort. “Are you kidding me? This is me, Winnie. I’m not your brother. Or West.” Not that I think she’d get anything by either of the boys, but after a glass of wine that I suspect is not her first of the night, I’m not about to tell her that.
Winnie ignores my three a.m. comments. “Fine. I’m sitting here drinking because I’m attempting to face what a shitty family we’ve been to my brother. All of us, except for my daughter.” Her throat clears and I can practically feel her face burning from where I’m sitting.
“Do you have the guilts because he gave you money?” I toy with my water bottle.
“He gave Sally money,” she corrects me, swirling her wineglass in the dark. “A fortune, literally, that’s now in her bank account that neither of us know what to do with. Well, she wants a pony. But on the guilt front, maybe?”
Wine sluices over my leg. “Cold!” I shift sideways to avoid the icy puddle determined to reduce my internal temperature. “Winnie, he tried to will West and me Coyote Falls while he was still alive. I get it. He can be weird.”
Weird doesn’t begin to cover it. The memory of Cord lying deathly still in that hospital bed, hooked up to dozens of machines breathing for him, is suffocating.
I thought that would change when we both returned to Coyote Falls, but the house is packed with people, and every shuffled step is a stark reminder of the accident.
I swear I’ll hear sterile machine beeps in my sleep for the rest of my life.
At least now Cord is a little more virile than the living corpse he was when he first returned home, dragging himself from room to room.
But he still wanders about the homestead with a persona that doesn’t always seem to be his.
I’m still struggling to adjust to that significant change in him.
He might be different when he wakes. The doctor said that back at the hospital.
I thought he was referring to potential brain damage, and I tried to prepare myself for that possibility.
But what I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for is the man who simply pretends the accident never happened.
That he can behave like I didn’t see him fall off that damn bull, and hear his body hit the ground, dragged beneath the tangle of hooves, trampled over and over in the swirl of choking dust, and wasn’t able get to him or stop the damage from happening.
Bile rises from my stomach to burn my throat. I cough into the back of my hand, embedding my teeth into my first knuckle and use the pain to will away the taste of sawdust that coats my tongue on a daily basis.
I can’t stay here.
It’s not the first time I’ve turned the thought over in my mind, but I don’t want to leave him. He’s so… vulnerable, and yet untouchable at the same time. Typical Cord in all ways. And he seems to want me to stay, though it’s clear he doesn’t need me.
Cordell Rand has all the support crew he’ll ever need right here at Coyote Falls. He knows that because I showed him. I made sure of it.
I’m still not sure if I’m the only one in the homestead who understands that… or if we’re all waiting for him to implode and kick us all out.
“Oh, yeah.” Winnie laughs. “I’m sure he’ll get weirder. Cord’s always been like that. But still—you all support him. And we…”
Do we? Do I?
I fake a smile in the darkness and put on my best-friend hat, even though I feel the furthest thing from it right now.
“Are you having a pity party? Because you’re here.
Sally is here. She can play paintball with Billy in the morning.
Get him to volunteer for duty. Cord gets to see her grow, and you’re helping him out around the house, providing him with a distraction while he readjusts to whatever this is going to be. ”
While he heals. Whatever that’s supposed to look like, and for however long, which could be a lifetime. Because the doc said that, too.
“You’re making far too much sense for three in the morning.” She passes over her wineglass, which is a lot less full than when I first arrived in the living area.
I take a small sip and pass it back, wrinkling my nose. “Is it that late? Or early? We should be quiet. West might get grumpy if we wake him an hour early.”
“West is already up, dressed, and has been listening to you two gossip for the last fifteen minutes. Some of us actually have work to do.” West pats the sofa behind Winnie, who lets out a scream that she muffles with her fist.
West never stops watching her.
Her head tips back. “I like a hardworking man, but I hate morning people. You’re shit outta luck with me, cowboy.”
West laughs, gray eyes hooded as he stares down at her. “You never had a chance, Rand.”
“I’m a Hamilton,” she retorts, though I know she hates that name.
“Oh, hell, no. You’ve got Rand written all over you.” One corner of his mouth curls in a knowing smirk, and I swear the air in the room stills. Not just between them, but everywhere.
The term third wheel has never been more painful.
I sink in my seat, hiding in plain sight in the crappiest strategy ever. The motion alerts them both. Winnie fusses with her blanket, tossing her short hair, though she watches the foreman turn away from her, little more than a stocky shadow in the darkened room.
“Keep watching, Rand,” he mutters softly.
Winnie sticks her tongue out at him and reaches for her wine.
West scuffs about in the kitchen, gathering his breakfast and a thermos of coffee, and then heads down the hall to the front of the homestead. “Good night, ladies.”
I cover my mouth as the door closes softly behind him. Tiny giggles escape my finger cage.
Winnie sighs.
“What about Hottie McNurse?” I ask now that West is out of earshot.
Winnie plants her feet on the coffee table. “I can have an office affair.”
“If you worked in one,” I retort.
“Maybe a cowboy could be a good side lover,” she muses. “Tight ass. Good thrusting talents, and all.”
“I can still hear you, ladies,” West calls from the veranda.
I suppress a fresh batch of giggles beneath a throw pillow.
“That was interesting.” Winnie thrusts the empty wineglass into my hand, displaying her own skills. “I’m getting the bottle.”
Feet that aren’t mine prop on my lap as I stare at my computer screen, intent on burning my retinas from my eyeballs.
For whatever reason, it can’t deal with the change in degrees of light from the rising sun over my shoulder, and Coyote Falls doesn’t have a whole lot of curtains.
Why would the homestead require privacy?
After all, no one else is out here to see us apart from a handful of cows and West’s silhouette as he wanders past on occasion.
Usually, his presence is calming. Right now, when I’m about to do something I feel like I shouldn’t, I’m in camouflage mode.
Cowmaflage. I hiccup a laugh that dies a stuttering death as his shadow turns toward me, as though he knows.
I slam my finger over the brightness bar on my laptop, sending the screen into sleep mode, and fake my own rest. Winnie’s foot twitches.
I give it a little tap. She stills and the homestead is quiet, apart from Cord’s faint snores back at his end of the wing, where he still sleeps on without me.
That’s a good thing.
Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, but I don’t have time for this right now. West has turned away when I peek through my lashes and wake my screen, staring at the email with the grant offer that I told Cord I turned down weeks ago.
I lied.
In my head I canceled everything. My trip to Alaska, my research. Because back then his health came first. Everything about Cord took precedence. I always intended to do exactly what I said, I just… never got around to it.
And now that email with its tempting offer stares at me.
One press. That’s all it will take because my bag is already packed, and my car is fueled, parked at the front of the big house.
Winnie won’t wake up for hours. She finished the wine bottle while I shared a meager half glass over an hour ago.
Maybe this isn’t the best time to reply to this email, but then, when would that be?
Puffing out my cheeks, I scan through the renewed grant offer once more.
Dear Elaine Parker,
We welcome you to reinstate your grant for this year’s funding period. Please provide your supporting documents beneath the button below, active immediately.
SUBMIT HERE
The button is big, bold, and red. It’s not like I can miss it.
I stifle a laugh and press the thing before I chicken out.
My supporting work is all right there. I spent weeks at Winnie’s and then Coyote Falls putting everything together, back when I was trying to work out what to do.
The entire submission takes less than three minutes and it’s done.
It’s done.
I’m leaving Coyote Falls.
I stare at my laptop for a full minute longer, but there’s no point doing more than unplugging my charger and placing Winnie’s feet on the sofa in my warm patch. I cover her with the wolf blanket I leave behind, a mark of the old me. Maybe the only mark I leave on this place.
For some reason that matters, though I can’t say why.
My bag is just inside Cord’s bedroom door. I grab it and walk away without waking him. What’s the point? I don’t want to have that conversation. It’s why I haven’t tried. Cord doesn’t like people saying no to him. If he asks me to stay, I know I’ll never leave.
My fingers trail the rough-hewn walls of the homestead’s skeleton as I carry my single bag along the hall and slide into the cold driver’s seat of my car. I don’t look back at the house as I pull away, turning up the smallest puff of dust I possibly can in the false dawn light.
A slight movement in the rearview mirror sends my heart into overdrive.
The figure is too bulky to be female, only a darkened shadow as the sun rises behind him, casting the mountain behind the house into somber silhouette.
Lacking Cord’s narrow build and height, West watches as I drive away from the place where I thought I fell in love.
He doesn’t wave, and neither do I.
And then my tears fall, blurring my last view of Coyote Falls.