Chapter 14 Beau
Beau
Three days. That’s how long it had been since I laid eyes on Claire. How long I had been waiting to hear about the partnership.
Safe to say I was losing my mind.
“I actually don’t think I can take this anymore,” I said, throwing a rock into the creek. It didn’t bounce, just sank straight to the bottom.
Just like my fucking heart did when Claire ran away from me, when she told me she couldn’t do this—us.
She had texted and called, but I didn’t have it in me to do the back-and-forth thing.
I was too old for it. Too consumed by her for it.
I was either going to be fully in with her or completely out.
“Me neither. You’re bummin’ me out,” Weston said as he cast his fishing line downstream. “Think you might actually be scaring the fish away with your shitty attitude.”
“I was here first,” I grumbled, grabbing another rock and tossing it. It sank again. “Goddamnit, how fuckin’ hard is it to skip a damn rock?”
Weston shifted on his feet, giving me a pointed glare. “What the hell’s wrong with you? This can’t be just about that horse deal.”
I contemplated not telling him. Weston wasn’t the person to have deep conversations with; that was Anna or even Colt, but never Weston. He kept things light, funny, and superficial—the guy you went to to get your mind off things and have a good time. But I was getting desperate at this point.
“It’s about Claire.” I picked up another rock.
His head reared back, face scrunched with confusion. “Claire Hayes?”
My hand dropped, and I turned towards him. “Where the hell have you been? Do you not read the Whispers?”
“You know I don’t pay attention to that shit. I use it to start my fire.”
I blinked. “It’s June. It’s too hot for a fire.”
He shot me a sly grin. “Exactly.”
“I danced with her at the fundraiser two weeks ago.”
“Yeah, I watched you fumble that pretty hard. Don’t need the play-by-play.” He chuckled. “Next time, just ask me for some pointers, man. It’s okay to be scared of women, we’ve all been there…when we were thirteen,” he added with a snicker.
“Fuck off. I did not fumble her.” I shifted on my feet and cleared my throat. “That time at least. But anyway, that dance kinda…started somethin’…between us.” Downplaying it like that felt like a crime. A weak explanation for what seemed like the most important thing in my life right now.
“Oh?”
I sighed. “Yes, Weston, oh.”
“And?”
“It’s just a huge mess with us competing for this partnership, and her mom on hospice. She wants to take a step back. Needs it. I get it, and don’t want to push her, but…”
But I fucking missed her. We hadn’t even spent that much time alone together without Golden Bridle or Charlotte or Cavendish to focus on, but every second with her was better than the last. And it shocked me how much it hurt when she ran off after what we shared in the barn.
It scared me, if I was being honest with myself.
“That sucks,” Weston said.
“Really? That’s all you got?”
He cast his fishing line again. “Yup. I don’t do relationship shit, you know that. I love you, you’re like a brother to me, but you want a heart-to-heart? Go to your sister.”
It was about what I expected from him. “Claire said Savannah is coming home soon to see Charlotte. Should be any day now.”
Weston’s entire body went rigid. He looked down at the fishing rod, fidgeting with it in his hand. “That’s nice.” His voice was clipped, forced. He clearly thought it was anything but nice.
“You gonna fess up about that, or am I gonna have to ask?”
“Don’t ask.” His voice was gruff. Tense.
I grinned. “It seems a lot like—”
His eyes met mine, that blue dark like an angry sea. “Do not ask me about her, Beaumont,” he ordered. Not asked, but ordered. It was the most serious I’d ever seen him in all the years I’d known him, outside of sitting in the chute on an angry bull.
I held up my hands in surrender. “Shit, sorry.”
The muscles in his jaw ticked. “It’s fine. Just something I don’t like to think about.”
My phone rang and my heart slammed to a halt. The sudden pang of disappointment that it wasn’t Claire was replaced with the anxiety-ridden nausea that came when I saw it was someone from Cavendish.
“Oh fuck,” I choked out. “It’s them.”
Weston came to my side, looking at my shaking phone. “Well, answer it, you dipshit!”
I cleared my throat and brought the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Beaumont McLeod?”
Sweat beaded at my temples. The creek began to spin. “Yes.”
“Hi, this is Trent with Cavendish Equestrian Academy. We met last month when I came to view Circle M with my colleague.”
My chest felt like it was in a vice grip, making each breath a struggle. “I remember.”
“Well, we were really impressed with your ranch and the vision you and Joseph have for our expansion. We believe Circle M is the ideal partner for our company. On behalf of Richard Cavendish, I’d like to offer you a partnership with us—”
Trent’s voice faded, and everything came to a standstill. I fell to my knees, the rocks biting into my skin, but I couldn’t care. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I did it. Joseph and I did it.
“Thank you so much,” I rasped, white knuckling the phone.
We ended the call, and I fell forward, my forehead meeting the rocks beneath me. “Holy shit,” I whispered, breathing hard. “This can't be real.”
“Good?” Weston asked. “Or do I need to let the Bull Pen know we’re coming to drown our sorrows?”
I stood, feeling invincible, untouchable, worthy. Finally worthy. “So good.” I grinned.
Weston smiled wide. “Hell yeah!” he yelled, his voice bouncing off the trees, and pulled me into a hug, clapping my back. “Congrats, Beau. You’ve worked your ass off for this. You deserve it.”
Everything I had been working towards led up to this moment. Every grueling hour I spent pouring over spreadsheets, sleepless nights working on presentations, hours spent with Joseph so I didn’t screw things up. “Oh my God, I have to call Joseph.”
My hands shook as I found his contact, and when he answered, I couldn’t help it. I cried like an absolute baby. “We did it,” I wept. “We fucking got it.”
“Are you serious?”
I wiped my face, sniffling. My face hurt, I was smiling so hard. “They just called. They’re sendin’ over the paperwork today.”
Joseph started yelling, and I grinned, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Oh man, that’s absolutely incredible. I can’t believe it. This might send Anna into labor,” he laughed, sniffling a little.
I ran a hand over my mouth, laughing. “I couldn’t have done it without you, brother.”
“Yuck.” Weston grimaced next to me, and I smacked his arm, shoving him away.
“We’re in this now. Circle M and Cavendish are going to rule the horse training world.”
“You’re goddamn right!” I shouted, my voice ringing out through the valley.
We got off the phone, and I was floating on cloud nine. I was already wondering what Mount would say. How soon we could start construction.
But when Weston said, “How are you gonna tell Claire?” it all came crumbling down.
The excitement, the pride, the joy, the relief—all of it vanished in the blink of an eye.
In that moment, I suddenly understood what she meant when she said she couldn’t do this because now I wasn’t so sure either.
How was I going to tell her I stole her dream?
That she’d have to figure out something else?
It stole the breath right out of my lungs.
I slumped down on a fallen log, head hung between my shoulders. “God, this is gonna break her fuckin’ heart,” I rasped. I didn’t know if I could do it, if I could break the woman I loved’s heart.
I didn’t know when it happened, probably somewhere between that dance and the car ride home from the hospital, but it did. I fell for her—fast and hard—and it was probably about to go up in smoke. How could I have lost something that hadn’t even really begun?
“Claire’s tough,” Weston said. “She’s resilient. I’m sure she’ll be okay.” He sounded like he was trying to convince us both.
And that was the problem. I wasn’t sure she would be okay hearing this news, not with everything going on with Charlotte.
“I gotta go.”
I couldn’t look at Golden Bridle as I walked back to the house. I didn’t even want to look at Circle M. It all felt wrong. When I walked inside, Mount was in the living room, watching an old western with his leg propped up.
Might as well rip off the Band-Aid. “We got the partnership with Cavendish,” I said as I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.
I needed one—or twelve—to figure out how to break the news to Claire if they haven’t already.
I was half expecting her to kick my door down any minute, and as much as I loved seeing her angry, I wouldn’t love any second of that.
He muted the TV. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
I expected a snide remark, a screaming tangent, hell, I even expected throwing things. What I absolutely did not anticipate was a smile. I couldn’t remember the last time my father smiled at me, but he was now, and it felt…
Empty. Insignificant. Hollow.
“Well, I’ll be damned. My boy did it.”
My boy. How many times had I heard him use the same expression with Colt? With Weston and Joseph, who weren’t even biologically his? How many times had I sat in silent envy as he lavished them with praise I never got?
I didn’t want to be his boy if it meant crushing Claire’s dreams.
“I’m proud of you, Beaumont.”
My stomach twisted, and I swallowed back bile, forced the bitter taste away with my beer.
I’d spent thirty-five years chasing those five damn words.
And now that I had them? All I felt was shame.
I thought it’d be some spectacular moment—releasing the doves, the clouds parting, key to the city type shit—but it was meaningless.