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“You know there’s a place here if you decide to stay.”
He didn’t look at Daniel. His friend, of all people, should know why he couldn’t stay. The fact that he’d stuck around long enough to see graduation was a small miracle. As his mama often reminded him, he was a leaver, same as his daddy.
“I get wanting to leave this place in your rearview. Believe me, I do. But…” Daniel trailed off. “I don’t know why I’m trying to convince you. I have half a mind to take a page from your book and move away for good.”
Before he could ask what his friend meant, the sound of hoofbeats had them both turning. A figure raced across the open field, crouched over the back of a dark horse. She pulled up with a few short feet to spare, grinning down at them from beneath her wide-brimmed hat. “Howdy, fellas.”
Adam couldn’t stop staring. He’d spared a thought to what Jules might look like on the back of a horse, but seeing her in a faded black tank top and jeans whose fit could only be described a lovingly clingy made his brain short-circuit. She handled herself like she’d been born in the saddle—something he should have considered with Daniel being her cousin and all. “Jules.”
“I brought you guys lunch.” She shrugged out of a backpack he hadn’t seen before then. “Hope you like ham and cheese, Adam. It’s Daniel’s favorite, and Aunt Lori is feeling generous.”
“Probably buttering me up to set me up with a daughter of some friend of hers,” Daniel grumbled, taking the bag from her.
Adam didn’t miss the worry that clouded her expression. Everyone seemed to be worried about Daniel. He turned to look at his friend. The man seemed moodier than he had been twelve years ago, and he couldn’t help thinking about what Quinn had said at the bonfire about John’s death changing Daniel fundamentally. Crippling guilt would do that to a person.
The man in question grabbed a plastic container from the backpack. “Thanks, kid. I’m going to go check the posts farther down.” He untethered his bay and swung up into the saddle. And then he was gone, cantering away.
Jules’s feet hit the ground, and she walked her horse over to loop the reins around the fence. “You boys sure do have the market cornered on brooding, don’t you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She scooped up the backpack. “Of course you don’t. You’re just a little ray of sunshine.”
“Yep.” They sat next to the fence, and he accepted the sandwich and baggie full of chips. In the winter, lunch would be a sandwich and a canteen of soup—probably chicken noodle or tomato. He unwrapped his ham and cheese and took a bite, hit by a wave of homesickness that threatened to take him out at the knees. It didn’t make sense. He was home.
But not for good.
Will I even be here in the winter?
He set the sandwich down and leaned back against the post he’d fixed earlier, his appetite gone. Some days he’d go through an entire day without having to face that fact that his mama was fading away before his eyes. And then it’d hit like a lightning strike, charring him to the bone. “She’s got cancer, you know.”
Jules froze. “I’m sorry.”
It said something that she didn’t ask whom he was talking about. She knew his mom was sick. Fuck, everyone in this godforsaken town knew his mom was sick—and probably had known before he did. He’d failed her in so many ways. Even knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about her cancer, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was failing her now, too. “I should have been here.” He didn’t know why he was saying this shit aloud, let alone to Jules. She’d signed on for the fun side of the girlfriend experience, not the baggage that came with it.
“I don’t know if it’ll make you feel better or worse to know it, but she hid it for a very long time, even from her lady friend, Lenora. They come into my shop every week, and I knew she looked a little peaky, but she just said she wasn’t sleeping well. Even if you’d been here, I doubt she would have told you until she was forced to.”
She was probably right, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. “But I would have been here.”
“You’re here now.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” He forced himself to pick his sandwich back up and take another bite. He’d need the calories to finish out the day, whether he was hungry or not. “So, what are you doing out here?”
“Oh, me? I usually help out on my days off when there isn’t something that I need to be doing for Cups and Kittens.” She took a long drink of water. “And I might have known you were out here, so I volunteered to bring you guys lunch.”
