I nod, my throat too tight to speak. I know. I remember sitting on that swing with him, his arm around my shoulders, as he pointed out constellations and told me stories about the stars.
He finally opens his door and climbs out, and Clara and I follow. He walks us to the front door, his boots scuffing on the worn wooden steps.
When he stops on the porch and turns to face me, his blue-gray eyes are filled with sadness. He doesn’t try to argue anymore. He doesn’t list the reasons I should stay. He just opens his arms.
I step into his embrace. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me close, and I bury my face in his jacket, which smells of sun-warmed denim, sweet tobacco, and the faint, clean scent of hay.
It’s the scent of the ranch, the scent of home, and it threatens to unravel me completely. I feel his chin rest on the top of my head, a gesture so tender it makes my chest ache.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” he murmurs against my hair. “I really do.”
I can’t answer. I can’t make any more promises I can’t keep. I just nod against his chest. I feel him press a soft kiss to the crown of my head.
Then he lets me go, his hands resting on my shoulders for a second before he drops them. “Take care of yourself,” he says, his voice thick.
“You too, Tex,” I manage, and it’s barely a whisper.
He gives Clara a sad smile, then turns and walks back to his truck. I watch him go, my heart a heavy stone in my chest.
The engine rumbles to life, and he backs out of the driveway, giving me one last, long look before he drives away, the sound of the truck fading until all that’s left is the whisper of the wind in the pine trees.
Clara and I stand on the porch for a long time, the silence settling around us once more. I’m about to suggest we go inside, to escape the memories that seem to haunt every inch of this place, when a movement catches my eye.
In the big old pine tree at the edge of the yard, two squirrels are chasing each other. They spiral up the rough bark, a frantic, playful dance of fur and tails, their claws scrabbling for purchase.
And just like that, the world stops.
Thattree. The one Billy used to climb. I can see it all so clearly, the memory hitting me with the force of a physical blow.
The scrape of the bark on his palms. The way he’d swing his leg over the thick branch outside my window. The way he’d grin at me through the glass, his face young and full of a reckless, daring love.
He’d climb that tree almost every night, a secret ritual just for us, because in a town like Prairie Pine, a man checks into a motel with his girl and the whole county knows. So he climbed a tree instead.
The dam breaks. A single, hot tear escapes, tracing a path down my cheek. Then another. And another. Soon, I’m crying, great, silent, heaving sobs that wrack my whole body.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. All I can see is Billy’s face, the way he looked at me last night, the cold, hard anger in his eyes.
All I can feel is the weight of every mistake I’ve ever made, every word I’ve left unsaid, every promise I’ve broken.
“Sedona? What’s wrong?” Clara’s voice is a distant, panicked sound. She puts her arms around me, trying to hold me together, but I’m falling apart.
“We have to leave,” I gasp, the words tearing out of me between sobs. “We have to leave, Clara. Now.”
I sink to my knees on the porch, my body shaking uncontrollably. The grief I’ve been holding back for days, for years, comes roaring out of me, a tidal wave of pain and regret.
I cry for my father, for the life I lost, for the man I loved and the man I hurt.
I cry until my throat is raw and my eyes feel like they’re on fire, until there’s nothing left but a hollow, aching emptiness.
Clara just holds me, rocking me back and forth, murmuring words I can’t hear through the storm of my own sorrow.
We have to leave.It’s the only thought in my head, a desperate, frantic mantra.We have to leave this town and never come back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Seth
Rhett Dalton’sranch is a different beast from Copper Creek. It’s older, more settled, the fences a little more weathered, the barns a little more crooked, but there’s a sense of deep-rooted history here that feels ancient.
