He was considering getting into raising horses; it was what his dad had done on their ranch in Texas, and he had always felt an affinity for horses, even more so after he had done equine therapy.
His goal wasn’t always to work at Painted Ridge Ranch. As much as he believed in what Cody was doing, and appreciated the lengths that he was going to in order to choke out his metaphorical demons.
Though, even though this wasn’t his goal, he had promised Cody that he would help move a pile of wood from some old snags that had been felled last week. Some of it was going in the burn pile, and some of it was salvageable for woodworking, or at least for a woodstove.
Then, at noon, he was meeting with Cara to go on their camping trip.
The dumbass, wilderness graduation camping trip that was guaranteed to put him on edge more than he already was.
His dreams had been a mix of his brother, running in a field with Zane running after him, never being able to catch him, and Cara.
It was whiplash.
Grief mixed with an unholy need that made him feel like he needed to get out of town and find a woman.
But he knew himself too well for that.
He could detach completely and have sex just to have a form of release. But it left him feeling dirty at the end, and he didn’t like the feeling. He had enough shame, enough loathing, enough survivor’s guilt that made him feel like he didn’t deserve to be here, and he didn’t feel like taking on any more of it.
Not ever. Thank you.
He got out of his truck, threw his phone onto the seat, and picked up his old work gloves.
He stared at the palm. Where there was a big tear. He was supposed to buy new ones. He had gone to Cara’s house two weeks ago now to give her a care package from Marlowe, and he had done so because he had said that he needed to buy a pair of new work gloves. Which he did. But that had gone completely out of his head after his conversation with Cara.
Completely.
He let out a hard breath and shoved his hands into his gloves as he walked over to where Cody was standing by a large pile of wood.
“I thought you got new gloves?”
“Couldn’t find them,” he lied.
“Get it together, Zane,” Cody said, shaking his head slightly.
Cody was the closest thing to a brother he had on Earth. Even Cody didn’t know everything about him.
Or, maybe he did. Maybe he had done an exhaustiveinternet search on Zane’s name. That would pull up some news stories.
But they had never talked about it, so it didn’t make a difference to him either way.
The biggest thing that Zane didn’t like to deal with was the shock and the pity that people experienced when they knew his whole biography.
He didn’t really care if they came by it on their own, not if they didn’t make their reaction to his grief his problem.
He didn’t want to share the story. It lived inside of him, in his bones. It was his, on a cellular level, had changed the way that he was put together as a man. He also couldn’t know who he would be without it.
It didn’t mean he didn’t feel regret, anger, despair, shock, and all those other wonderful things on some days, but he had accepted – not the tragedy – but that he had experienced it to some degree.
But he preferred for people to act weird around him because he was an asshole. Not because they felt sorry for him.
“If you have to get out of here at noon, we’d better get going,” Cody said.
“Yeah. I don’t need to get out of here at noon, I need to meet Cara at noon.”
“Meeting Cara?” There was an intensity to the tone of that question that Zane resented. And also understood. Which made him even more resentful.
He grunted. “You know that I’m helping her with her wilderness survival skills.”
