“Tallie makes lunch every day, but not everyone can make it backto the main house for it. Most of the guys out in the back pastures, or like Weston doing fencing, will pack something when they’re in for breakfast in the morning,” Granger explained.
“Is she cooking from sunup to sundown?” I realized with mild horror, but Granger shook his head.
“Tallie loves cooking, but she doesn’t do something this elaborate for lunch every day. Normally, it's quick things like sandwiches and chips. Don’t let her fool you, she knew you were coming today and clearly wanted to impress you.”
That made something fluffy curl up in my chest. So far, aside from whatever happened with Tucker in the barn, this place was shaping up to be exactly what I wanted out of life.
Tallie swept in shortly after, placing the large pot in the center of the table just as people were shuffling into the room. I was introduced to Tucker’s parents, Conrad and Millie, who live full-time in the farmhouse, Marcy, the vet on staff, and Elliot and Lane, the other two farmhands I’d yet to meet aside from my roommate. Tucker never showed. His unused dishes and open chair sat across from me, but the conversation and getting to know all the new people almost helped me ignore them.
Almost.
CHAPTER FIVE
TUCKER
The slam of my truck door behind me was like a gunshot, and the silence that followed was just as heartbreaking. I tossed my hat into my passenger seat and buried my face into my hands, leaning back against the seat for the only source of support I’d find in this lonely void. Behind my eyelids, all the memories linked with the woodsy, citrus smell of Raleigh’s cologne played like a movie intent on ripping my heart out—every single one in stark clarity.
The night we’d been introduced at an old country bar, where his smile had stolen my heart to the sound of a twangy Kenny Rogers song playing on the jukebox.
Our first date, when he’d taken me on a picnic and laid beside me, pointing out shapes in the clouds while our fingers had slowly woven together between us.
The first time he’d kissed me, quiet and reverent, in the cab of his truck as a random summer storm raged outside.
When he’d held me and whispered soft words into my hair as I’d cried over burying a foal I’d failed to save.
The moment he’d gotten down on one knee, hands shaking butvoice steady, and asked me to marry him because he couldn’t picture a future that didn’t include me right there by his side.
He’d been my everything—my heart, my soul, my every breath from the second those slate blue eyes had first landed on me. I’d been his before he’d ever asked, and I would continue to be till every atom of my existence left this plane.
But that was the problem.
I was here, and he wasn’t.
Pulling my hands away from my face, I wrenched the gear stick into reverse and pulled away from the barn with my vision still blurring from unshed tears. I needed to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but standing beside a man who smiled like the sun and smelled like a ghost.
A cacophony of emotions swirled inside me, and I had no idea where I was driving until I pulled up to the cabin. I took the back steps two at a time, throwing the door open, and stalked into the bedroom. The twister inside my chest was wreaking havoc, and it tore right through me when my eyes landed on a familiar amber-and-beige bottle sitting untouched on our dresser.
A layer of dust sat over the lid and rounded edges of the glass, the particles dancing on the morning light that streamed in through the open curtains as I snatched it from its spot. Hell-bent and determined, I stormed back into the kitchen and ripped open the lid of the trash can, cocking my arm back to shatter my heart in its depths.
Anger, sorrow, and remorse all stood around me, looming as the phantoms haunting my life. They all screamed as my hand came down, pleading and begging for me to reconsider. But when the sound of breaking glass and the overwhelming scent of my dead husband never came, I realized it was me screaming.
I screamed and screamed. Until I couldn’t stand anymore. Until my throat was raw and sore. Until every ounce of feeling floated out of me like dust on sunshine.
And then I screamed some more while I clutched the bottle to my chest.
I had no idea how long it had been once I finally settled, but I managed to scrape myself off my kitchen floor. Everything hurt with an ache that was so much more than physical as I dragged my useless body back to the bedroom to deposit the little glass container back in its spot.
My eyes landed on the bed. Exhaustion licked through every fiber within me, and all I wanted to do was bury myself under the covers so I could cease to exist for a while. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and even if I could, after my emotional whirlwind, I knew I wouldn’t be seeing Raleigh in my dreams.
No, with my luck, it would be the pained expression in a pair of green-brown eyes.
There was only one place I was going to find any comfort after being stripped so bare.
It probably wasn’t advisable to drive when I was walking around in such a fog, but this wasn’t the first time I’d ridden this wave in the past three years, and it wouldn’t be my last. The trees and sprawling pastures passed in a blur as I made my way back to the main barn, and I only had a fleeting thought that I was thankful it still appeared to be empty as I slunk into Poe’s stall.
He was dressed in his ratty, deep blue blanket in preparation for getting turned out to graze with his ladies. I took a moment to admire how the color looked so good against his black coloring. Raleigh had been right, again. My fingers ran over a tear in the fabric, and I made a note to get it fixed when the weather got a little warmer.
It was a good thing he hadn’t been turned out just yet, but even if he had, I would have brought him back in. Just for ten minutes. Only long enough for me to be pulled back from the brink.
