AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I guess this whole thing just hit me harder today,” Luke said, motioning for a second beer as their waitress hurried past, carrying a full tray. She took a second to smile at Luke, in a way that couldn’t be mistaken.“What with what happened with Verne and all,” he continued, as if the woman hadn’t been there at all. “I keep thinking about Jake, too, and how he took off out of here and none of us has ever heard from him again. I get him not contacting his uncle. It wasn’t as if Verne was any kind of a father or guardian to him. And he certainly never came to Jake’s defense when the town hung him out to dry for things he didn’t do. But why wouldn’t he contact one of us?”
Blake had some ideas about that. He just wasn’t sure how to share them. Hadn’t spent a lot of time sitting around trading confidences with a friend. Other than the beers he’d shared with Cole—who’d been his brother-in-law before he’d been his friend—he’d spent zero minutes in such a manner.
“We all have perceptions of ourselves,” he said, choosing his words with care. “They aren’t necessarily the way that others see us—though of course, we believe they are.”
Luke was watching him, appeared to be listening. So Blake took a breath and continued.
“So maybe the guy Jake saw himself as isn’t the same guy you knew him to be. Maybe he figured he really was the loser everyone in town had spent so much time telling him he was. He probably figured you were better off without him.”
Just then, Wade Barstow, the man who owned half of River Bluff, came in. Took a seat at the bar. Even the lucky ones drank alone—and outside of town—sometimes.
“It’s also possible,” Blake continued, watching the successful rancher and taking comfort from his aloneness, “that Jake figures the rest of you did exactly what he did and got the hell out of Dodge, never to return.” Forgetting the town patriarch, and his own wayward thoughts, Blake took a long sip of his beer.
“He wouldn’t be too far off on that one,” Luke said, staring down into his mug. “Cole’s the only one who stayed in the area after graduation. But we all came back for visits. We all kept in touch.”
“You had families to stay with when you came back.”
And family made all the difference. Blake had learned that the hard way.
“So how do you do it, man?” Luke held Blake’s gaze. “I saw some bad shit over there, but at least I was free to come and go. To decide what I wanted to eat. To choose my entertainment and sleep in a real bed. Being shot down was nothing, compared to what you went through. And you’re a rock.”
A rock. Talk about misperceptions.
“You just ride with it, take things in stride,” Chisum continued. “Nothing gets to you.”
Blake’s first inclination was to ask the cowboy who’d paid him to say such things.
“There’s got to be some trick to it,” Luke continued, when he remained silent. “Some head thing you do.”
“I just get up each day and keep breathing.” Blake told Luke the part of the truth he could share.
“Do you ever think about not doing that?”
“Nope.” Finally—an easy answer. “Never.”
“BEC? IT’S ME.”
Back in the beanbag early on Thursday evening, Annie held the phone to her ear.“Took you two days to call,” Becky replied softly. “I was getting worried.”
“I…” She didn’t have an explanation.
“So how’d it go?”
“Good.” Great. Sort of. The sex part was fabulous. The evening had been fabulous. Right up to the part where Blake pulled away from her, got up, put on his clothes and left, as if they hadn’t just spent four hours joining their bodies time and time again, bringing eac
h other a pleasure that was unsurpassable.
“And?”
“And now I wait a couple of weeks and do a home pregnancy test.”
“That’s it?”
Becky echoed the question that had been lodged in Annie’s heart for two days.
“What else could there be?”
“You just slept with the love of your life, Ann. There could be all kinds of things. Not the least of which is regret.”
