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Normal was having my boy with me, learning from me.
Normal was shooting the shit with the boys in the bunkhouse after a long day.
Normal was drinking a glass of whiskey on the front porch, alone.
Normal was going to bed alone.
Normal was travelling to a different state once a quarter to fuck some woman in a bar and leave right after without learning her name.
Normal washerbeing gone.
I didn’t want normal anymore. She invaded my life weeks ago, and I wanted her to stay in it. I wanted to keep telling her “no” and get her to shout “yes” while she was under me in my bed. I wanted that stupid rental car back. I wanted those green eyes back on me.
I wanted her to tell me what “Smoke” meant.
I wanted to know why she didn’t want me to be cold.
I wanted to know why she let me take care of her.
I wanted to know why she rantothe bunkhouse after hearing those gunshots and not away from it.
I wanted to know her fucking name.
“Dad?”
I gripped the reigns and eased Ranger to a walk as my son brought me away from my thoughts.
“Mom is here,” he said, disappointment lacing his voice. That snapped me out of thoughts of things that never would be. My head jerked up to the house and found her car sitting next to my truck.
That wasn’t the car I wanted here. That car—that woman—is the reason I lost my brother. That woman was the reason I couldn’t trust any other woman.
That woman ruined me at the same time she gave me a son. I loved Caleb more than anything in the world. The way I got a son caused my brother a world of pain I couldn’t control.
We made it to the barn, and I instructed Caleb to get Ranger settled.
“Can he have some carrots?” he asked while brushing his coat. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah, bud, give him some carrots. I’m going to talk to your mom and then you and I are going fishing,” I said softly. No way in hell Cathy was taking him today. Summers were meant to be spent at the ranch, not cooped up in some crappy apartment.
Leaving him be, I walked up to the house. Cathy wasn’t standing by the car anymore. She was sitting in the porch swing like she was destined to be there, the wind blowing through her horrid blonde hair.
Maybe a decade ago, she could have been here, if she had chosen not to fuck over Mason and me.
“Cellphones are a wonderful thing, ya know?” I called, heading up the front steps.
“Just wanted to make sure everything was okay with Caleb after that storm,” she mused, pushing her chest out a bit. Wasn’t interested in her chest a decade ago, and I wasn’t interested now. I withheld my sigh. She was in one of her moods.
That mood was her getting a wild hair and wanting us to be “a family again.”
We were never a fucking family. She was the toxin that destroyed one and by the grace of God, Caleb was born out of it. A good, wholesome little boy was born from betrayal. I would never be able to wrap my head around it. I was just grateful for my boy. He was kind, thoughtful, gentle, and so fucking intelligent that it scared me sometimes.
Every single time Cathy would try to seduce me again, I would tell her to fuck off and threaten to take her ass to court. That usually shut her shit down. She knew I would get full custody of Caleb if I needed to. She didn’t have a case.
Caleb was in her life because she, despite being a vile bitch, was his mom. She loved our son, that much was clear, but she knew she shouldn’t be sitting on my fucking porch, wind in her hair, staring out at Hallow Ranch like it was hers.
In another life, it could have been.
Caleb would have been Mason’s. Cathy would be Mason’s, and maybe—just fucking maybe—I would’ve be happy in that life.
