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I shake those thoughts from my head, fight to dig up the roots before they grow and fester.
“Porter… I…” His shadow casts alongside me, his long, lean form where he’s standing and mine shorter since I’m sitting.
“My dad loved early mornings,” I say, unsure why those are the first words out of my mouth. It’s not something I’ve thought about in a long time. “I used to love spending the morning with him because it always felt like he was more himself at the start of the day—the real him that he wanted to be. A long day of work usually ended in anger and alcohol, but in the morning, we could start over and everything was peaceful.”
“Sounds nice,” Sully says, voice rough with emotion. “Can I sit?”
“Yup,” I reply, unable to look at him. Scared I won’t be angry if I do, but also scared I will be angry. My emotions are all over the damn place, and I don’t know what to feel. All I know is, I don’t ever want to hate Sully. “My dad…he wasn’t one for deep, meaningful conversations, but one time he told me everything is clear at dawn. That you can find the answers to your questions there, so I’ve been sitting out here, searching, trying to see my way through this, trying not to rage at the whole fucking world because the man everyone wrote off, the one who was bitter and sick and yes, an asshole, was also right. He was right, and no one believed him. They made him feel stupid for thinking the things he did, and he let it take over his life. How different would things have been if this came out before he lost himself?”
“I know. Shit, I know, Port. I’m so fucking sorry. And I get that being sorry doesn’t matter, not really. You were right, and I didn’t believe you, but I’m asking you to believe me now—I didn’t know. I swear to you, this is the first I’ve heard about it, and if?—”
“I know,” I reply because I do. Even the moment Randy gave me the paperwork I knew, I was just afraid to see it.
“You do?” His voice is so damn gentle and full of awe, it nearly steals my breath.
Finally, I risk looking at him, turning to see the sun glint off his green eyes, the kindness in them, how fucking pure they are. Sully doesn’t have it in him to hold something like this in, to let it be okay with him and pretend it’s not the truth. “Yeah…you got too big a heart, Sully. You care too much about me…Pixie, Randy, your parents, Aimee…everyone. You don’t have it in you to hurt someone that way, but I still don’t know how to deal with it. I’ve got so much anger inside me—at your family, and my dad, and fucking life. It’s taking everything inside me not to climb into my truck, drive away, and never come back. Life is a whole lot easier when you don’t gotta feel.”
“But then you never have a home either…and you deserve a home. I wanted to give that to you so much, and I still will. There’s nothing I won’t give you, Porter Dixon, but how can I give you what’s already yours? What should have always been yours?”
But he was going to give me our home on this ranch even before he knew part of it is really mine. Sully didn’t owe me anything. He hadn’t known the truth, yet he still wanted at least a piece of Sullivan Ranch to be mine. No one has ever loved me like that before. No one had ever wanted me that much, but he did…he does.
“We’ll give you half of it. I’ll fight my parents on it if I have to. I know it’s not the same. I know you’ve lost so fucking much and?—”
“And I don’t want it like that.” I didn’t plan the words, but as soon as they’re out of my mouth, I know they’re true. “I want what we talked about before. This house that’s ours. To go to bed together and wake up together and work the ranch together. The rest of it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let it eat away at me and ruin all the good in my life the way it did with my dad. The way shit does with Randy too. Being with you…I got too much to be happy about to let myself piss it away to anger.”
Sully’s pupils blow wide, eyes immediately going glassy with unshed tears. “But what about what’s rightfully yours?”
“I got it as long as I’m here with you, Sull. I’ve never needed a damn thing like I need you.” And maybe I have Randy to thank for showing me that, for showing me what I don’t want to be: like him, like my father. I’m tired of holding on to all this anger.
“Jesus, I love you so fucking much.” Sully grabs ahold of my face and smashes our lips together. I push my tongue inside, tasting the future, right here on this spot where we’re going to build together without the past between us. I still don’t know how I’ll handle being around his family. They knew, otherwise why would they have the papers? And they kept it from me, but I love this man too much to lose him because of choices we didn’t make.
“I told them about us,” he admits, kissing down my stubbled jaw. “That it’s you for me. That I love you and always have. I won’t ever hide us again, and I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you. Anything.”
“I know,” I reply again.
We sit out there together for a while, lying on the foundation on a cold fall morning. Sully tells me what his parents explained to him—how they found out from the journal and why they never mentioned it. How the agreement wasn’t legally binding and they were instructed to get rid of it. But they didn’t. They held on to the papers, and then they tried to make up for his great-grandfather’s transgressions by hiring Mom and me. It wasn’t perfect, or even close to fixing what happened, but I’m trying to understand their logic and make sense of things. I can’t deny the tension inside me, even knowing that most anyone would do the same. Who would find an agreement over a hundred years old and then give up half their family property? It’s just not logical or realistic.
“Randy?” I ask.
“Took off when I fired him.”
“Pixie?”
“She’s with my momma. Not sure what’s gonna happen there.”
“He reminds me of my dad,” I admit. “Blinded by anger and jealousy. I don’t know if I can forgive Randy, but that little girl loves him, and if he can get his head on right, she deserves a dad.” I wish I’d had more of my dad too.
“Yeah,” Sully replies softly. “She does.”
We’re quiet, and I know he’s thinking the same kind of thoughts as me—how far we’ve come, all the things that happened, and that somehow, we made it. “Your parents…they were okay? When you told them about you? About us?”
“They were great. Makes me feel silly about waiting so long, but?—”
“Don’t. Don’t do that. It’s a big deal. I never had to tell my own family. And things turned out the way they’re supposed to.”
“Yeah,” he says softly, nuzzling his cheek against mine. “They did.”
We stay longer than we probably should. Part of me doesn’t ever want to go back, doesn’t want to face the other hands or his family. But I have to do it, for us and also just for me.
