“So,” I ask on a breath. “You’re on leave?”
“It’s almost over.”
Swallowing hard, I try to collect myself.
“Why are you here, Scottie?”
“I found out you were being deployed, and I just got in the car.”
“Oh, that was you who got out of the car?” he asks with a grin. “All I saw was muscles flexing, flying hair, and big teeth being bared. I thought my new mare was getting delivered.”
“Eat shit,” I say with a smile.
“Remind me not to piss you off anytime soon.”
“Don’t piss me off anytime soon,” I retort. “Though it didn’t seem to faze you.”
He looks at me, incredulous. “Are you kidding? The only reason I got back on that tractor was to go search for my balls.”
I throw my head back and laugh, and he soaks it in before hanging his head.
“I guess my question is, why aren’t you home now?”
“I told you, I heard you were—”
The look he gives cuts me off.
I rock in the comfortable porch chair made of wicker and padding that looks a hundred years old as the pasture lights up orange. Fields of fire blaze in front of us as I catch my breath.
“I’m not home because when I went back, it felt like a house, no more than that. Like a life that belonged to someone else, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get it right. I’m like the corner piece to a puzzle, trying to force into the center, and no matter how I try to manipulate myself, I just don’t fit.” I study his eyes, swallowing hard. “I no longer fit. I’m not her, the woman who left.”
He shrugs. “Maybe you aren’t the same, and that’s okay.”
“Is it? No one else seems to think so.”
“You mean Gavin,” he counters. Gavin is just as real to him as he is to me, and that’s my fault, but I won’t discuss our marital problems with Briggs. I shake my head to let him know just that.
He doesn’t seem to care. “Then it’s on him.”
“It’s not just how I feel. It’s the way I’m thinking too. I think I want more than what I had planned…I don’t know. But sitting idle while everyone else lives their lives makes me even more stir crazy, where before, it’s all I lived for. It’s like I’m reluctant to slide back into that role because I have a second chance, and maybe I want to do something different.”
“Like what?”
“Not sit idle while everyone else lives their lives,” I say with a laugh. “I’m going to be a nurse, I think. Part-time.”
“You’ll be an amazing nurse.”
“I just don’t want to screw it all up for Noah.”
“You’re present. You’re there, and you’re trying, that’s all you can do until you sort yourself out. There’s no time line for that.”
“I’m losing my old life.”
“You need more time.”
“That seems to be the general consensus.” I down the rest of my beer. “Briggs.”
“Yes?”
“Fuck this subject.”
He chuckles as we clink bottles.
I twist my neck, and my body screams murder. “Jesus, I’m sore everywhere. You do this every day?”
“Rain or shine.”
“I have to admit I’m impressed with your skill.”
“Pretty sure it takes more to raise a human.” He’s still fighting to remind me I’m not home, to remind me of my responsibilities.
“So, this is your life?” I ask, changing the subject.
“When I’m home. The ranch hands do it mostly. I try to keep some money in Gran’s pocket when I can, do the work I can do.”
“Where is she?”
“Gambling in Louisiana.” He gives me a grin.
“She’s a card shark too, isn’t she?”
“Taught me all I know.” He’s in a gray T-shirt now, still wearing his ratty old baseball cap.
“Where’s the hat?” I ask.
“What hat?”
“The hat the girls go crazy over?”
“You’re looking at it.”
I frown. “Not what I pictured.”
“You expected a ten-gallon hat, right?”
“Yeah, a real cowboy hat.”
“Allow me to school you in the modern garb of a real cowboy.”
“Bullshit,” I say, rocking back. “No belt buckle?”
“Tell you what, you go ride a tractor for twelve hours with a pound of metal rubbing your belly and sitting on your dick and tell me how good it feels.”
I burst into laughter, and he rolls his eyes but gives me a flash of teeth.
“Will you teach me?”
“How to be a cowboy? You got one swift lesson today when your ass went over the rail of the fence.”
I narrow my eyes. “You said you’d never bring that up again.”
“That’s before you fucked with my ego.” We’re both grinning like fools, and it feels so damned good.
“Sorry, cowboy. I meant if you would teach me how to play cards.”
His dimple appears. “Depends.”
“On what?”
He takes a long draw from his beer. “On what you’re willing to lose.”
I nod. “I’ve got a stick of gum and a three-year supply of Carmex in my purse.”
He chuckles. “That sounds like a good story. And it’s a start.”
Night sets in as the moon shines bright above us. “This place is…freeing.”
He leans against the railing of the porch across from me. “It’s purpose. It keeps some of my demons from catching up with me. The more I work, the more of a memory they become. Whatever demons I can’t drown, I swim with, and we tend to get along fine.”
“Is that the truth?”
“It’s my truth. I become the bad guy to protect the good guys. I signed up for it.”
“I want your strength,” I confess.
“You don’t need it. You’re good on your own. You’re not drowning in a bottle. You’re facing it head-on. Keep fighting, and you’ll win. I promise you. And maybe you’ll never be the same woman, but that’s okay.”
“It’s that simple, huh?”
“No, it’s that hard, but you can do it. Though I have to say, if my vote counts, by the events of today, you’re still the exact same pain in the ass.”
I flip him the bird.
“Case in point.” Another breath-stealing grin.
“Well,” I sigh, “maybe it’s not about who I am. Maybe it’s about what I want.”
“And what is that, Scottie?”
“Long term, I have no fucking clue, but I want to stay here tonight. Is that okay?”
“Katy—”
“I’ll sleep with Houdini,” I offer quickly.
His face flashes with anger as he looks over his shoulder, and alarmed, I do the same.
“I always knew I hated that motherfucker for a reason.”
Leaning back in the rocker I slowly shake my head back and forth wearing a shit-eating grin while admiring him for exactly who he is—unbreakable, remarkable.
“I’m serious, Briggs. Can I?”
He studies me carefully. “Only if you ride him tomorrow.”
“You did promise to teach me; that was the plan.”
“What about your other plans?”
Guilt wracks me, and he draws a quick conclusion.
“You haven’t done anything, have you?”
I crack open another beer from the cooler between us and take a sip.
“You haven’t run?”
I shake my head.
“You haven’t danced?” His brows raise higher with each question. “Nothing?”
“Been busy. And you’re wrong about the bottle. I’m a selective alcoholic. I chose Smirnoff to screw up my kid’s birthday party. There’s a picture for you—I took cover when some kid popped a balloon.”
“Jesus,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”