Ellie

October

(The month I really screwed things up.)

Family is family. Cody’s words from the barn that day had taken hold and wouldn’t let me go. I tried to talk to Jake about his mother, but he simply wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let me explain why I thought it was so important that we at least know where she was. What she was doing.

Heck, if she was even still alive.

My mother had died young. My father had died young. It wasn’t a given that this woman was alive. I told myself we owed it to ourselves to find out that much.

That was my justification, anyway. For hiring the private investigator. All I knew about Adele Talley was that she had come from Seattle, Washington. Jake’s father had fallen in love hard and brought her back to his ranch, but she’d never been happy in Montana. She might have left sooner if it hadn’t been for Jake.

She probably thought staying with her son until he was eleven was enough.

It wasn’t.

It’s not like I forgave her for that either. That’s not what this was about. This was about precautions. This was about safety nets. This was about my fears.

I sat in the study, which had basically become my office. While Jake handled the animal husbandry side of the ranch, the numbers, the accounts, that was all me. It worked especially now that I was sidelined from all of the heavier chores. At least here I still felt like I was contributing my fair share.

Which is why I had felt comfortable opening the letter from the investigator I had hired in Seattle. Jake never interrupted me when I was in the study with the door closed.

It was a final bill from the investigator along with an address. At least, a last known address.

My heart started to pound. Tacoma, Washington. Adele Tally was in Tacoma, Washington, and if Jake knew what I was about to do he would be so pissed.

Like on a scale of one to ten… a total ten pissed.

I could try to talk to him, I thought, but I didn’t see how his attitude would change. Not when it came to that woman. If he knew I had actually hired someone to find her, he would lose his shit.

If he knew what I was doing now…

I looked at the Word document I had written and had up on the screen. I read it again. Then again. It was brief. It was factual. There was no emotion in it at all, I thought. It wasn’t as if this was some type of reconciliation. I just wanted to know where she was, what she was like as a person.

A precaution in case something bad happened to both of us. Like something bad had happened to me.

I knew it was wrong. I knew it. But if I told Jake about finding her, about reaching out to her… What if she didn’t reply at all? That could be because she was no longer at the address, or it could be because she had no desire to reconnect with her son.

To Jake it would feel like he was being rejected all over again. That wasn’t something I could handle.

That wasn’t a justification either. That was my truth.

I hit the button to print the letter. I stuffed it in an envelope where I had printed her name and her address on the front.

I could rip it up. I could tear it into pieces, delete the file on my laptop, and pretend I hadn’t done this thing.

Except I had.

Which is why I instead took the truck and drove to Jefferson to mail it.

Because I didn’t want Hank at the post office to know that I was stabbing my husband in the back.

Jake

October

(Or as I refer to it, the month Ellie royally screwed up.)

In hindsight I should have seen it coming. But things had started to normalize in October between us. My wife had morphed from a woman who enjoyed sex on a regular basis to a walking, talking hormone.

She was still shying away from intercourse, but everything else was fair game. Don’t get me wrong. What man has a problem waking up to regular blow jobs, and having a wife who he can get off with a look in the right direction?

One time I played with her nipples and made her come three times just from that. It was delicious and intimate and sexy.

Except it still felt like something was missing. I missed being inside Ellie. There was something deeply satisfying when we were connected like that. Like we weren’t two people, but one unit.

Now, I’m no super romantic when it comes to sex. Up until Ellie it was all about friction and bodies and getting off and feeling good. Then with Ellie it became an exercise in wanting her but not being able to have her. So that maybe when I finally let myself go and gave in to my desire for her, it was super explosive.

It would have been easy to do that. To justify those early days as a whole lot of build up. On her part and mine. Except it kept getting stronger and deeper. I started to realize trust had a lot to do with it.

I trusted Ellie implicitly. With my body, but maybe more importantly my fantasies. Things I might never have shared. Ellie called that prudishness, but it wasn’t. I just didn’t care to lay bare the things I thought about. Sex to me was private. Intimate.

With Ellie though, there were no restraints. There was no hesitation. We talked about what we liked, what we liked more, and we tried everything. (Okay, not anal, but NOT because I was afraid of it. I just couldn’t imagine a scenario where I wouldn’t hurt her. That’s not bragging by the way.)

Only now, even though we were both sexually satisfied, practically every day… something was missing.

The connection. The penetration of one body into another.

She said she was afraid of a miscarriage, even though she was five months pregnant at this point. (Don’t ask me to follow that whole forty-week shit… it’s too confusing. She took the test in June and now it was October.)

Five months pregnant, carrying a still relatively small bump, although I could tell just from handling them that her breasts were getting larger. She didn’t let me linger on her belly either. I wasn’t often allowed to kiss or touch. Only when I surprised her with it. I wasn’t sure if that was vanity or… another roadblock she was putting up. More distance between me and the baby. I knew it wasn’t meant to be cruel. She didn’t realize she was hurting me with it.

In fact I think in her mind she thought she was protecting me. As if the more distance I maintained between me and the baby, if something horrible happened I would be less crushed. Which was ridiculous. Ellie and the baby growing inside her were my life at this point.

She didn’t even want to know the sex of the baby when we could find out. Another layer of distance, or wanting to be surprised?

Yes, in hindsight I should have been paying closer attention. That her fear went deeper than a miscarriage. Because if I knew anything about Ellie since she’d been my wife the first time around, is that when she thought something was important she acted. I wasn’t always included in those plans, despite it having a major impact on my life.

Which always resulted in pissing me off.

It was like there was still this part of her, this girl who’d been orphaned by her father and mother, who could never let herself forget she was on her own in this world.

Even though I had spent every minute since Sam died trying to prove to her that wasn’t the case.

So yeah, in hindsight, I should have been prepared for it, but I wasn’t.

* * *

I can’t even remember why I needed to go in there. The study was Ellie’s domain. She handled the books for the ranch. All our income and expenses. Our family budget. All our ordering. The vendors in Montana knew Ellie to be cutthroat when it came to negotiating for the best prices on feed, hay—you name it.

She was both tenacious and hard not to like, so she tended to get her way almost every time.

I kept to the outside duties, and lately she bunkered inside with the books and it worked.

I might have been going in there to look for a receipt. Trying to get a sense of how big the hay order had been last time. There were papers scattered along her desk and I remembered thinking I should just ask her, because there was no way I was going to find it among the clutter, when an envelope stood out as different.

Brown, addressed directly to Ellie rather than the Talleys or Long Valley Ranch. The return address was Seattle, Washington.

Just that address was enough to make my heart thud in my chest. My mother had been from Seattle. But I didn’t think about her, or talk about her, or discuss her with Ellie, ever. That was our rule.

I’d told her my story, I’d told her how my mother had left me, and that should have been enough. Which is why when Ellie brought it up last month, I shot it down hard. That woman gave birth to me, that was all. She was not my mother.

I opened the letter, with no guilt even though my name wasn’t on it, because something was telling me…

Dear Mrs. Talley,

Enclosed is the final invoice for the investigation work into the person(s) of Adele Miller, aka Adele Talley. Currently Adele Smithson.

I hope the information I was able to provide is helpful to you.

Respectfully,

River Hatch

Private Investigator.

It was such a strange sensation. Because while I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, I didn’t see how that was possible when it had just been ripped out.

* * *

Ellie

“Jake! You home?” I was sure he was, as it was getting late. Hours shortened on the ranch along with the sun going down.

I came in through the back door, pulled off my jean jacket and hung it on a peg. Then kicked off my new clogs by the back door. I liked them because they were easier to slide into and out of than my boots, when bending down was just beginning to get annoying. Leave it to Jake to think of that. One day I woke up and they were just sitting there waiting for me.

I headed into the kitchen.

“I’m calling this an eight day,” I said as I made my way toward the kitchen counter that held my scales. I stacked another disk to the right side of the scale and smiled. “Because, while I didn’t actually do it, I did think about getting up on Petunia again. That has to be progress right? Wanting to actually ride. I’m going to check with Dr. Jenkins again…”

“Shut up. Shut up and stop talking.”

Slowly I turned around. I had known Jake Talley all my life and never once had he ever told me shut up in that tone of voice. Like he meant it.

I looked at his face and it was all there. Rage, like I had never seen. He’d meant every word. He wanted me to shut up.

“What’s happening right now?” I whispered.

“What’s happening right now is this,” he said, his tone deadly cold as he held out the envelope. “Who the fuck is River Hatch and why is he investigating my mother?”

My stomach dropped as soon as I saw the envelope. I bit my bottom lip. “I was going to tell you about that...”

“Were you? Forgive me if I don’t believe that. Because if I recall, when you do shit like this we never talk about it beforehand. Only when it’s done. When you arranged for the divorce and the money. When you quit school. And every time you did that, you were always, It’s my life, Jake. I can do what I want. Well this is MY FUCKING LIFE, ELLIE! MINE! And you had no fucking business reaching out to this woman.”

I was panting and tears were already coming, but he had to listen to me. He had to listen to why I did this.

“I know you’re mad but…”

“Mad? Mad! I’m heartbroken. Betrayed by the one person who is supposed to love me. My damn wife! You knew how I felt about this. You knew and did this anyway, and you didn’t give a shit about me while you were doing it.”

“No, no. That’s not true. I know this looks bad, but you wouldn’t even listen to me when I tried to bring it up before,” I pleaded. “And I was scared because she’s the only family…”

“Do not refer to that woman as family,” he sneered. “Scared of what? Tell me.”

“I tried to tell you, and you wouldn’t listen. You never do when it comes to your mother.”

He charged a step toward me and instinctively I stepped back. It wasn’t that I had any thought he would hurt me. Instead it was the force of his anger that had me cringing.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said. “You don’t get to make this about me and my issues. This is all about you and whatever it is you are so fucking afraid of!”

“Because what if something happens to us?” I screamed at him. I had to make him understand this was bigger than just us. Bigger than his feelings toward his mother. Bigger than anything. “What if I die and you die? What if our baby is alone in this world and there is no magical Jake Talley to come in and save the day! What if we abandon this child… I couldn’t bear it.”

“You think I would let that happen?” This time there was more pain in his voice than anger. If possible it was even more upsetting to me to hear it. “You think I haven’t thought of all of that? Of our will, of the people in our lives who we might want to raise our child?”

“I thought… she should at least know, and if she reached out to us and was a different person...”

“There will be NO reaching out. She will have nothing to do with this child. She walked out on a fucking eleven-year-old. Is that the kind of person you want raising our child?”

No. It wasn’t. I hated her for what she’d done to Jake. But there was no one else for either of us that were blood related. Family is supposed to be family. It was supposed to be forever. But it hadn’t been for me. “I just…”

“Just what, Ellie? Didn’t trust me? Because I have to say, it sure as hell has felt that way for the last fucking five months. You didn’t trust me to tell me you were pregnant right away. You don’t trust me to fuck you. You won’t even let me touch your stomach! Who the fuck am I to you now? A sperm donor. The guy who is eventually going to die and abandon your child.”

“No, Jake… no.” He didn’t understand. I needed to explain it better.

“When?” he asked, deadly cold. “When did you stop believing in me?”

“I didn’t.” I shook my head, the tears so heavy in my throat I could barely swallow. “I would never. But… I trusted my dad too. And he left me.”

“I trusted my mother and she left. My father, and he drank himself to death. You don’t think I sit and worry every day what kind of parent I’m going to be? Because I do, but I also know I’m going to be better than they were. I’m going to be smarter. There is no risk I wouldn’t take. None. Not with my kid. And you, of all people in this world, you should have known that.”

I nodded. He was right. I should have. What was wrong with me?

I covered my face with my hands while this sick feeling of shame washed over me. This wasn’t Jake’s fault. He was right. This was all the junk in my head that I couldn’t seem to shake out. What had I been thinking?

That was it. I hadn’t been thinking. I had only been feeling.

Fear. Horrible, horrible fear.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t look at you right now. I’m leaving. You have a phone. Don’t use it unless it’s an emergency.”

I heard his heavy boot steps through the living room. Heard the sound of the front door slamming shut.

I stood there and shook for a few minutes, not really knowing what to do, what this meant.

I turned around and saw the scales sitting there happily on the counter. It was like they mocked me.

You thought you were happy, they said. You thought you had everything.

But I didn’t trust him. Not really. Not deep down where I should have. Now I had ruined everything.

With an angry swipe of my hands I shoved at them until they tipped and the disk scattered, and then I did the only thing I could do. I sank to the kitchen floor and sobbed.

* * *

Jake

After driving around for hours, I finally drove out to the cabin. I would have preferred to ride, but it was dark and I wasn’t doing anything to put Wyatt at risk. I was pissed, I was hurt, I was furious with the person I loved most in the this world, which was a really sucky feeling—but I wasn’t stupid enough to ride my horse after dark where I couldn’t see a step in front of me.

I pulled the truck up and cut the engine. A night out here alone might help clear my head. Think through what she did and why she did it.

If I could get past the pain of it. If I could forgive her.

I got out of the truck and headed to the cabin. Completely lost in my thoughts, it took a second to register that when I opened the door there was someone already in the bed, jumping up as if preparing for a fight.

“What the fuck!”

It took a second to see the shape of the man sitting up in the bed, but I recognized the voice immediately.

“Cody?”

“Jake?”

“Yeah. What the hell are you doing out here?” I asked him.

“Uh…oh. Well, while the weather has been okay I’ve been spending my nights here in the cabin. You know, have a little privacy. That kind of thing.”

I tried to process that. The cabin was private sure, but it could also be damn cold. “Things alright between you and Rich?”

“Yeah. Sure. Two grown men living in the same quarters. Bumping up against each other. You know how it is. Every once in a while I like my own space. Figured this cabin was empty, but if it’s a problem…”

“No,” I told him. “We don’t use it much. That’s fine.” Of course saying that, it didn’t really give me a good reason for being here.

“Things okay with Ellie?”

No. Things were not okay with Ellie. Because Ellie was scared about the baby and scared about us dying, so she did this horrible thing BEHIND MY BACK. How could she?

Because she was more afraid than I could understand. More messed up about what happened with her dad then maybe I could ever realize. Because it seemed like she went through life so easily, so happy all the time. Like the stuff she’d been through—losing her mom, then her dad—never backed up on her.

Or maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. I knew there was shit in her head since she found out she was pregnant. I naively thought it would go away. That she would work through it. Because that’s what Ellie did. She was a trooper.

I, of course, wasn’t the best at dealing with shit either. Hell, I almost lost her once because of it.

“She’s fine,” I said dully. Except she probably wasn’t. I came down on her like a ton of bricks. Fucking pregnant and I was shouting at her… but I was… damn, so fucking hurt.

“You ever been in love, Cody?”

He snorted and got out of bed, wearing sweat pants, socks, and a long sleeve T-shirt, which proved it wasn’t exactly comfortable out here at this late date in October. It made me question the whole privacy story, but I didn’t press him on it. As long as the work got done between the two of them, it wasn’t really my business. Still, I had a feeling that something was going on between those two. Although right now I had enough on my plate to deal with.

Cody shoved a piece of wood in the wood-burning stove, the only heat this place offered. “Not unless you count my horse.”

I went over to sit on the couch. I guess he figured I wasn’t leaving any time soon so he sat in the chair adjacent to it. He’d grabbed something from near the stove and when he sat, he held it up to show me.

A bottle of something dark.

I reached for it and took a slug. It burned in the good way down my throat.

“I take it you’re having woman problems,” Cody suggested.

This time I snorted. I didn’t know about women problems. I only knew about Ellie problems. When she did shit like this, the behind my back shit… it was almost as if I could hate her for it.

Except I couldn’t because I loved her too damn much.

“You could say that.”

“Ellie is freaking out about the baby,” Cody offered.

It was a statement, not a question. I handed him back the bottle. “She is.”

“I figured that’s why she wasn’t talking about it. It has to mess with a woman’s head. I mean, shit, can you imagine if we had to grow something inside of our bodies? Something that moves around and kicks us and makes us piss all the time? There is no way I would handle that situation well.”

I looked over at him. “Yeah well… biology. I think you’re safe.”

“I’m just saying I would probably give a woman a lot of slack if she was handling the burden of carrying my kid, because it’s not like I could ever put myself in her shoes.”

That pissed me off. Like I was the bad guy in this situation. I reached for the bottle again and clarified. “She fucked up. Bad. Really bad.”

“She cheat on you?”

I grimaced as I took another sip. “No. Don’t be stupid.”

“You going to divorce her over what she did?”

“No! I’m not going to divorce her. That’s not how marriage works. You fight… yes, but you stick it out.”

Cody nodded and held his hand out for the bottle. I supposed I was done anyway. It’s not like I could stay the night here with him. I was going to need to drive home.

“So she fucked up something, but she didn’t cheat on you and it’s not something so bad that it’s going to end your marriage. You think she’s sorry for what she did?”

The look on her face at the end. Her pale cheeks, red eyes, hiccupping like she couldn’t catch her breath. She understood where my anger was coming from. She knew what her actions did to me. “Yeah. I think she’s sorry.”

“Then what are you doing out here? Why don’t you go to her and let her make things up with you? I hear pregnant women are horny as shit.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. It was one thing for me to know my wife was horny all the time, I didn’t like Cody saying it.

“You trying to help me, or get me to leave you alone so you can go back to sleep?”

He laughed. “A little of both I guess. Look, you and Ellie are good people. And while I may never have been in love myself, I know it when I see it. Shit, I don’t think Rich and my mom ever had a quarter of what you and Ellie have. I also know she’s a good person. She shines with it. So whatever she did, there was probably a reason behind it. And that reason wasn’t to intentionally hurt you. Ellie would never do that.”

No, Ellie would never do that. She might have thought I would be pissed. She wouldn’t have known how much it would hurt me. How much of a betrayal it felt like. Not just of me, but of us. If she’d known that, she wouldn’t have done it.

“I yelled at her. Pretty hard,” I admitted. I hated getting mad like that. I hated seeing her crying and shaking. I was just so gutted. My mother? She thought she could reach out to my mother. I never wanted to see or have anything to do with that woman again.

“Dude, you yelled at a pregnant chick? That’s harsh.”

I winced. I had been harsh.

“Guess it’s time to go man up.” I sighed, but even as I stood I could feel the anger waning. The hurt, sure it was still there, but next time when she said she was sorry, I might be able to hear it. Take it in. Believe it.

“Good luck.”

“I’m the victim here,” I reminded him.

Cody laughed. “Please, your wife is carrying your kid. I have a feeling by the time all is said and done you’ll be apologizing to her.”

I scowled at him, but he was probably right.