Chapter 42

Cole was averaging six packs of gum a day. The rhythmic chewing drowned out his thoughts and soothed his anxiety, and the wrappers…

He stroked the one on his thigh until the foil was nearly mirror smooth. Then he folded it precisely in half, matching the serrations along the edges, and stroked that smaller square until it was also smooth, the fold as sharp as a blade.

Around him, at a safe distance, people chatted and laughed, ate and drank at the year-end barbecue. Even Katie had abandoned him to trail Beni and his herd of friends, who had a habit of leaving plates unguarded. Cole folded the gum wrapper again, and then again, the same way he had folded his emotions in and in and in, where he could keep them contained.

He frowned as he reached the last possible fold in the current wrapper. The one that was never quite right. No matter how hard he squeezed, he could never make the edges match on that last fold. He’d even tried using the vise in the shop. He could mash it as hard as he wanted, but parts of the white underside of the wrapper would still be exposed.

He squeezed until the nugget of foil dug into his fingertips, then examined the result. No good. He began to reverse the process. When it was flat again, he plucked the gum out of his mouth, set it in the middle of the wrapper, and carefully folded up the sides to cover the gum. Then he dropped it into his shirt pocket with three others, pulled out a fresh stick, and started over.

No one had to tell him this was not a thing rational people did. And lucky for him, no one would. They’d made their support known, each in their own way, since he’d been home. A single hard squeeze on the shoulder from his uncle. A plate of his favorite oatmeal cookies left in his cabin by his aunt when he didn’t stop by for his usual afternoon coffee. From Violet, regular assurances that yes, she’d been in touch with Shawnee and she seemed to be okay. Plus a spreadsheet with the season’s buck-off percentages and average scores for every horse and bull in the herd. He could analyze and rearrange the numbers for hours on end. And from Joe…blessed silence as they’d worked side-by-side checking and repairing fences.

If he wanted to talk, they were ready to listen. But he still had no words.

If he had, he would have given them to Shawnee. Made her understand that he knew he was the one with a piece missing. He was the one in mourning for a child—an entire life—that had never existed. Cole was profoundly aware that this was also not rational. Knowing didn’t make it easier to stop.

Any easier than it was to stop craving the smell and the taste and the feel of Shawnee. The way he reached out at night expecting to find her. The sickening jolt when there was nothing but empty, cold space.

Once again, he reached that final, critical fold in the gum wrapper. He tried smashing it between the flats of his thumbnails this time. Closer, but not perfect. He unfolded the wrapper, spit out the gum, and started again. Family and crew flowed around him as if he was a boulder planted under the huge oak in the corner of the backyard. When he crawled back out of that deep, dark center of himself, they would treat him as if he’d never been gone. Until then, they knew enough to steer clear.

All except Analise.

She marched toward him, intent in every stomp of her black boots. He scrunched down in his chair, but he hadn’t mastered the art of becoming one with nature, so she planted herself in front of him and braced her hands on her narrow hips.

“Why is Hank in Florida?” she demanded, her glare making it an accusation.

“To fight bulls.”

Cole knew because the contractor had called Violet for a reference. Which she had given, no mention made of circumstances under which Hank had left Jacobs Livestock. To their surprise—and Cole’s immense relief—Melanie had reported that Hank seemed determined to do exactly as he’d said…prove that he could do just fine without them.

Analise wrinkled her nose, doubtful. “There are rodeos in Florida?”

“And ranches. It’s a good place for Hank.”

He could work all winter down there, and Florida was as far as he could get from Idaho and Mariah without falling off of the continent, which should keep him out of trouble. At least, that particular trouble.

Analise’s brows puckered. “But he’s alone. And hurting. I don’t think he’s ever been in love before.”

“In what?”

“It was so obvious.” Analise did one of her finer eye rolls. “He was a totally different person with her—polite and funny and sweet. When she was around, I almost wanted to date him.” Analise gave a melancholy sigh and braced her back against the oak. “I’ve always thought that was the ultimate goal, you know? To find someone who makes you the best version of yourself. And then to not be able to be with them…it seems like such a waste.”

“Not if it wasn’t mutual.” When Analise scowled at him, he hunched a shoulder. “It has to be two people who make each other better.”

“Like you and Shawnee,” she said, so quick he suspected this was where she’d been leading the whole time.

Cole looked away, his fingers smoothing and smoothing the latest gum wrapper on his thigh. Over by the beer cooler, his uncle Steve was in deep conversation with Joe and Delon, his hand palm down with four fingers extended, bucking like a horse through the air as he described some ride or other. Violet was planted on a lounger, with her mother and her sister taking turns keeping an eagle eye on her.

Music rippled through the air—Delon’s brother, Gil, and a couple of friends picking guitars and singing on the rear deck of the big white farmhouse, doing everything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Ernest Tubb to a few songs Cole didn’t recognize. Gil’s own, probably. In the past couple of years he’d started performing occasionally—informal, unpaid, but damn good. If he weren’t so dead set on turning Sanchez Trucking into a world power, he could—

“Ignore me as long as you want,” Analise said. “I won’t go away.”

“What about you and Cruz?” he asked, trying to throw her off the trail.

“We’re going to keep in touch…until one or both of us stops feeling like making the effort.” She shrugged one shoulder, bare beneath the skinny strap of what looked to Cole like a black feed sack. “If it was meant to be more, it wouldn’t have been so easy to leave it at that. Unlike you and Shawnee.”

Another shard of pain sliced through him. Shawnee had never pretended there could be a happily ever after for them. That was all Cole. His screwed-up head and his idiot heart, latching on and refusing to listen to reason. Because he was good with his hands. Hadn’t she told him so? He’d been convinced he could put all of her pieces back together, one by one. Fix the damage Ace and that damn disease had done.

But he couldn’t give her back what was gone forever.

He made that last, impossible fold in the gum wrapper and ground it onto the arm of his chair. Instead of better, he made it worse, peeling away the thin foil, baring a ragged patch of white. He swore silently.

“It’s not that simple,” he told Analise.

She gave him a long, implacable look. “It can be. You just have to decide what matters most.”

A car came zooming down the highway, whipped around the corner and into their driveway, its abrupt halt sending puffs of dust into the air. Alarm rippled through the crowd as Tori kicked the door open, vaulted out, and slammed it behind her. Delon and Joe hustled over as she bore down on Cole.

Her normally cool eyes were spitting sparks. “She dumped me!”

Cole stared up at her, confounded. Who? What?

“Shawnee?” Delon asked.

“Of course, Shawnee. You think there’s some other woman I sneak around with behind your back?”

“No, I just don’t understand…” Delon frowned, baffled. “She doesn’t want to rope with you anymore? Or be friends at all?”

“Both. She says it’s for our own good,” Tori snarled. “So we don’t have to worry our little heads if—oh, excuse me, when she gets cancer again. Like we’re all too feeble to cope, while she goes around pretending she’s so tough—”

“She’s not pretending,” Cole said.

A dozen sets of eyes locked on him. The guests had gone quiet, and the family had gathered around to see what the kerfuffle was about. Even the music had stopped, the better for all of them to eavesdrop. Cole sank deeper in his chair, as if he could squeeze between the slats and crawl off through the grass.

“No?” Tori challenged. “Then why is she running scared?”

“Of what?” Cole asked.

“You. Me.” She made a wide, sweeping gesture to include the entire crowd. “Anyone she might slip up and actually start to care about.”

Delon laid a careful hand on her shoulder, as if he was afraid she might bite. “Give her a few days—”

“Not an option. She’s leaving tomorrow for upstate New York and some job Brady offered her. I came to tell him.” Tori jabbed a finger at Cole. “If you were planning to stop moping around at some point, you’re gonna have to do it before morning.”

New York? Brady? The words bounced around inside Cole’s head, refusing to sink in.

Tori turned on her heel and strode back toward her car.

Delon scrambled after her. “Where are you going?”

“Home. To call my sister. Elizabeth is one of the top cancer researchers in the world. What she doesn’t know, her friends do.” She paused, turned, and flashed a smile so filled with icy determination Cole felt his testicles retract in reflex. “I don’t care if I have to drag Shawnee into clinical trials by that damn hair of hers, I’m gonna make sure the bitch lives to be ninety.”

They all watched her slam back into her car, wheel around, and gun the engine, spattering the driveway with gravel. No one spoke until she had disappeared over the rise.

“If Elizabeth is anything like Tori…” Miz Iris glanced at Delon. “What do you think?”

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “If I was Shawnee, I’d start saving up for a real long retirement.”

Chuckles and murmurs rippled through the crowd and they began to disperse, wandering back to the food table for another slice of pie, or the cooler for another beer. Only Joe and Analise lingered. Joe gave her a pointed look. She scowled, but stomped off while Joe pulled up a lawn chair and settled in beside Cole. No comment. No questions. Just there, in case.

Leaving. New York.

Tori was right. Cole had been indulging himself, taking the time to sort his feelings into safe little boxes. Grief here. Lust there. Affection over in this corner. And in that one…he took a quick peek, then slammed the lid, but the emotion inside kept swelling, refusing to be locked away. Everything he wanted to feel some day. Fatherly pride. The soul-altering love for a child. His child.

But never, ever Shawnee’s child. He didn’t know if he could let go of that dream to reach for another. And he had to know. He couldn’t give her anything less than complete acceptance. If she would take it.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked.

Joe started. “What?”

“Dick Browning had his stroke less than a year after you left Oregon.” Cole pulled out another piece of gum, turned it between his fingers, then slid it back into the pack. “If you’d stayed, he would’ve made you a partner in Browning Rodeo instead of turning it over to his kid. Do you ever regret coming to Texas instead?”

“Those are two different questions.” Joe gazed out over the dusty plains beyond the oasis that was Miz Iris’s yard. “I will never stop missing Oregon, the same way you would never stop missing this place, no matter where you went or for how long. It’s in here.” Joe pressed his palm flat over his heart. Then he searched out Violet, who was watching them intently from across the lawn, and what Cole saw in his eyes was so deep, so true, it was almost painful to witness. “But regrets? None.”

And in that single look, Cole found his answer. There was no decision to be made because there wouldn’t be another woman. No children. Shawnee was his one and only shot at getting this right. If he lost her, he would just keep folding in and in, until no one could reach him ever again.

He couldn’t lose her. But how could he make her stay? “If Violet hadn’t come after you, would you have come back?”

“I don’t know.” Joe dipped his chin and worried a barbed wire scratch on his wrist. “I’d like to say yes—I imagine Wyatt would’ve found some way to make me—but on my own? I’m not sure I could have convinced myself that I deserved this.”

Cole nodded slowly, thought for a while longer, then stood up and started for his pickup.

“Cole?”

He paused, half-turning to look at Joe.

“You probably can’t stop her from leaving, but it’s not because she doesn’t love you and want to be with you. Make sure she knows she can always come back.”

“Okay,” Cole said.

As if it was as easy as that.