The body is something that’s constantly keeping score. You might think you’re young enough that it’s on your side, think you can get away with some things, might think you can even trick it. Part of the problem is that your body will go along with you too, it will let you think that you can just push and push and push and it will take it.

But it won’t do it for long.

After three weeks away fighting two different fires, being spiked out more often than not, I pushed my body to the limit. I survived on little sleep, on not enough food, I lost ten pounds, I rubbed my eyes until they bled and inhaled smoke until I was sure I’d never breathe properly again. I watched countless forests burn and burn, had a million close calls. I did it over and over again because I had to. I had to survive and adrenaline dragged me along.

But even on the bus ride back from California, when the fight was over, sleep didn’t come for me. I thought maybe it never would. That long monotonous journey on the I-5 sitting back in my seat, head against the window and trying to nod off, all I could think about was Del. I’m pretty sure I thought about her in a million different ways.

I’d missed her more this time than any other time. When I had to rise from the dirty ground at five a.m. and everything hurt, I’d think about her smile, the way it feels like it’s shooting joy right into you, like sunbeams to your heart. When I watched deer running from the forest, smoke billowing off of them, I’d think about her laugh, how loud and freeing it is, the kind of laugh that makes you laugh in return. When I set fire to the back burn and my ears roared with the fire’s rage, I’d think about her eyes and the way she looks at me sometimes.

Sometimes she looks at me like I’m her king.

There is no better feeling in the world than that.

The only problem is, I know I don’t deserve it.

And as much fun as it is to be with Del, I’m not sure how long it can keep going on as it is. I don’t want to think too much about it, about what we’re doing. I can’t imagine stopping and going back to the way things were but I know it’s probably the smartest thing to do. The last thing I want is for Del to develop feelings for me, feelings that will get us both in trouble, especially because I don’t know where I stand.

I should know where I stand. But I don’t.

Or maybe I’d rather be forever confused, in limbo, because the longer you’re in that state, then you don’t have to make any decisions and nothing can be your fault.

And that’s what my mind was running over the entire ride back to North Ridge. How much I love being with Del, how good the sex is, how badly I want to rush back into her arms, throw her on my bed and have my way with her. Feel that peace she gives me, that rush of contentment that no one else can, that nothing else can.

And I’d also think about how ill-equipped I am to deal with a relationship, especially me, especially with my job. I know, at least I hope to god, that if we do break things off and go back to being friends, that we can do so like nothing happened. I just know that if we became something serious, and then broke up, there would be no fixing us.

I would lose her forever.

We’ve known each other almost our whole lives and it would be gone.

No more future in our friendship.

I can’t imagine a life without Del in it.

Back and forth, back and forth my mind raged, being sweet on the present and worrying about the future, until finally I was dropped off at my house and then, then it all hit me at once.

My body finally gave up. I had plans, I wanted to text Del and tell her I was home but I couldn’t even pick up my phone and dial. My brain started to disconnect and the moment I got into the house, I collapsed on the couch.

I was in deep sleep for the night and then into the next day. Like I was in a fucking coma. I couldn’t wake up even if I tried.

It was a knock at my door that somehow managed to rouse me. When I finally got up and looked at the clock in the kitchen, it was already the afternoon the next day.

I automatically assumed it was Del at the door, though since she had been taking care of Conan daily, she probably would have walked right in. She didn’t even know I was home yet.

To my surprise it was Julie.

With a bottle of whisky.

It was like an angel appeared at my door since my house was completely dry and I didn’t have the strength to go out and get any.

She’d said she saw the bus come into town last night and wanted to offer me a token of appreciation for all my hard work. Said that the local paper had even done a story about us and Roy dying and the fires we’ve been fighting non-stop and she felt bad that I was having to go through all of that.

I think she just felt guilty for dumping me like she did. It was so long ago, or at least feels that way now. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. Even though I had hopes for the two of us, now that I’m with Del, being with Julie again isn’t on my radar.

Still, I invited her inside and we both sat on the couch and had a glass of whisky. I was still a bit out of it so I didn’t do much talking—not that I do anyway— and she went on about her job at the high school, and how she’s fitting into the town and that sort of thing.

It was completely innocent but I still felt a strange cloud of guilt over me. Maybe it was because I hadn’t contacted Del yet and I already had Julie in my house. I know that Del and I are just fooling around and it’s nothing serious—we haven’t talked about being exclusive, though I think it’s because it’s assumed—but it still felt wrong.

And yet I had Julie over anyway and even had a glass of whisky with her. I don’t know what my problem is but then again, I never have.

After she left, I texted Del to let her know that I was back in town but Del didn’t respond which was odd. So I decided to have some more whisky.

That’s where I’m at right now.

The whisky stage.

But I’ve sat on this couch for too long and I’m starting to see those flames creep up behind my eyes, feel the smoldering blackness building inside my soul. It happens slowly sometimes, catching you off-guard, sneaking up on you. I should have seen it coming, predicted it. This almost always happens when I return from a brutal shift and even though that was probably my last deployment for the year, it did its number on me.

If I was a better man I would have better ways to cope with this. To cope with everything that I am. I’d go to a counsellor, for one. Hell, majority of the guys on my team go to one to try and cope with the demands of the job, the things they’ve seen. A few of the smart ones do yoga, eat healthy, meditate, find ways to cope with the stress. Almost everyone is medicated. I was for my stress headaches until my doctor decided to cut me off, leaving me to get my pills via other ways.

And me, I just choose to wallow in it because that’s all I’ve ever known. And sometimes I’m not just wallowing in it, sometimes I’m being swallowed whole.

I’m out of pain meds now. All the bottles and baggies are empty. I could just sit here drinking but the house seems to be getting smaller, the walls closing in. I need the weight to lift, the sky to open. I need peace. I need to feel nothing.

I contemplate going by The Bear Trap to say hi to Del, but I feel like I might not be welcome. I don’t know why really, maybe because she still hasn’t texted me back. I should probably ask her about Conan, I really would have thought she would have come by today to feed him, but I guess if she got my text and saw I was home, there was no need for it.

She just saw my text and didn’t respond.

Before I have a chance to stew on it anymore, I get in my Jeep and roar toward Ravenswood Ranch. My father hurt his hip earlier this year after he fell from his horse and though he’s almost fully healed, I know he was given a fuckload of drugs to help him manage the pain. I also know that because my father is such a hardass, he didn’t rely on the pills for too long, so he might have some left over.

I haven’t told anyone that I’m back in town yet, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get into the house without much fuss. It’s seven o’ clock at night which means there’s a good chance that my father and Shane are out at the cattle barn sorting through hay. Fall is a busy time, especially when the threat of snow is around the corner. There’s always my grandfather to think about, but more often than not he’s sleeping on the couch with a glass of whisky in hand and as spritely as he is, he’s not one to pry too much, at least not with my life.

But when I carefully open the door and step inside the house, I see Shane in the kitchen drinking a glass of water, dressed like some grunge cowboy in battered jeans and a dusty, faded flannel shirt.

Great.

“You’re back,” he says to me in a strained voice. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Yeah,” I say, stopping in the middle of the living room. “Where’s dad and grandpa?”

He finishes his water, swallowing it down, his eyes studying me carefully. “Dad’s down at the barn, Gramps is at the grocery store with Vernalee. Why? When did you get back?”

I’m not sure what it is about his tone that I don’t like but I don’t like it.

“No reason. And I got back last night.”

“Have you talked to Del?”

I frown. “Why would I talk to Del?”

He shrugs, rinses out the glass in the sink. “No reason other than the fact that you always talk to Del.”

I narrow my eyes at him. I don’t like his tone, I don’t like him mentioning Del. In fact, I hate the fact that everyone knows about us. I’ve had to endure so much ribbing and speculation from my brothers for years about our relationship and now that it’s actually become the damn thing they’d been harassing me about, I feel like I’m unable to live it down.

I know I shouldn’t blame Del for telling people but I wish she’d kept quiet about it. But maybe it’s my fault for not facing it head on and having a discussion about it before it was too late.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks. “You seem edgy.”

“You try battling a couple of monstrous forest fires non-stop for three weeks and see how you feel,” I snap. “Makes your prancing around the ranch look like kid playing with their ponies.”

It’s hard to get under Shane’s skin. This is probably why he aggravates me so much, he just is so fucking noble and austere that he never lets anything get to him. And he thinks of me as someone lesser than him, that I know for sure.

He rolls his eyes slightly. “Sorry for being concerned.”

“Yeah, concerned,” I repeat slowly, turning around and heading up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” he asks after me.

I don’t bother responding. Not sure when Shane decided he was in charge of the damn place but last I checked this wasn’t his ranch, nor was this his house. Until our father is gone, it all equally belongs to all of us and not just Shane because he’s the rancher around here and the apple of my father’s eye.

I head down the upstairs hallway, my head feeling heavy, this weighted anger in my chest, like cement blocks tied to a sinking dead body. I rarely come up here. I don’t like the vibes, the feeling I get. Things in this house changed after my mother died, as things do with time. But this hallway, my old bedroom, everything looks and feels like it did before.

Even though I know I shouldn’t, I pause by my old bedroom and lean against the doorway looking in. It’s pretty much empty, just my old bed in the corner and a dresser. At one point I had posters on the walls, of cars and pretty girls and the usual teenage thing, but those have been taken down by someone at some point.

But it’s not my teenage days that I’m remembering when I’m here.

It’s when I was a kid.

It’s always the day when my mother died.

It’s always what I said.

“I hate you.”

I close my eyes, take a shaking breath through my nose.

I hate how much the past still has a hold on me, has its claws in me, serrated and razor-sharp. I hate that I’ve not been able to move past it, that no matter what I’ve done in my life, it won’t let me go.

I see that little boy and I know I could have done more to save her, to help her. If I had been better, she wouldn’t have killed herself.

If I hadn’t told her I hated her…

The world seems to swim and I open my eyes, refusing to sink again, refusing to feel this pain.

I keep going down the hall until I’m in my father’s bedroom.

It’s strange now that he shares it with Vernalee. I don’t dislike her by any means but I guess it’s strange to see him with anyone. Thankfully Vernalee has redecorated the place enough and my father remodeled the bathroom so it doesn’t feel exactly like I’ve stepped back into the nightmares of my childhood.

I open the medicine cabinet, rifling through the large collection of prescription pills that all old people seem to accumulate over time and never throw out.

Finally, I find the prescription opiates and open it, shaking two out into my palm and popping them into my mouth. Then I decide to just pocket the whole bottle. He won’t even notice.

“What are you doing?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I turn around and see Shane staring at me, standing in the door way.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I ask him snidely.

“Like you’re stealing pills,” he says. “What was that?”

I shrug. “Something for my headaches. I ran out of my prescription.”

“What headaches?” he asks suspiciously.

“The ones I get,” I tell him, heading toward the bedroom door. “From stress. From people like you.”

To my surprise, he doesn’t get out of the way. Just folds his arms and stays where he is.

“Get the fuck out of the way,” I growl at him. I’m having a flashback to one of many times when we were younger and our arguments usually ended in a fistfight. Or at least my fist striking him. He could be passive even when I was slamming him to the ground.

“What the hell is your problem Fox?” he asks and finally, finally there’s an edge to his voice. I’m actually getting under his skin.

“You, being in my way,” I tell him, taking a step closer until I’m right up against him. “Now move, or I will make you move.”

But he doesn’t move. The fucker stands his ground. I shift tactics.

“How is it that you can still live here?” I ask him, staring at him point blank, scrutinizing every movement of his face.

He gives me nothing, his features impassive. “What do you mean?”

“Here, Shane. On this ranch. After our mother died, I couldn’t wait to get out of here. Neither could Mav. But you, you Shane, you didn’t seem to care. You never even moved. You just stayed. Why is that?”

The muscle ticks along his jaw. “You’re not yourself Fox.”

“I wish that were true,” I tell him. “I wish I were anyone else but me. Do you know why that is? Because she died, Shane. And maybe you don’t understand that because you have no memories of her. Maybe that’s why this house doesn’t mean anything to you, because she didn’t mean anything to you.”

Something dark comes over Shane’s eyes and for a moment I think I may have taken it too far. I swallow, my body primed in case he tries to punch me.

“Are we actually talking about this now?” Shane asks, his voice hard and steady.

“Talk about what?”

“About her. About us. About your fucking problem with me.”

I can’t help but grin and I know it’s coming across as bitter as it feels.

“I have problems Shane, but they aren’t with you. Now, if you don’t mind, get the fuck out of my way.”

He stares at me, nostrils flaring, and then, just as quickly as the anger came over him, it leaves. His face goes blank and he steps to the side.

I step past him as he says, “You have problems with everyone Fox. That’s why you’re turning into a drunk and a druggie.”

I freeze in my tracks, not believing my ears. Turn around to look at him.

“Excuse me?” I’m nearly whispering and it’s hard to hear my words over my heart throbbing in my head.

“You heard me,” he says, the shadows from the lights above falling on his face, making him look sinister, like someone else. For a weird moment I think that maybe this isn’t even Shane at all, that he’s been replaced. He’s not even making sense.

“Stealing fucking medication from our father,” he says, practically spitting. “You’re in your thirties, Fox, you need to grow up not act like a fucking emo teenager anymore.”

My fists curl, the muscles on my forearms popping as I try to rein in the need to punch him in the face. “Do you know what I do for a living?”

“I know. Everyone knows. You’re the hero of the town. You’re out there risking your ass to save everyone. Then you come back home and you’re miserable. You’re closed in, shut-off and angry all the damn time and you’re constantly lashing out and pushing away the people who matter to you the most.”

I shake my head, my jaw grinding down. “You have no idea what it’s like to be me. No fucking idea. I remember my mother—”

“She was my mother too!” he interjects.

“Well you fucking don’t act like it!” I yell right back. “You were just a fucking baby and it was because of you that she became depressed.”

“So it’s my fault she died?”

No. It’s my fault.

I swallow, my throat feeling tight, thick, while the hot coals of anger simmer inside. “You just don’t know. You never had to experience loss like I did, like Mav did.”

“Then explain why Maverick is a fucking saint compared to you. Huh? Tell me why Mav has his shit together and you don’t. That means it’s all on you, brother, you’re fucking up your own damn life.”

I reach out and poke him squarely in the chest, hard enough for him to stumble back a step. “And it’s my own life to fuck up. It shouldn’t affect anyone but me, it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but mine. So keep your head down and fuck off.”

“It’s no longer just your life, Fox,” Shane growls, regaining his balance, his eyes glittering with dark menace. “It’s Del’s and your baby’s. And you have to get yourself under control for the both of them.”

I blink, staring at him blankly. “What?”

I’m not sure what he meant by that.

I think I know what he said but…

And for a moment it looks like he doesn’t know either. He straightens up, raises his chin, mouth clamping together. He doesn’t explain. He looks…scared.

“Shane?” I say hoarsely and for some reason my voice is trembling. My heart has started to race. “What did you just say?”

“Forget it,” he says, looking away. “I’m tired. I’ve got to go.”

With his head down he tries to walk past me but I grab him by the collar and slam him up against the wall, hard enough that the pictures along it shake.

“What the fuck did you just say?” I growl. “Del and…our baby? What baby?”

It doesn’t even sound right coming from my mouth.

Shane closes his eyes, breathing in deep through his nose, rubbing his lips together like he’s trying to maintain composure. “Fuck.”

My grip on his shirt tightens. “Fuck what, exactly?”

He sighs and looks off down the hall, his eyes looking pained. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything. She was supposed to tell you. I guess I thought she had…”

Fucking hell. “Tell me what? What?”

“I guess I’ve fucked up at this point so I might as well.” He pauses, his head going back and banging against the wall. “Shit. Fuck.”

I let go of him, waiting.

He absently smooths the collar of his shirt and says, “Del is pregnant.”

What?

I can’t…

Oh, fuck.

Oh, no.

No.

I’m suddenly finding it very hard to breathe. “She’s what?”

“Pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

He gives me a wry smile. “Oh yeah. I had suspected it and got her to take a test. Then another one. I was there, I saw for myself. Then she went to the doctor and it was confirmed.”

“Holy shit,” I whisper, my hands going to my hair, making fists in them. I can’t seem to focus on anything, the pattern in the carpet is moving in and out. I lean against the wall, deadweight on my feet. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. So she’s been dealing with that. Only a few of us know. Me, Rachel, her mother. That’s it.”

“Del is pregnant,” I repeat. How could that even be? “She said she was on the pill,” I say meekly, as if that will just cancel the whole thing.

“It happens,” he says.

“Fuck.”

“I wish I wasn’t the one to tell you.”

I look him in the eye. “I’m not. I’m glad you did. I can fucking lose my mind with you…I couldn’t do this with Del.”

“If it makes you feel any better, she’s freaking out too.”

It doesn’t make me feel better. In fact, it makes everything that much worse.

“Why the fuck didn’t she tell me?”

Shane shrugs. “She was waiting for you to get back.”

“Yeah well I fucking got back and let her know and she didn’t even answer. She could have called me. Texted me. Now I feel like I’m the last to know.”

“You’re not.”

“You know, of all fucking people. My own brother knows before me. And why the fuck were you with her anyway getting her pregnancy tests?”

“I just was, okay?” he snipes. “Like you should have been.”

“She still should have told me. I can’t believe this. Is she, you know, going through with it?”

I know Shane knows. I know he knows everything about this, that he’s been through it all for the last three weeks while I’ve been gone.

“You should talk to her about this, Fox. Not me.”

“If she wanted that, she should have fucking reached out to me.”

“She’s been busy. She has the pub quiz night on tonight. Maybe she didn’t even get your text.”

But I barely hear him.

I can’t be here anymore.

I need to see her.

I need to hear it from her own mouth.

I need to know why she’s kept this from me for three fucking weeks.

I storm off down the hall, hearing Shane calling for me, saying I shouldn’t drive, but I don’t care. I get in the Jeep and roar off down the road, straight to the pub.