The chaplain was the first to make a noise, even though it was only a clearing of his throat. “Would you mind sharing how this . . . this . . . signifies your father?” The poor chaplain couldn’t even bring himself to say it.
Me, on the other hand, had no problem. A cap of Jack was home sweet home in my world. “Clay liked to drink. A lot. He also liked throwing empty bottles at me when I did something that irritated him. Like brush my teeth before bed. Or eat a package of Saltines for dinner. Or, when I was still dumb and hopeful as a child, ask for a hug before bedtime.”
I noticed Rowen take Jesse’s hand. It was an easy gesture. Effortless. Almost like her hand had acted of its own accord.
“The bottle that cap came from was the last one Clay threw my way. The one he threw at me the night he died. Right before I left. The last one he’ll ever throw at me. I would have brought the bottle, but it was busted to shit. Totally unsalvageable. But that right there, the cap to a bottle of Jack, meant Clay died with the good stuff in him. That meant it was the first of the month and his disability check had just come in. That meant he had a couple more days of drinking the good stuff out of a bottle before switching over to the stuff out of a plastic jug that turned a person’s insides. My dad died with the good stuff in him. That’s all a person like Clay Walker could ask from life.”
I was still staring at Jesse’s and Rowen’s entwined hands. The longer I studied their hands, the more I realized I never had and never would have that. Someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with and take on life one day at a time. Someone to know what I needed before I even said it. Someone who loved me without conditions. Hell, someone who loved me even with conditions. I’d been with a lot of women, so many women I couldn’t tell if it was closer to dozens or hundreds, and never once had I come close to loving a single one of them. They’d come about as close to loving me.
Whatever Jesse and Rowen had, what Neil and Rose had, whatever that was, I made sure to steer clear of it. Most of my life, I’d considered that a blessing. One or both parties falling in love just made things messy. Complicated the good thing going on. But standing at my father’s funeral, where a whiskey cap stood in his place, alone and with no one to take my hand before I even knew I wanted it held, felt like a curse.
“So this cap signifies freedom? Your father’s departure from this world has freed him from the clutches of addiction,” the chaplain said after a while.
“Sure, this cap signifies freedom. My freedom from him.”
The chaplain’s eyes widened—just barely but enough to tell me that I’d said something to shock him. I hadn’t been going for shock value; I’d been going for the truth. He was back to being tongue-tied, and the air around me was thick with dead silence, when Josie nudged closer to me. Her hand reached for mine, twisting against it until my fist released, letting her fingers weave through mine. Without realizing I’d been holding it, I could breathe again.
Without realizing exactly what I needed, I suddenly had it. A measure of comfort exactly when I needed it. A silent need picked up on and responded to. It was foreign in the best kind of way. Josie’s hand heated mine, its warmth traveling up my arm and spreading until no sign of a chill was left to be found. No sign of the winter I’d lived in my entire life was still around.
“Would anyone like to say any last words?”
The chaplain’s words startled me out of whatever hand-holding, dreamy world I’d lost myself in. Good thing because that was a world I couldn’t be a part of. Not because I wouldn’t accept it, but because it wouldn’t accept me. I gave my head a shake to clear my thoughts, but even if I wanted to with all my will—which I didn’t—I couldn’t free my hand from Josie’s. I’d have to make sure the next time she was close by, I didn’t let her hand get too close to mine. As good as it felt, it would hurt like hell later when her hand was holding Colt Mason’s and mine was running over the body of some woman whose name I wouldn’t remember in the morning. Holding her hand was short-lived and would do way more damage than good in the long run.
“I suppose I should send a sympathy card to Mr. Baker, the owner of the liquor store downtown, since his best customer won’t stumble through his front doors again. He’s probably going to go out of business. Now that’s a tragedy.” I capped my “last words” with a chuckle, but if I thought the silence had been thick before, I’d been wrong.
The fact that Jesse wasn’t shaking his head and muttering jackass or that Josie wasn’t sighing and elbowing me meant my attempt at humor had been timed badly. Too much, too soon. But how the hell was I supposed to deal with it? How the hell was I supposed to muster up some last words that weren’t depressing as all hell or, as I’d chosen, tongue-in-cheek? There was nothing heartfelt to be said. Nothing even moderately endearing.
For the second time in a few minutes, the chaplain looked tongue-tied, positively stumped as where to take the runaway train next. That was when Neil nudged between Jesse and me, making his way up to the chaplain. Like his son, Neil was sporting a suit. I’d never seen Neil in anything besides a pair of jeans.
Clasping his hands in front of him, he searched the sky for a moment. “I know Clay was a man who left a person feeling conflicted most of the time. A man like him is hard to know what to make of.” I wanted to mutter No shit, but the chaplain was watching me carefully. Probably knew the exact words I was biting back. “But I will never forget the first time Garth and Jesse rodeoed together. It was the summer they were eleven years old. Garth was out there on an ornery, old steer—stayed on the whole time, too—and took one hell of a score. Clay was standing beside me, and he nudged me, his eyes focused on Garth, and said, ‘That’s my boy.’” Neil paused long enough to make sure I was looking at him. He nodded, tipping his hat. “That’s how I’m going to choose to remember Clay Black. As a man who was proud of his son, as hard of a time as he had of showing it most of the time.” Dropping his attention to the whiskey cap, he tilted his hat once more before rejoining his family.
The chaplain took it from there, but if someone had asked me what he said, I couldn’t have told them. I didn’t hear another word after Neil’s speech. To say it felt like I’d been hit with the biggest sucker punch of my life would be an understatement. I remembered that day. I’d taken home my first championship belt buckle, and I’d been so sure Clay had been passed out drunk in his truck like I found him later that afternoon. I’d been so certain he missed one of the few times in my life I actually wanted him to be a part of so he could see what I was capable of and maybe, just maybe, feel a moment of pride. I’d believed he’d missed that moment, along with the few others that might have been worth an ounce of pride in Clay Black.
According to Neil, I’d been wrong. Clay saw me that afternoon. He’d said . . . That’s my . . .
I don’t need this shit. Not now. Not ever. Gritting my teeth, I emptied my head and managed to stay silent and in place until the chaplain was finished. It was one of the hardest things I’d done.
As the chaplain passed me, he offered yet another small smile. “Peace be with you, son.”
“Peace has never been a big fan of mine. Or me of it.” My words weren’t meant to be argumentative but informative. Peace and I resided on opposite sides of the universe.
“But like you said, your father’s death has given you a new freedom. Freedom to be and do whatever you like.” The chaplain patted my shoulder before heading toward the trail. “Give peace a try. I can guarantee it’s not as overrated as you might believe.”
“Says the man who says good-bye with peace be with you,” I muttered. The chaplain was out of hearing range, but Josie’s elbow in my ribs confirmed she hadn’t missed it. “And what are you doing here, by the way? I thought you had wannabe cowboys to date, and mean ones who picked fights in bars to avoid.”
“I’m paying my respects,” she replied, refusing to make eye contact.
I huffed. “You hated Clay almost as much as I did.”
“I’m not paying my respect
s to him.” Turning toward me, her gaze shifted from the whiskey cap on top of the rock to me. I’d told myself hundreds of times, possibly thousands, that I needed to avoid looking into Josie’s eyes at all costs. Every single time she did what she was doing then—staring at me, waiting for me to stare back—I forgot all of my warnings and broke my golden rule: stay away from Josie Gibson. “I’m here to pay my respects to you.”
My eyebrows came together and, before I could figure out what she’d said and what I should say, she threw her arms around me, gave me a quick squeeze, and hurried back up the trail. But not before kicking off her heels to run up it barefoot.
Jesse came up behind me. “What was that?”
“Women are mysterious creatures bound to make a man crazy if he spends too much time trying to decode their every move.”
“Amen.” Jesse chuckled. An exaggerated clearing of a certain young woman’s throat stopped his laugh mid-stream. “I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.”
“Having you gone so much this year, I almost forgot what a little girl you’ve become.” Spinning around, I patted his cheek. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“I’ve missed you too, sweetheart.” Jesse shoved my chest lightly then tilted his chin down the river. “Wanna talk?”
Jesse had been trying to talk to me for the past few days, but I’d done one of the few things I did best and avoided him. Not because I was avoiding him per say, but because I wanted to avoid anything to do with talking about Clay, what happened, and the all-important what now? The first two subjects I could navigate if need be. The last one, though—the what now?—I didn’t have a fucking clue where to start. So I’d been avoiding, ignoring, and pretty much hiding from Jess.
“Not even remotely,” I answered him, nodding my acknowledgement as the Walker family passed me, heading back up the trail. Truthfully, I was touched they’d come, but hell if I could find the words to tell them so.
“Too bad.” Jesse kissed Rowen, whispered something to her, and shouldered past me to head down the river. I knew where he was going. We used to go down there and skip rocks as kids. As we got older, Jesse came down to fish during the day, and I brought my girl-of-the-hour down at night. Our favorite rock-skipping spot was a couple hundred yards upstream.
“You’re going to be waiting a while, Walker!” I hollered after him.
He kept walking. “See you in a minute then.”
“He is a serious pain in my ass,” I said as Rowen came up beside me.
“Aren’t you two peas in a pod then?” She watched Jesse until he disappeared before angling toward me. “I’m not going to ask how you’re doing, and I’m not going to ask if there’s anything I could do. I know those are the last questions you want to answer right now, and even if you did answer, your answers wouldn’t be honest, so I’ll just skip all the standard protocol if that’s okay with you.”
I smirked at her. “You are a fine woman, Rowen Sterling.”
She promptly returned my smirk. “Flattery gets you nowhere with me.”
I hitched my thumbs under my belt buckle. “And flattery gets you everywhere with me.”
Her mouth opened like whatever she wanted to say was on the tip of her tongue, but she clamped it shut, inhaled, and waited a few seconds. “You know, Garth, if you want to take some time off and get away for a while, Jesse and I’d be happy to have you at our place. It’s not much bigger than the cab of your truck, but the couch is yours whenever you need it. Seattle might not be your ideal scene, but there are plenty of bars chock full of women who’d jump at the chance to have a real life cowboy show them ‘the ropes.’”
Ah, hell. That was exactly what I didn’t want—people treating me differently because my daddy had burned to death. Everyone tiptoeing around me because who knew when I’d lose it. That Rowen was doing it—the one I was sure would be the last one to treat me like a walking time bomb—was a sobering reality.
“No fair. You didn’t warn me that the pity patrol were coming to town.” I wagged my index finger and tried to act like Rowen’s transformation into sympathetic when it came to me, was anything but staggering.
“That wasn’t pity, Garth.”
I laughed one hard note. “If that wasn’t pity, what the hell was it?”
Rowen stepped forward, her eyes narrowing just enough. “That was one misfit telling another misfit that she’s got your back should you need it. That was one misfit telling another that you don’t have to go through whatever you’re going through alone. That was me telling you that you’ve got friends. So lean on them, god dammit. Stop acting like every battle you face is a one-man-war.” Clearly irritated, Rowen headed for the trail. “It doesn’t have to be Garth Black against the whole world, you know. Give your friends a little more credit.” If I wasn’t so shocked, I might have thought about replying. She skidded to a stop, turned around, put her hands on her hips, and leveled me with a Rowen look. “And if you don’t go talk to him in the next two seconds, I am going to spread some nasty rumors about you on the women’s restroom stalls of every public place in the state. Rumors that will ensure the only action you’ll get for the rest of your life will be from the soft side of your hand.”
Lifting my arms, I started down the river. “How can I say no to a woman who talks dirty to me?”
A smile broke on Rowen’s face before she recomposed herself. I flashed a salute at her before continuing upstream. I hadn’t been up that way a while, and I’d forgotten how many damn slippery rocks there were. I caught myself from wiping out every other step, and my slick-bottom boots only made a precarious situation lethal.
“I lost the boots fifty feet back! Might want to do the same if you’re hoping to not break your neck!” Jesse yelled from his perch on one of the tall rocks dotting the riverbank.
“We wouldn’t want the town going and throwing a celebration party if both Black men died in the same week, would we?” I replied, continuing over the treacherous terrain. “Thanks for the tip but no thanks. I’m a cowboy. The real kind. We don’t take our boots off, god dammit.”
Jesse tossed a pebble my way. “Don’t or won’t?”
“With me, Jess, they are one and the same.” After slipping yet again, I finally made it to the rock Jesse had climbed and heaved myself up. “Nice suit, shithead.” The only time I’d seen Jesse in a suit was at a funeral or a school dance. In Montana, men only wear suits for death or dancing. True story.
“Nice lack of suit, dipshit.” Jesse shoved me as I sat beside him, keeping a respectable distance so we wouldn’t look like a couple of love birds watching the river pass by.
“So . . . now that you’ve got me out here which, by the way, is so very serene and inspiring”—I swept my arm dramatically—“why don’t you just let me have it so I can go get shit-faced like I need to. You don’t bury the man who wished he’d never given birth to you every day, you know.”
Jesse almost sounded like he mumbled dipshit, but I couldn’t be sure. Grabbing one of the flat rocks he’d piled up beside him, he flung it out into the river. It skipped five times. Weak. “How are you? What’s going on in that depraved head of yours right now?” Points for getting straight to the point. Negative points for getting straight to that point.
“I’m living the dream, Jess. Fucking on top of the world.” I grabbed my own rock and launched it out into the river. Six skips. I grinned.
“Yeah, you sure look like you’re living the dream.” Jesse didn’t examine the scruff on my face, or the dark circles under my eyes, or the notch I was down to on my belt. His words and tone said it all.
“Yeah, yeah. Bite me. Next question.” One down. Knowing Jesse, probably only a few million more to go.
“Do you need anything? Is there anything . . . you know . . . I can do for you?”
I wasn’t sure who looked more uncomfortable: Jesse or me. “You know, your fee-an-say knew better than to ask those exact same questions. She basically told me she knew I either wouldn’t give h
er an answer, or if I did, it wouldn’t be a straight one. So what makes you think I’ll give you an answer or a straight one?” I flung another rock, and it barely skipped three times. The stupid Kumbayah conversation was messing with my stone-skipping skills.
“Because I, unlike my sweet one hundred and twenty pound soaking wet fiancé, can and will happily kick your ass in order to beat the answers out of you if need be.” I broke out in laughter. Stomach-grabbing, body-rocking laughter. “What?” Jesse shoved my arm. “What’s so funny?”
After forcing myself to calm down, I answered him. “I can’t decide what’s funnier—you describing Rowen as sweet or being so confident you can kick my ass.”
“Watch it, Black. I can put up with you insulting me all the way to the second coming, but I won’t tolerate for one fraction of a second you insulting Rowen.” He interrupted me before I could say what I was about to. “In jest or not. I’m protective like that.”
“Protective? You? No way.” As much as I loved giving Jesse a hard time —in fact, it was a favorite pastime—when it came to Rowen, it was only out of habit. “You know I like the two of you at least ten times more than I like myself, right? I might talk a lot of shit, but you know if either of you needed anything . . . anything . . . I’d give my fucking life if need be. Right?” I nudged him, making sure he was getting what I was saying. I’d shove him straight off the rock if that’s what it took for him to get it. “Right, Jess? You know that, right?”
Jesse’s face couldn’t have gotten more solemn. Then he grinned. “Are we having another moment?”
I should have shoved him off the rock. “Shithead.”
Jesse laughed, sending another rock skipping into the river. I was too pissed to count. “I know. Difficult as you are and as much as I know you’d rather chop off your left arm than show any real emotion, I know you’ve got Rowen’s and my back when and if we need it.” He paused just long enough to cue me in that he was winding up to say something big. Jesse loved using dramatic pauses. “You do know, though, that friends-through-thick-and-thin goes both ways, right? You need something, we’re a phone call or a five-hundred mile drive away.”