"Always," I automatically responded. "What are you doing here, Magnus?"
Magnus looked around him and then reached out to stroke his fingers over Jenna's name on the headstone. "Had to say goodbye to my girl."
"I could have taken you," I said quietly, resisting the urge to reach out and touch his face.
Magnus shook his head. "Wanted to go for one last ride with her," he murmured as he motioned to the horses who were standing quietly a few feet away. He hadn't even tied them up beyond stringing Dolce's reins to the horn on Ace's saddle. But they must have sensed their owner's distress, because they remained unmoving, not even leaning their heads down to graze on the sparse grass.
"Come meet her," Magnus murmured as he held out his hand to me. His bleary eyes stabbed at something deep in my heart. It didn't look like he'd been crying, but I suspected that was because the alcohol was doing its job and dulling his pain with a false sense of contentment. I took his hand and let him maneuver me so I was sitting next to him, my back against the headstone. The ground was cold beneath my ass, but luckily it wasn't wet so it wasn't too uncomfortable. The sun was starting to set so my goal was to get Magnus out of here soon.
Magnus was quiet for a while as he played with the grass between our bodies. Even though Jenna's body wasn't buried there, he still seemed to focus on the ground as he spoke.
"They didn't know you, did they, baby girl?" he whispered. I suspected he was talking about the people who'd attended the wake. I'd overheard a lot of comments and while no one had been overtly disrespectful, I hadn't heard anything that told me who Jenna had been beyond her addiction. Rachel had been the only one who'd given me any insight into the kind-hearted but feisty girl Jenna had been before drugs had taken over her life.
"Will you tell me about her?" I asked Magnus. He looked at me and paused before nodding.
I watched as he leaned back against the headstone and rested his hands on his thighs. His eyes drifted shut and, for a moment, I thought maybe he'd nodded off. But then he said, "She was born two months premature. The doctors didn't think she'd make it, but she proved them wrong."
"She was a fighter," I offered.
He nodded. "So stubborn," he said softly, though there was no anger in his words and he actually smiled briefly. "She didn't like anyone doing things for her, not even when she was a little girl. And she was fearless."
Magnus opened his eyes and glanced at me. "To the point that some of the stuff she did scared the shit out of me."
"Like what?"
"She'd climb that tree out in the front yard just to get a look at the eggs the robins would lay in this nest about halfway up."
I smiled. The tree Magnus was talking about was huge. "That must have left you with a few extra grays. How old was she?"
Magnus laughed. "Six. That wasn't the worst part. I'd go out there and yell at her to come down, but instead of climbing all the way down, she'd stop at the last branch and yell, 'Daddy, catch me' a second before she'd jump. Nearly gave me a fucking heart attack the first time she did it."
"I bet," I said with a chuckle.
"I caught her every time," Magnus whispered, his voice breaking. "I kept telling her she needed to stop doing it because there might be a day where'd I'd miss."
"What did she say?"
"She just shook her head and said, 'No you won't, Daddy.'"
I ached to reach out and touch Magnus, to offer comfort. But I wasn't sure how that would go over, so I settled for resting my shoulder against his. I considered it a victory when he didn't pull away to put space between us.
"What else?"
"She had a soft heart," he said. "When she found out that Colton's cattle were beef cattle, she used a wire cutter to cut his fence and then used Dolce to herd the cows to the back of our property line where she thought she could hide them."
I laughed. "She was a rustler."
Magnus nodded and smiled. "Thirteen years old. She wasn't sorry either. When we found her, she proceeded to lecture Colton on why he shouldn't be raising his cows to be someone's dinner and then began rattling off the names she'd given to them. There were nearly a hundred cows in the group she'd stolen. She stopped eating meat after that."
He paused for a moment and looked around the desolate cemetery. "She was so fucking strong, Dante. You should have seen her," he murmured. "And Matty … she loved him so much. She even managed to stay clean long enough to have him. She was terrified he'd end up being born an addict … or worse."
"She sounds like an amazing girl."
Magnus nodded and shifted closer to me so that our arms were pressed together and I couldn't help but wonder if he needed the contact because it was starting to get colder out or if he had a different reason.
"I didn't see it coming," he said in a hushed voice.
"What?" I asked.
"The drugs." He shook his head. "How could I not see it?"
"Sometimes you can do everything right and still have everything go wrong," I finally said.
We were both silent for a while and then I felt the weight of Magnus's head as he rested his cheek on my shoulder. "I'm tired, Dante," he whispered and I didn't need to look at him to know the tears he'd used the alcohol to keep at bay had finally started to fall.
"I know you are, Magnus."
I didn't know what else to say, but as more and more moisture soaked through my shirt, I turned my upper body and wrapped my arm around him, urging him to my chest. He pressed his forehead against me for a moment, but he was too quiet.
"It's okay, Magnus. You can let go," I whispered in his ear. A moment later, a strangled sob escaped his throat and his arms went around me. His hold was brutally tight, but I welcomed it. I pulled him closer until his face was resting in the crook of my neck and I dug my fingers into his back so he had no doubt that I wasn't letting him go.
I was emotionally drained by the time Magnus's shaking body settled and his breathing slowed. He eased his stranglehold on me, but didn't release me all together. I leaned us back against the headstone, but kept Magnus tucked up against my side. Since he was resting quietly, I pulled my phone out of my pocket with my free hand and dialed Colton's number. I was glad I'd had the forethought to exchange numbers with him earlier since I didn't know if Magnus had his phone on him or not.
"Hey, it's Dante," I said when he answered. "I found him."
"He okay?" Colton asked, his voice thick with worry.
"Yeah. I need a favor."
"Of course."
"You've got a horse trailer, right?"
"Yeah, I do," Colton responded.
"Can you come pick up the horses? At the cemetery."
There was a long pause and then Colton said, "I'm on my way."
"Thanks." I hung up the phone and realized maybe I'd misjudged the man.
After a few more minutes, Magnus sat up, forcing me to release him. He wiped at his eyes and then hung his head, presumably in embarrassment. I didn't know what to say to him to ease the humiliation he had to be feeling. The man was a master at controlling his emotions around others and I had no doubt he was smarting now that he'd exposed such a raw part of himself to me.
"Dante." Magnus's voice was laden with pain and exhaustion.
"Yeah?"
"Can you take me home now, please?"
I wanted to do so much more than that, but I kept that fact to myself and said, "Yeah, Magnus, I can."
I climbed to my feet and reached my hand down to his. He took it without hesitation. Once he was on his feet, he wobbled a bit, but stayed upright. I reluctantly released my hold on him, but stayed near his side as we began walking towards the SUV. I remembered the horses and was about to tell Magnus to hang on while I went to get them, but one glance over my shoulder showed that both animals were following us. Once we reached the truck, I opened the passenger side for Magnus and steadied his arm as he climbed in. When he made no move to buckle himself in, I realized I'd need to do it for him and since the SUV was too high for me just to reach over him to buckle the seatbelt, I had to stand on the running board. As I was leaning across his lap to lock the belt into the buckle, his hand came up to brush my face and I stilled at the rush of longing that went through me. I straightened enough so that our faces were nearly even. I tried to speak, but the power of speech seemed to have left me because I could do nothing but stand there in stunned silence as his thumb followed the line of my jaw and then brushed over my lower lip.
"So beautiful," Magnus murmured and I felt my insides clench painfully.
He doesn't know what he's saying.
So why the fuck couldn't I move? Why couldn't I remove his hand? Why the hell had I let my lips part instead of dragging them free of the incendiary contact? Why were my fingers digging into the arm he was resting on his lap?
"Dante … " he murmured, his voice husky, desperate … pleading. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt what he wanted.
Jesus, I couldn't do this. Even if he didn't remember anything tomorrow, I would. But yet I still leaned forward … enough to watch Magnus's eyes drift shut and to smell the faint scent of scotch on his breath.