Court slipped the hat off his head and worried the brim with his calloused hands. “I don’t know what to do. I…I just can’t seem to make the right decisions.”
“Like killing yourself?” Rowan whispered harshly.
Court gaped at her.
“What are you thinking?! Huh? What on Earth is going through your head? That we’d be better off without you?” She felt incredibly guilty about her last conversation with Seth, even though Court hadn’t heard it. She hadn’t meant it. Not really. She didn’t want Court to crawl under a rock and die. And not just for Willow’s sake. At one time she had loved him, had seen something good in him. She couldn’t wish him ill, at least not in that way.
“Don’t you do it,” Rowan demanded. “Don’t you dare. I’m sorry about what happened with your father, but that’s not the road you need to go down. No one wants that. Not me, not your family, and not our daughter. Willow’s maybe the one person in the whole world that you haven’t let down. Yet. Just get it right with her, Court. Start with her.”
“And then what?” He looked at her with a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and Rowan was damn sorry for it and knew it was a dangerous time to make him understand, but she couldn’t let him think that they had a future.
“We’ll never get back what we had, Court. We can’t. Because we never really had much that was good. It’s over between us. We’ll never be together again. But we have a daughter. And she needs us. Both of us.” Rowan cupped his face and held his gaze to hers. “Just get this right. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen for you. But it’s not about you. It’s about Willow. Get it right for her. And I’m sorry, but…maybe whatever happens to you, happens.”
Court placed his hands over hers. His gaze was dark and brooding, but he didn’t pull them away. “You mean end up alone.”
Rowan hesitated. It was a terrible fate, for anyone. And, hell, possibly one she’d end up with herself. But she couldn’t predict the future, for either of them. Nor did she want to try. “Maybe,” she replied, because she didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t want to lie, either. “But she’s worth it, Court. I swear to you she is. And she needs you. She needs you to love her enough to stick around.”
Rowan hadn’t intended it as a barb, but it sure sounded like one anyway. Both she and Court winced as the words tumbled out of her mouth. Court had never loved any woman enough to stay, to be loyal, to be faithful. “She’s just a little girl, Court. And she loves you.”
“What about you?” he asked suddenly.
“I…Court, you’re the father of my child. I’ll always…care…about you.”
He smiled thinly but shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Are you going to end up alone?”
Rowan didn’t answer for a moment, because she truly didn’t know. “I have to get my dad his medications from the pharmacy today. And bring in the flock. And make dinner. And get Willow ready for bed, and honestly, Court, that’s all I can think about right now. That’s all I can put on my plate right now.”
“I can bring in your flock while you’re gone. And you can leave Willow with me. If you want.”
Rowan hesitated, eyeing him closely.
“No half-wild horses, I promise.”
“And you won’t take her anywhere?”
Court shook his head. “No. We’ll stay right here, and I won’t take my eyes off her. Not for a second.”
Rowan chewed her lip and glanced at her watch. The pharmacy would close soon, and it would be so much easier if Willow wasn’t with her.
“Don’t. Go. Anywhere,” she growled.
“We won’t.”
“And don’t…” She paused trying to think of all the ways this could go wrong. “Don’t feed her anything. I’ll make dinner when we get back.”
“Got it.”
Rowan almost walked away then, almost left it at that, even though she was nervous about the very idea on the whole. But he was Willow’s father. And he was willing to try. It was unreasonable to keep both father and daughter on a leash for the rest of their lives. “You…” She licked her lips and pulled her jacket tighter around herself. “You can stay for dinner.”
Court brightened as a goofy grin crossed his face, the one she always pictured whenever she’d thought about him over the years. Rowan smiled, too, unable to help herself. “So…can we be friends?”
Rowan snorted a little at the suggestion. “I don’t know, Court,” she said honestly. “I don’t know if it’s possible for us to be friends. But we’re parents, and we need to find a way to get along. For her sake.”
She gathered Dad’s prescriptions and waved to the old man as he sat on the porch, watching over Court and Willow. Cranking the engine of the car, she hesitated for a moment then rolled out toward town feeling a strange combination of apprehensive relief.
Chapter Thirty-One
‡
Seth stood in front of Saint Joseph’s, waiting for everyone to get out of their trucks. He helped Sofia onto the sidewalk while scanning the crowd of people arriving. He finally spotted Mac, Rowan, and Willow getting out of Rowan’s car and started to cross the parking lot to them, but the look on Rowan’s face when she spotted him made him stay where he was.
Court approached them instead, picked up Willow, and shook Mac’s hand. Neither Mac nor Rowan looked especially pleased about it, but Willow was happy, and Seth supposed that was all that really mattered.
After all, Easter was for families.
He hung back, alone, while everyone else filed into the church, heading inside himself at the very last ring of the bells. He sat next to Sawyer and the rest of his clan while Court took the end of the pew with the Archers, apparently ignoring Emma’s dirty looks.
Mass was uncomfortable, mostly because Seth couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Rowan or stop himself from picturing her in bed. Which made him picture her in bed with Court, which was never going to happen, he realized, but Rowan was going to end up with someone.
Someone who wasn’t him.
And that made his blood boil.
He didn’t take communion , because he didn’t feel worthy. But he wasn’t going to go to confession either, because, well, he wasn’t a damn bit sorry for his relationship with her. There was little difference, Seth decided, between the real Hell and the one he was living in now. He loved Rowan, and nothing about that was wrong, just complicated. It wasn’t until Sawyer caught him staring at the Archers that Seth finally looked away.
Eager to get out and get back home, Seth started to make his way to the exit the minute the service was officially over, but he got caught in the bottleneck of people trying to do the same, and behind him he heard his family, their familiar voices drifting through the crowd, catch up to him. He glanced over his shoulder and realized Rowan and her family were stuck as well.
She wouldn’t even meet Seth’s gaze. In fact, it seemed to him that she was very studiously trying to ignore his presence.
Walker cleared his throat, looking a bit awkward in the throng of people.
Other parishioners were staring at them as they shuffled past, slowing down, presumably so they could listen in on the stilted conversation between the two families.
Court put a hand on Rowan’s shoulder, which made Seth grit his teeth, but even he could appreciate the steely gazes the youngest Barlow was giving people as they passed, glancing at them all furtively. One thing was abundantly clear—no one was going to let an outsider belittle or point fingers at Rowan.
Court, Willow, and Rowan gave off the facade of a young, happy family, and to that end—protecting Rowan’s reputation—Seth made no bones about it.
“You should come to dinner,” Walker said to Mac and Rowan.
“We can’t,” said Emma in a clipped tone. “We have to be at Troy’s parents’.”
Rowan bit her lip, and her eyes darted back and forth between the two heads of the families, trying to think of her own excuse. “We…well, Dad’s still recovering. And we should get home so he can rest and—”
But Mac interrupted her. “No,” he said. “I’m all right. We should go.”
Rowan opened her mouth again, about to protest.
“We’re family,” Walker insisted, and Mac Archer smiled, looking relieved to hear it.
“We are,” he said, possibly a bit too loudly. But it was crowded in the vestibule.
Walker held the door so everyone could pass through, then he let it fall on Bessie Hamilton, who was practically running to stay in step with them. She blanched at the evil eye Walker gave her just before the heavy double doors clicked shut.
At Snake River, Dakota saddled up Caramel, and Court swooped Willow onto the pony’s back. Mac declared it a fine little pony indeed as Dakota led her at a steady pace. Seth couldn’t help but hover nearby, but at a respectful distance, stacking hay bales over and over just to be closer to the group. He knew he should leave, saddle up Choctaw and get the hell out of there for a while, put as much space between himself and Snake River as he could. He didn’t want to see Rowan here, surrounded by the others. He wanted her alone, at the Archer place, where even if they could no longer touch each other, he could talk to her, spend some time with her.