Slow Burn Cowboy(88)

It was two of them, him and Sam. Two of them trying so damn hard to push this legacy back to where it had been. To make their family extend beyond these walls, beyond these borders. To fulfill all of the promises he’d made to his dad, even though the old man had never actually heard them.

Even though Chase had made them too late.

And so there was something about that. Anna, this moment, being for him. Something that he chose, instead of something that he’d inherited.

“I like when you look at me like that,” she said, her voice hushed.

“I like when you take control like you did back in the shop. I like seeing you realize how beautiful you are,” he said. It was true. He was glad that she knew now. And pissed that she was going to take that knowledge and work her magic on some other man with her newfound power. He wanted to kill that man.

But he could never hope to take his place, so he wouldn’t.

“You’re the first person who has made me feel like it all fit. And maybe it’s because you’re my friend. Maybe it’s because you know me,” she said.

“I don’t follow.”

“I had to be tough,” she said, her tone demonstrating just that. “All my life I’ve had to be tough. My brothers raised me, and they did a damn good job, and I know you think they’re jerks, and honestly a lot of the time they are. But they were young boys who were put in charge of taking care of their kid sister. So they took care of me, but they tortured me in that way only brothers can. Probably because I tortured them in ways that most little sisters could never dream. They didn’t go out in high school. They had to make sure I was taken care of. They didn’t trust my dad to do it. He wasn’t stable enough. He would go out to the bar and get drunk, and he would call needing a ride home. They handled things so that I didn’t have to. And I never felt like I could make their lives more difficult by showing how hard it was for me.”

She shifted, sighing heavily before she continued. “And then there was my dad. He didn’t know what to do with a daughter. As pissed as he was that his wife left, I think in some ways he was relieved, because he didn’t have to figure out how to fit a woman into his life anymore. But then I kind of started becoming a woman. And he really didn’t know what to do. So I learned how to work on cars. I learned how to talk about sports. I learned how to fit. Even though it pushed me right out of fitting when it came to school. When it came to making friends.”

He knew these things about Anna. Knew them because he’d absorbed them by being in her house, being near her, for fifteen years. But he’d never heard her say them. There was something different about that.

“You’ve always fit with me, Anna,” he said, his voice rough.

“I know. And even though we’ve never talked about this, I’m pretty sure somehow you knew all of it. You always have. Because you know me. And you accept me. Not very many people know about the musicals. Because it always embarrassed me. Kind of a girlie thing.”

“I guess so,” he said, the words feeling inadequate.

“Also, it was my thing. And...I never like anyone to know how much I care about things. I... My mom loved old musicals,” she said, her voice soft. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to watch them with her.”

“Anna...”

“I remember sneaking out of my room at night, seeing the TV flickering in the living room. She would be watching The Sound of Music or Cinderella. Oklahoma! of course. And I would just hang there in the hall. But I didn’t want to interrupt. Because by the end of the day she was always out of patience, and I knew she didn’t want any of the kids to talk to her. But it was kind of like watching them with her.” Anna’s eyes filled with tears. “But now I just wish I had. I wish I had gone in and sat next to her. I wish I had risked her being upset with me. I never got the chance. She left, and that was it. So, maybe she would’ve been mad at me, or maybe she wouldn’t have let me watch them with her. But at least I would’ve had the answer. Now I just wonder. I just remember that space between us. Me hiding in the hall, and her sitting on the couch. She never knew I was there. Maybe if I’d done a better job of connecting with her, she wouldn’t have left.”

“That’s not true, Anna.”

“She didn’t have anyone to watch the movies with, Chase. And my dad was so... I doubt he ever gave her a damn scrap of tenderness. But maybe I could have. I think... I think that’s what I was always trying to do with my dad. To make up for that. It was too late to make her stay, but I thought maybe I could hang on to him.”

Chase tried to breathe past the tightness in his chest, but it was nearly impossible. “Anna,” he said, “any parent that chooses to leave their child...the issue is with them. It was your parents’ marriage. It was your mom. I don’t know. But it was never you. It wasn’t you not watching a movie with her, or irritating her or making her angry. There was never anything you could do.”

She nodded, a tear tracking down her pale cheek. “I do know that.”

“But you still beat yourself up for it.”

“Of course I do.”

He didn’t have a response to that. She said it so matter-of-factly, as though there was nothing else but to blame herself, even if it made no sense. He had no response because he understood. Because he knew what it was like to twist a tragedy in a thousand different ways to figure out how you could take it on yourself. He knew what it was like to live your life with a gaping hole where someone you loved should be. To try to figure out how you could have stopped the loss from happening.

In the years since his parents’ accident he had moved beyond blame. Not because he was stronger than Anna, just because you could only twist death in so many different directions. It was final. And it didn’t ask you. It just was. Blaming himself would have been a step too far into martyrdom.

Still, he knew about lingering scars and responses to those scars that didn’t make much sense.

But he didn’t know what it was like to have a parent choose to leave you. God knew his parents never would have chosen to abandon their sons.

As if she’d read his mind, Anna continued. “She’s still out there. I mean, as far as I know. She could have come back. Anytime. I just feel like if I had given her even a small thing...well, then, maybe she would have missed me enough at some point. If she’d had anything back here waiting for her, she could have called. Just once.”

“You were you,” he said. “If that wasn’t enough for her...fuck her.”

She laughed and wiped another tear from her face. Then she shifted, moving closer to him. “I appreciate that.” She paused for a moment, kissing his shoulder, then she continued. “It’s amazing. I’ve never told you that before. I’ve never told anyone that before. It’s just kind of crazy that we could know each other for so long and...there’s still more we don’t know.”

He wanted to tell her then. About the day his parents died. About the complete and total hole it had torn in his life. She knew to a degree. They had been friends when it happened. He had been sixteen, and Sam had been eighteen, and the loss of everything they knew had hit so hard and fast that it had taken them out at the knees.

He wanted to tell her about his nightmares. Wanted to tell her about the last conversation he’d had with his dad.

But he didn’t.

“Amazing” was all he said instead.

Then he leaned over and kissed her, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Liar.

A thousand things he wanted to tell her swirled around inside of him. A thousand different things she didn’t know. That he had never told anybody. But he didn’t want to open himself up like that. He just... He just couldn’t.

So instead, he kissed her, because that he could do. Because of all the changes that existed between them, that was the one he was most comfortable with. Holding her, touching her. Everything else was too big, too unknown to unpack. He couldn’t do it. Didn’t want to do it.

But he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to run his hands over her bare curves. So he did.

He touched her, tasted her, made her scream. Because of all the things that were happening in his life, that felt right.

This was...well, it was a detour. The best one he’d ever taken, but a detour all the same. He was building the family business, like he had promised his dad he would do. Or like he should have promised him when he’d had the chance. He might never have been able to tell the old man to his face, but he’d promised it to his grave. A hundred times, a thousand times since he’d died.

That was what he had to do. That was on the other side of making love with Anna. Going to that benefit with her all dressed up, trying to help her get the kind of reputation she wanted. To send her off with all her newfound skills so that she could be with another man after.

To knuckle down and take the McCormack family ranch back to where it had been. Beyond. To make sure that Sam used his talents, to make sure that the forge and all the work their father had done to build the business didn’t go to waste.

To prove that the fight he’d had with his father right before he died was all angry words and teenage bluster. That what he’d said to his old man wasn’t real.