Page 57 of Then You Happened
The phrase haunts and heals me.
Rusty swore Fletcher’s car crash was an accident. Distracted driving, he called it. But that letter told me it was suicide. That note was telling me goodbye.
How do you hate someone because of the clusterfuck they left you with when they hated themselves enough they took their own life?
How do you hate them when you still love them? And then, how in the hell do you rationalize that when every part of you is fighting day-in, day-out to wade through and survive and overcome a life in ruins?
Ruby’s feet dance beneath me. Her innate nature to comfort displaced and uncertain as I sob, letting out the loneliness and frustration and shame that have been trying to eat me whole.
The thunder rumbles again. The gray clouds stacking one on top of the other look like how my emotions feel inside me. Violent in nature, unexpected in their power, and yet, I’ve been here long enough to know we won’t get any rain today.
There will be no release.
Not from the clouds in the sky anyway.
As I stare up at them with the tears drying on my cheeks and the hitches in my chest subsiding, I realize how right Jack was about so many things. I did let my dreams die for Fletcher’s. I let his become mine, and I need to find my own again. I need to take control and get them back.
I’ve tried my hardest to keep the ranch afloat, to keep it out of foreclosure, and to slowly claw my way out of debt, but I also stopped living in the process. My life became about saving all of this and becoming consumed by anger instead of carving out pieces to enjoy for myself.
And one of those pieces I want to carve out is Jack.
I want to sleep with him.
My laughter bubbles up again, and I know I should be worried that I’m crying one minute and laughing the next, but I’m not. Jack Sutton was also right when he said that I didn’t want it to be a mistake.
I just want it to be whatever it is.
However it happens.
Cue the panic.
The worry that I’ve forgotten how to do it.
Damn insecurities.
“Don’t think, Tate. Just do.”
So, I close my eyes, hold tight to the reins, kick Ruby’s flank, and push her to gallop so that we fly back toward the ranch as I try to let it all go.
As I try to figure out how to find myself again.
As I figure out how to learn to live again.
And maybe dream a little too.
“DID YOU HAVE A NICE RIDE?” Jack’s voice startles me, and my heels dig into Ruby’s flank, causing her to rear up on her hind legs.
A strangled cry falls from my lips, and I grip the saddle horn to stay on her as Jack rushes forward and grabs the reins I wasn’t holding.
“Easy girl,” he croons. “Easy there.” He continues until Ruby calms some, her anxious hooves stop moving, and she takes the apple he somehow had on him.
“It’s the thunder. It spooks her. It . . .” I fall silent as his eyes meet mine from over the top of her ears. There’s amusement in them. Restrained desire.
“That’s twice now,” he says, referring to Willow and her plastic bag incident, and steps beside us so he can run a hand down Ruby’s neck to her shoulder. “Next time you take off, you should probably tell someone.” His fingertips hit the curve of my knee and skim the top of it.
“I know how to ride, Jack. I’m more than capable.” A nervous chuckle falls from my lips because all I can focus on are those fingers of his and how I want them on me.
“No one said you weren’t. You have to stop jumping on the defensive anytime someone tells you something, Knox.”
