Change of Hart (Wells Ranch, #3)(68)
“Denver. Give me five seconds of fucking honesty.”
“I’m not moving with you. I can’t…” He reached for my hand, as if it was going to fucking help the way my chest was imploding. “I can’t leave Mom.”
Looking up at the yellow-green glowing stars on my bedroom ceiling, the world was spinning even faster than it was a few seconds ago. Heart racing out of control, I looked at him, tears welling in my eyes, and vomited straight tequila in his lap.
Denver
(seventeen years old)
On a Sunday morning in late June, we should’ve been running slack—the overflow and preliminary runs for the main rodeo performance. Or we should’ve been doing chores around the ranch. Hell, I would’ve even preferred if we were heading off to church for the first time in history.
Instead, I leaned against the kitchen counter, buttoning the sleeves of my shirt and watching Blair delicately brush out my mom’s hair. Her own was pulled back in a twist, held secure with approximately one hundred pins. But Mom’s hair was barely chin-length and thin, and Blair used a single clip with a blue flower on it to keep the wispy strands out of her face.
Although I couldn’t recall seeing either of them ever wear makeup before, Blair swiped pink stain across Mom’s cheeks. And I hated to admit that it gave her more life—color she’d lacked since she wasn’t out in the garden every day. Then she carefully added a coat of mascara and a light shade of lipstick, waiting for Mom to roll her lips together so she could touch it up.
“Beautiful.” Blair smiled, standing back to admire her work.
“Thanks, honey. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Mom sighed, looking over at me. “Ready, kiddo?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” I shrugged as my dad and two brothers sauntered into the room. “Damn, this is the best looking all of us have ever been at the same time. I didn’t even know Dad owned a button-up that wasn’t plaid.”
I laughed to cut the tension.
Mom beamed at Dad. “Button-up and a fresh shave? Bennett Wells, you haven’t looked this sexy since our wedding day.”
“And you only get more beautiful every single day.” His towering frame moved around the island to lean in and kiss her. She held his face in her hands and whispered something that had him pulling away with a smile—something rarely seen from my father, except when it came to Mom.
Mom clapped her hands together. “Okay, we need to go, or we’ll be late.”
“Well, if there was ever a time we should be forgiven for lateness, it’s our grandpa’s funeral,” I said.
Jackson nodded in agreement. “Not like they’re giving away our seats.”
“Front row, reserved, baby. They won’t even start the show until we’re there. We may as well roll up fashionably late.” I grabbed hold of Blair’s hand, following Dad and Austin as they helped Mom out to the pickup.
She was still fighting hard, despite deciding earlier in the year that she was done with experimental drugs and clinical trials. Most of them only made her feel worse, while also forcing her and Dad to be away from the ranch more often. One night, the house was practically vibrating from the yelling match between my parents—Mom insisting she would be happiest spending whatever time she had left here with us, and Dad insisting she needed to put up more of a fight to beat her cancer. In the end, as with every fight I ever overheard my parents have, Mom won.
Blair slid into the middle seat of my worn-out 1986 Ford. Her hand found its home on my thigh, and I laid mine overtop, squeezing as we passed under the Wells Ranch sign at the end of the driveway.
“How are you doing?” She tilted her head slightly to look at me.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” I briefly steered with my knee so I could manually roll down the window. The warm, hay-scented air felt a lot like a balm over the anguish in my bones. “He was healthy and then, boom, dead.”
A heart attack while we were driving the herd out to graze for the summer. The one blessing is knowing he died doing what he loved, with the people he loved, in the place he loved.
And now we were en route to honor his life at his second favorite spot on Earth: the Wells Canyon rodeo grounds.
“I’m sorry, baby.” Blair lightly kissed my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s…okay, I guess. I mean, it really solidifies my decision to stay home.”
“Your family needs you. I get it.” Her thin-lipped smile said she understood, but didn’t agree. That she had so much more to say about my choice to defer enrollment in university, but the drive to my grandfather’s funeral wasn’t the time.
“Just for the year, then I’ll be coming to you. Promise.”
“I know.” Her head found my shoulder for a long, quiet drive to town.
Thankfully, we also had reserved parking at the rodeo grounds, or we likely would’ve turned around and gone back home. Vehicles covered every square inch of ground near the arena and lined the roadways for at least half a kilometer.
Walking into the arena, Blair’s grip on my hand felt like a heartbeat with the way she squeezed tighter, then relaxed a little when she realized how close she was to breaking my hand, then squeezed instinctively all over again. Whether she knew it or not, she kept my heart pumping. Her hand in mine being the sole thing holding me together. She was the reason I took a seat next to Jackson and managed not to crumble to the floor.