“All right, Beau,” I said, pushing his head away and getting up from the couch. “I get it. Let’s go.”
Beau’s long pink tongue flopped out of his mouth. He walked back a couple of steps but didn’t get too far away from me, like he didn’t completely trust that I wasn’t just going to sit back down. He stayed close to my feet, circling around, and led me over to where my boots waited by the front door.
Hot, dog breath panted on the side of my neck as I sat putting my shoes on. Beau was part Mastiff, part Saint Bernard, and a whole lot of ridiculous. He didn’t understand how big he was but knew how to be pushy when he wanted to be.
That night, it was all about wanting to get out into the warm evening and take a stroll so he could catch up on the comings and goings of everybody throughout town. I liked to think that if he was human, Beau would give Mrs. Shirley a run for her money. Maybe he already did. Maybe when he met up with the other dogs at the dog park and they circled around each other, sniffing various parts and making whimpering noises at each other, they were actually gossiping.
Once my shoes were on, I attached my giant pup’s leash to his collar and scratched behind his ears. He pounded his tail against the floor, nearly vibrating with excitement.
“All right, buddy. You know the rules.”
Beau seemed to be a matter of seconds away from exploding, but he still dropped his chubby butt down onto the floor to wait patiently for me to open the door. That, sit, and “show me your tummy” were the extent of the tricks he knew. He wasn’t exactly the most impressive specimen, but he was the most perfect him there could be.
Besides, he didn’t really need to know a whole lot more than that. His days were spent either draped across various surfaces of the house sleeping, running around the yard, or coming to the garage with me and repeating those activities there. For those purposes, he was highly qualified.
Getting outside cut through the brain fog a little and I was glad Beau decided to be pushy and force me out of the house. My new plan for the evening was to walk with him down Main Street and back. It was enough of a walk to feel like I’d gotten my exercise for the day and it would give Beau plenty of opportunity to see and be seen.
He loved all the attention he got when he made his way down the street, even if it was sometimes a touch uncomfortable for me to stand there trying to decide if I was invisible or not while people carried on small talk with my dog. The final benefit of the walk down the street was that I could grab some takeout on the way home and bring it back to enjoy while I went back into my original vision of relaxing.
It seemed like a good way to get some fresh air, maybe catch a conversation or two with some neighbors, and not have to try to cook in my pitiful little kitchenette. Granted, it wasn’t really the kitchenette’s fault not too many decent meals came out of there. I could have had a full gourmet kitchen as opposed to my little convection burner and I would still be a pretty terrible cook.
It seemed like a good plan right up until the thoughts of Jesse started trickling into my head. When Sara came to me the day before to tell me she heard he was on his way back and was staying for good, I didn’t know what to think or how I was supposed to feel. Or even if I should be feeling anything.
After all, it had been ten years. It wasn’t like we were in contact. But no matter how much I tried to push him back out of my head and just focus on the walk and figuring out what I wanted for dinner, he kept sneaking his way back into my thoughts.
It was so strange to have him suddenly surface again. Maybe it wasn’t sudden. Now that I thought about it, it probably wasn’t. The Montgomery boys probably knew he was coming home and had for some time. I just hadn’t heard about it.
Acknowledging that did no good in stopping the questions that kept crashing into each other.
Why did he come home? Did something happen?
Is he okay?
That last one loomed heavy and frightening at the very front of my mind. As many years as it had been and even with the way things were left the last time I saw Jesse, I hated the thought that something bad had happened to him.
There weren’t many ways to leave the military and Jesse was nothing but all-in when it came to his service. As soon as he’d made the decision to go, it consumed him and there was nothing else. But now he was back and not just for the brief visits that had happened a couple of times during the last ten years. I hadn’t seen him during those visits, but I knew he was in Green Valley. According to what Sara heard, this time Jesse was back and was staying. I couldn’t help but worry that was because of something awful.
Not that I really had any place to be worried about him. Plenty of people would tell me not to waste the time or the energy even thinking about him. Not after he completely dropped out of my life ten years ago.
“Bastard,” I muttered.
Beau whined and looked up at me.
I smiled at him, leaning down to rub his head reassuringly. “Not you, buddy. You are wonderful. Just some stupid boy.”
He seemed satisfied by the response and we continued on toward the little Italian restaurant set in the middle of the town. They had the best lasagna and garlic bread in the world and I ordered it plus a salad to appease the sound of my mother’s voice in the back of my head—and a slab of tiramisu because I ordered the salad. I went back outside to where Beau sat patiently on the sidewalk to wait for my dinner and found myself searching the faces of the people walking down the street.
At this time on a Sunday evening, Green Valley was well on its way to going to sleep for the night, but a few places were still open along the main street of town, enticing procrastinating shoppers and other people not wanting to cook dinner. I looked at each of them, searching for Jesse’s face in spite of myself. By now, he should be back and maybe he would have headed into town for a taste of home and to catch up with people. It shouldn’t matter to me, yet I couldn’t stop looking.
Like I said, stupid boy.
Angelo, the owner of the tiny restaurant, came out and handed me the bag with my order in it.
“There might be a couple of extra slices of garlic bread in there,” he said with a wink. Then he looked down at Beau. “And I might have accidentally dropped a braised beef bone in there.”
“Thank you, Angelo,” I said.
“Have a good night, Shannon,” he said and went back inside.
At least I could always rely on the stout little Italian man to wink at me and be happy to see me. It wasn’t exactly the same thing as the young guys who salivated over Sara, but he was adorable and harmless, and I got garlic bread out of it, so I wasn’t going to complain.
Determined to fulfill my original mission of going all the way down Main Street and back, I continued my way down the block to the end point, crossed the street, and started back up. I was past the halfway point when I glanced away from the people walking around me and saw the old ice-cream parlor.
I heaved a sigh.
Smiling people went in through the glass door and I watched them through the picture window covered in painted sprinkles as they walked up to the counter and ordered from the expansive menu. They came out carrying huge sundaes and towering cones.
The twinge they caused wasn’t from my sweet tooth. Seeing those people reminded me of the hot summer afternoons so many years ago when I used to come to this place with Jesse. Very little had changed about the ice-cream shop since then, but everything outside of it had. Those were the days when we were young and reckless and nothing mattered but the time we had in that very minute.
Ten years ago…
Jesse’s hand felt warm and strong wrapped around mine as we walked down Main Street toward the ice-cream parlor. Everywhere around us, people were laughing and talking, dragging through the suffocating summer heat to run their errands, but I didn’t care about anything but him. We could be the only two people in existence, and I would have been fine with it.
We got to the shop and he opened the door for me, releasing my hand o
nly long enough to rest it on my back and guide me inside. The blast of arctic air conditioning felt amazing against my skin and I lifted my thick ponytail off the back of my neck to cool it off a bit more.
We went up to the counter and he ordered one of the massive five-scoop sundaes that made the shop famous around town. He chose two scoops of chocolate, one of coffee, one of peanut butter, and one of vanilla. I teased him that the white, bean-flecked scoop of vanilla was going to feel out of place among the monochromatic others, but the woman in a pale-yellow striped dress covered it in whipped cream and dotted it with cherries so we couldn’t see it anyway.
Jesse carried the dish over to a table in the farthest back corner of the shop and we sat down across from each other. I scooped up a bite of the chocolate nearest to me and gazed at Jesse. I knew deep in my heart I was in love with him and one day I wanted to marry him. He was everything I could want. Maybe it didn’t even have to be that long of a wait. It wasn’t uncommon for people to get married in their early twenties, especially around here. At nineteen, that didn’t have to be that far off. We could have our happily ever after, just like I’d dreamed.
“The coffee is really good today,” Jesse said.
He scooped some up and held the spoon across the table so I could take a bite. The handmade ice cream was rich and delicious with a strong coffee flavor that came through even against the sweet background. Cowboys took their coffee seriously, so anyone selling coffee ice cream around here was going to get scrutinized. This definitely lived up to it.
Jesse fed me another bite and my heart fluttered in my chest. That dreamy feeling lasted right up until he plopped a bit of the whipped cream on the tip of my nose. I scowled at him and he laughed uproariously, leaning back in his chair and throwing his head back. That was Jesse. Free, open, unapologetic.
Everything.
Chapter 5
Jesse
I probably could have stood under the hot stream of the shower for a couple of days and been perfectly content. It felt incredible to take a real shower again. That was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time and had been thinking about since leaving on the long trek back here.
But there were people downstairs waiting for me and I couldn’t just disappear into the soothing hot water and fresh-smelling soap. When I got out, I felt a little more like myself. Washing the feeling of traveling off my skin was like washing away some of the last remaining bits of my life in the military.
It wouldn’t all go away. Not really. Taking the long shower helped to scrub away the feeling of the countless hours in airplanes and trudging through airports, then the spiraling series of cars that finally dropped me back here. It helped to wash away some of the feeling of the sand and my uniform. But there were some things about that time of my life I’d never be able to wash away. Some of it would always stick with me. It defined me. In the end, that was why I was back at home and would never report again. The parts of my military experience that stayed with me became too much.
But the shower was a start.
By the time I got dried off and dressed, I felt like that was about all I had left in me. I was dead tired and not really in the mood to go back downstairs to join my brothers for dinner. Some of my brothers, at least.
When I first got into the house, only Cassidy was there to greet me, but he said Clayton and Wade were on their way. Adding me into the group, there were four of the Montgomery boys in the house, which meant we were operating at fifty percent for this little reunion. But even with only half of us there, I didn’t think I would be able to get away with not heading downstairs.
It was all I could do to convince them to let me take a shower and breathe for ten minutes before having dinner. Cassidy was all set with the food on the table and ready to go when I got inside. But I needed a minute. I just needed to take a step back and let myself absorb the reality that I was there.
I was home.
That minute was all I was going to get, though. I knew my brothers well enough to know they weren’t going to let me fall face first into the bed and stay there until noon the next day. As much as that sounded like the greatest thing I could possibly do in that moment, there were expectations. It had been three years since I had seen any of them, three years since I’d stepped foot on the ranch. Now I was back, and we had the obligation of filling in the gaps for each other.
That didn’t stop me from eyeing the bed with longing. I could envision myself reaching toward it dramatically and whispering soon. I just needed to get through a couple of hours of catching up and I could finally sink into a real bed and get some actual sleep.
I could tell the other two brothers had arrived before I even got all the way downstairs. My brothers might be many things, but quiet wasn’t one of them. Wade was the most reserved of the eight, but he still had a booming voice loud enough to hear clear across the house.
Hearing them talk and joke had a strange effect on me. At once, it made me feel more like I was home, reminding me of all the times we’d spent together right there. And at the same time, it kept me on the outside in a way, making me think about the years that had passed without me there while they carried on together. They had shared a lot during those years and experienced things together I’d missed out on completely. Maybe there would be no making up for that.
That idea didn’t seem to have crossed any of their minds. When I walked into the kitchen, a very excited Clayton rushed toward me. He clapped me on the back, pulling me in for a tight hug, then patting me again.
“You got so much bigger,” he said. It sounded like something he might say to a child he hadn’t seen in years, but I guessed after the harsh experiences and combat of the last three years, I probably did look bigger. “And last time I saw you, there wasn’t any of this shit on your face.”
He playfully slapped my cheek and I grinned as I rubbed the stubble on my jaw and cheeks.
“Probably not,” I said.
“You seriously just got out of the shower,” Clayton continued to tease. “You couldn’t have cleaned up a bit?”
“Fuck that,” Cassidy said. “He hasn’t been allowed to have facial hair in ten years. I say grow the damn thing until you can jump rope with it.”
“That’s going to do him real good out on the ranch,” Clayton pointed out, reaching up again to rub my cheeks.
I chuckled and shoved him away. “You’re still ugly as ever. Good to know some things don’t change.”
He laughed and rubbed at the long scar that slashed through his left eyebrow and along the side of his neck. I still remembered the day he got it.
The accident was before I left, before I had decided I had to claim a future for myself that didn’t involve staying on the ranch until it ate me alive. He was working just like he did every day of his life, but that morning, something went wrong, and he nearly got killed because of it.
Those touch-and-go moments when he was lying in the hospital after the doctors pieced him back together and pumped him full of donated blood were some of the most terrifying I’d experienced before the desert. But he got through them.
Clayton overcame the injury, got through the recovery, and headed right back into the life he was used to living. Now so many years later, the gaping wound was just a scar and he hadn’t let those memories hold him back.
“Say what you will,” he said. “The ladies love it.”
“And by ladies, do you mean the cattle?” Cassidy asked.
We shared a laugh at Clayton’s expense. All of us but Wade, who was still staring at me like he was trying to reconcile the person he was seeing with the one who left home so long ago. Finally, he walked up to me and clasped my hand firmly.
“Welcome home,” he said, patting me on the back. “It’s good to have you back all in one piece.”
I accepted a bottle of cold beer Cassidy held out to me and nodded. “It’s good to be back,” I lied. I didn’t add but I’m not sure I’m in one piece.
Cassidy announced dinner w
as ready and getting cold, so we all gathered around the table. The big pot of chili sitting in the middle of the table sent up rich, spicy smells, and a plate piled high with golden yellow cornbread looked like so many other nights spent right here at the same table with all eight of us clamoring for the next helping.
I ladled up a bowl of chili and set two wedges of cornbread on my bread plate. Clayton passed the butter dish and I slathered a thick pat onto the bread.
“I thought Sawyer was still living on the property,” I said when everybody had their food and was diving in.
“He is,” Cassidy said. “He’s around here somewhere.”
“Too good to come see his big brother’s triumphant return?” I teased, trying to sound lighthearted.
Cassidy laughed and shook his head. “No. He’s out doing the Montgomery Ranch Authentic Experience.”
I looked at him questioningly. “What in the hell is that? Does that mean you rode him out into the middle of the ranch and left him to fend for himself?”
“Not exactly, though I won’t say we haven’t done that.”
I nodded. “I know. You did it to me.”
Clayton laughed. “That was funny as shit. But anyway, do you remember a few years back when we started batting around ideas to come up with some extra income around here? We talked about doing a dude-ranch type thing on the property.”
“I remember you talked about it,” I said.
“Well, that’s what the Montgomery Ranch Authentic Experience is. Families come out here and do a guided experience, seeing and doing stuff around the ranch. Tonight, he’s out camping somewhere on the property with ten guests.”
“Wow,” I said. “Glad that’s working out for you. How about Boone? Is he out with them?”
“No,” Cassidy said. “Boone isn’t on the ranch. One of the ranch hands over at the Elmore place got kicked in the hip by a horse and got pretty messed up. Boone’s filling in as an extra set of hands until he recovers.”
His Reckless Heart (The Montgomery Boys Book 1) Page 3
