Leaving Scarlet

by J. Lynn Bailey

  “Wow. Sounds like a real asshole.”

  I laugh. “Yeah. He’s the one who always told me that the number one rule in business was to get things in writing. Get things signed. That way, your butt was covered, and you sealed the deal. Anyway, yeah, it was a shitty move, but it’s almost my fault for not covering my own butt. I should have seen the writing on the wall when he didn’t want to sign anything.”

  “So, you’re jobless.” Cash smiles and kisses the top of my head.

  “I am.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I run my hand along his chest and use my palm to explore his chest hair. “I’ve always had a plan. I’ve always known what I was going to do next. I’ve always had a career, a job, and I’ve always relied on myself. Most importantly, I’ve always had control over my heart.” The aching truth comes out. “But with you, I can’t control my heart. I can’t control much of anything these days. And everything in my head seems so chaotic. I’m not sure where I’m going or where my next steps are, Cash.”

  Cash places his hand over mine on his chest. “I spent many nights—many drunk nights—in my room, thinking about you. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, whether it was with me or without me. I spent years trying to fill the hole in my heart, praying to God that I wouldn’t kill myself in the process. I was reckless and stupid, and I did that because nothing else really mattered.

  “But when I saw my brother on the arena floor, lifeless, I thought about my parents and my brothers and how if that were me, because of my reckless decisions, they’d lose another brother, another child.

  “Then, as I was tossed into the air by the bull, I thought about you. That, in my last breath, you wouldn’t know that I still loved you. That I was in love with you. That I never stopped loving you. And if anything, that is what I know for certain. There is no chaos that surrounds this notion. I’d spend the rest of my days waiting for you.”

  I stare up at Cash. A lump sits in my throat, and hesitantly, I run my finger over his lips, his cheeks, his forehead as he stares down at me.

  Cash is the only man I’ve ever loved. I pushed him far away for so long because I didn’t trust my heart, too fearful that, somehow, fate would push us apart again or that we’d make the wrong decisions again and say things we could never take back. I do not want to die a bitter woman, like my mother. I do not want to end up alone because I’ve pushed people away my entire life.

  And this thought falls on me.

  What if it’s my biological father who broke her heart?

  Without any trepidation in this moment, I follow my heart as it slowly begins to crack open and say, “I’m here right now, Cash.”

  29

  Cash

  Present Day

  “Cash, it’s Gary, your agent. Listen, Bullfighters One is ready to negotiate. They’re willing to let you back in.”

  I laugh. “Willing?” I try not to get angry over this. The old ways of Cash Atwood. I try to hold back the words I’d rather say to my agent, who gets paid a shit-ton of money, but I can’t help it. The old Cash seeps in. “Willing? I’ve made Bullfighters One a shit-ton of money. And they’re willing to negotiate? What, are they taking a hit in sales and hard up for entertainment?”

  My mind plays through last night with Scarlet.

  The doctor’s strong advice about not going back to bullfighting.

  The look on my mother’s face the first time she saw me after the accident.

  And the way my parents broke when Conroy died.

  Can I really afford to go back to this job?

  What price am I willing to pay to go back to what I’m good at?

  Gary sighs. “I know, buddy. I know. But if you want to get back in their good graces and play out your God-given talent and make even more money, then I recommend you get back in the saddle.” He laughs at his pun. I don’t.

  Gary is good at his job, convincing and believable, and he’s one hell of a negotiator.

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Seven million for three years.”

  I’m worth seven million to Bullfighters One.

  They’ll make that, plus millions more, with my crazy antics onstage. Sure, they paid insurance companies for my liabilities, but it’s all for show. For entertainment. And Bullfighters One reaps the benefits. Every last dollar.

  “Tell them I want ten million for three years, and we might have a deal.”

  “I’ll make a call,” Gary says.

  I hang up and stare out at the view from the Lost Hill barn. The day is cold, but the sky is clear.

  My phone rings again, and I half-expect it to be Gary, but my heartbeat quickens when I see it’s Scarlet.

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  “Hey yourself, cowboy. I was thinking we could do dinner tonight.”

  I smile. “Yeah, that sounds perfect. What can I bring?”

  “Just yourself and your ruggedly handsome looks.”

  I rub my palm across my jaw. “I can do that.”

  We made love three more times last night and again early this morning. I had to peel myself away from her because my dad is going to meet me up at Lost Hill barn, and I’m going to show him what I’ve done.

  But in the back of my mind, through the lovemaking and the kissing and the honesty, Scarlet and I need to talk about what happened when she left. We need to talk about what I found and what she told me and how everything went wrong. But now is not the time.

  “Can you wear the little black dress?” I ask like I’m a ten-year-old boy.

  “I can do that. But I need to tell you one small detail.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Delveen, Pearl, Mabe, and your grandmother will be joining us for dinner.”

  “Oh.”

  “I got a call from Junie down at Dillon Creek Pizza, and The Ladybugs are on hiatus.”

  “What?”

  “So, Junie thought it would be a good idea if you and I talked some sense into the ladies.”

  “Why us?”

  “I guess because we’re the grandkids. Maybe we can reach them like no one else can.”

  “Well, look at you, Scarlet Brockmeyer, saving the day in your small town of Dillon Creek.”

  Scarlet sighs. “I just know what The Ladybugs meant to my grandmother, what they meant to me as a child, and to you and the community of Dillon Creek. Suppose it’s worth a try?”

  “Yeah. Even though, now, I don’t want you to wear the little black dress.”

  She laughs into the phone, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve heard in a long time, except the moans she gave me last night.

  “Operation Save The Ladybugs in full effect. I’ll see you tonight,” she says.

  “Scar?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I missed you.”

  “Not a day went by that you did not cross my mind.”

  Maybe things would be all right with us, even after we have the talk. After we acknowledge our past.

  I hear my dad’s truck pull up to the barn with a distinct sound. “Got to run. My dad’s here.”

  “Tell Daryl I said hello.”

  “Will do.”

  We hang up, and I turn to see him get out of his truck.

  “You painted the place?” my dad says as he approaches me next to the barn, pulling his wool coat tighter around him.

  My dad will never tell you he has struggled with the cold as he’s gotten older, but my mother will. Calder will.

  “Needed it.” My words are to the point.

  We walk to the barn, and I slide the door open. “Reworked the wiring, put a new roof on. Thought I’d just patch it, but there were far too many holes to do the quick fix.”

  He walks to the light switch and flicks it on. The barn illuminates, and I can te
ll by my dad’s expression that he’s impressed, but he won’t say it. “Where’d you learn to do all this?”

  “YouTube.”

  My dad looks at me. “What’s that?”

  I keep it simple with him. “Videos on how to do things.”

  “You learned how to do this by watching videos?”

  I’ve always been able to watch something, retain it, and do it. Now, if you give me oral instructions and tell me to do it, I’m lost. But if I can see how things are done, nine times out of ten, I can do it and do it well.

  “Yeah. For the most part.” I lean against the wall. “I installed a few more windows to get some extra light in here. I also added some solar panels to the roof to help generate the power.”

  Dad nods as he slowly walks around the inside of the barn, hands shoved in his pockets. He takes in the details. “All from Tube You?”

  I drop my head and smile. “YouTube, yes.”

  The floors have been swept and are clean. Hard to think this will be a place for the cows to crash when the weather grows harsh outside this winter.

  “Weather’s gettin’ colder,” Dad says, testing a beam’s strength with his bare hand against the wood, as if he’s killing time, like he has something on his mind he needs to get off.

  “It is.”

  “When can we move the cows in?”

  “Whenever.”

  Nodding, he takes one last look around the place. “We’ll get them in tonight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He starts to walk outside but stops, smiles, and turns back. “You remember how to ride a horse?” My dad’s way of joking.

  “I remember.”

  “Good. Meet you at the stable at four o’clock.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He starts to leave again, but instead of facing me, he just calls my name, looking in the opposite direction. “Cash?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “You done good, son.”

  I don’t answer because he doesn’t need my answer. He just said something to me that he hasn’t said in a long time. Not after winning Bullfighter of the Year for years. Not for making millions of dollars, keeping cowboys safe. But he also didn’t say anything when he read news headlines about me fucking up with women and booze. I know he read them. Dad just never said much of anything to me after I left home.

  I know I was a disappointment in a way. Integrity has always meant a lot to my dad. Our family name. Our family name splashed against the headlines with another stupid or reckless choice on my part. My dad used silence as a way to show his disappointment.

  I want to share with him this new idea I have about barns and fixing them up and making them homes, but I’ll wait for a better time. Besides, I don’t want to get my dad’s hopes up in case Bullfighters One actually accepts the unrealistic proposal that Gary threw at them.

  Before I head outside to saddle up the horses, I find a picture on the kitchen counter. It’s of me and Scarlet in San Francisco. We flew down there to meet her mom. We were twelve and thirteen. We’re standing in front of Alcatraz, arm in arm. I’ve seen the picture before a long time ago, but it’s something I didn’t notice before. It’s Scarlet’s body language. Slightly slanted, she’s leaning into me as if she were relying on me without words, to protect her heart, to keep her safe, to help her get through it all. Her head is tilted inward toward mine only slightly, like she’s asking me for help without asking me.

  Even as kids, Scarlet never asked for help, and this pose of us leaves me without air to breathe. How lonely she must have felt, leaving with her mother, leaving the only true family she ever had. But she never said a word. She pushed it all away, as if it were just a thing people went through.

  “Good-byes are overcomplicated by people,” she whispered into my ear that day as she gave me one last hug. But that hug was tighter than normal. It was close and intimate, and now, I realize she was terrified, but she didn’t put her fear to words.

  “Remember that one?” my mom says, leaning against the counter.

  I was unaware she’d entered the kitchen.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Mom is silent for a moment. “You two were so young and dealing with big adult issues. I also knew, in this moment right here, that you two would always have such a special bond.”

  I see how her strawberry-blonde hair falls over my shoulder with her lean.

  “I just wish you two would see it.”

  My head jerks up to her.

  She crosses her arms across her chest. “I know the timing hasn’t always been right with you two, but I also know God’s timing is the perfect timing. It’s no fluke that she’s back here, and you’re both single. It’s no fluke that Erla Brockmeyer made her the executor of her will. You’d better believe that woman knew exactly what she was doing with you two far before any of us.” Mom laughs. “What a force to be reckoned with. Anyway …” Her voice trails off.

  “Can I have this, Mom?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks.” I shove the picture in my back pocket, put my cowboy hat on, and head outside to the cruel winter cold.

  At the barn, Calder’s already saddling Pocket.

  “I can’t believe that horse is still alive,” I say.

  Calder pulled five horses from the stable.

  “Best roping horse this side of Wisconsin,” Calder says.

  Colt walks in with Dad, and Casey follows. Remnants of his injuries still wear on his face with tiredness.

  “Wish you’d continued with the team roping,” I say to Calder.

  “Wish I could have, too, but someone had to stay back and help Dad after Conroy died.”

  I feel the weight of his words.

  But I own it. “I know.”

  Colt slaps me on the back. “Have I mentioned it’s good to have you home, cowboy?”

  Casey jokes, “Let’s see if he still knows how to move cattle.”

  It’s good to have my brother back even if I can sense he’s still a bit distant. I get it though. What I did was almost unforgivable.

  “With the work and cleanup Cash has done at Lost Hill barn,” Dad says to us, “I’m positive we can fit more cattle than we initially thought.” He saddles his horse, Prima Donna.

  We saddle up the other three horses and put on our ski masks, gloves, and big coats and head out to move the herd.

  With Dad as point rider, Calder at swing, Colt and I at flank, Casey at drag, we’ll get done in no time, but what we don’t expect is to deal with a dead heifer.

  Not even the flies want any piece of her because of the cold.

  “Bury it!” Dad yells to me.

  “Looks like a mountain lion got her!” Calder yells.

  Panic builds in my chest. Don’t let your dad down, Cash. Get the job done. Don’t disappoint him again.

  “Bury it, Cash,” my dad says again.

  The cold nips at my exposed hands, my lips, through the ski mask. The thoroughbred runs hard, and I feed off her adrenaline as we make our way back to the barn. Quickly, I unsaddle her, brush her out, and lead her back to her stall.

  “Good girl.”

  I load the four-wheeler with a few shovels and head back out to the heifer as black spots start to blur my vision. My heart begins to pound.

  Chill out, Cash. Just a dead heifer. You know how to do this.

  The heavy smell of metallic and death return as I approach the heifer. I pull my mask up over my nose to rid myself of the smell.

  The last time I smelled this scent, the metallic, was when my brother died.

  And here I go, down the spiral …

  When I heard the fire whistle, I listened to the scanner. Conroy had said he and Tripp were headed home on Waddington. So, when I heard the fire whistle and the dispatcher say Waddington, I just knew it was my brother, and I was filled with dread.

  I passed one single car driving in the opposite direction. I thought it was odd that the car was coming from the same direction of the accident, as I ha
dn’t passed anything yet.

  Why wouldn’t they have stopped?

  Did they not see the accident?

  When I arrived on the scene, just minutes before emergency personnel, I jumped out of my truck and ran as fast as I could to my brother’s Jeep, but before I could reach the scene, I was met with the smell of metallic, gas, and a small fire. But it was my brother’s cries that I ran to.

  “Conroy, I’m here.”

  I moved toward his weak voice and found him lying on his back in the field among the mustard flowers on a starless summer night.

  He could barely talk.

  The crickets didn’t cry out.

  The only sound was the sound of help on the way.

  He looked up at me, and I started to cry.

  “Conroy,” I whispered and got down on my knees to be closer to him.

  My brother. The only one who ever believed in me. The only one who always had my back, willing to take the blame, offering advice, saving my ass more than once.

  He was lying on his back, helpless and dying, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  “Please,” I begged him. “Don’t die.”

  But Conroy and I both knew he wasn’t going to make it.

  I don’t remember seeing the lower half of his body.

  I don’t remember what he said to me.

  I don’t remember what the air felt like or if it was cold or warm.

  I remember silence among the creatures around us.

  I remember when he took his last breath, and I remember when the life left his eyes.

  It was as if his soul got up, dusted off his backside, and left his body because somewhere in the night, I heard, “So long, cowboy. I’ll see you later.”

  And I remember shaking so hard.