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Not that Kate had ever given any indication that she’d have wanted to visit Portland with her. The pressure to adapt had always been on Rowan, with no indication of any sort of reciprocation.
I guess I’ve reached the anger stage of my grief, Rowan thought bitterly. It felt good to deflect a little of the blame, but ultimately she had been the one to leave.
“I’m so glad you’re home.” Alycia pulled Rowan back into the present. “I’ve been dying for you to meet Julie. I wanted to bring her tonight, but I also wanted the chance to catch up, just the two of us. Hopefully in the next couple of days, though!”
Rowan bristled at the mention of Julie. She was glad that Alycia hadn’t brought her. The last thing she wanted to do was make small talk with her friend’s new girlfriend, especially while her own heart was broken.
Alycia, however, seemed not to notice the way Rowan tensed. She pulled out her phone to show Rowan photos, and Rowan had to swallow her own hurt and try to inject some happiness into her voice to be supportive. She wanted her friend back, and with every happy photo Alycia showed off the fact that they now had separate lives. It didn’t matter that Rowan was back in Portland. Their friendship was going to be different than before.
Once Alycia was done showing her photos and filling her in on everything she’d missed in Portland— which really wasn’t much, despite how left out she had felt for the past couple of months— she switched the conversation over to Rowan.
“I’m sorry the job didn’t work out,” Alycia said, her voice gentle.
Rowan gave a small shrug. Everyone expected her to be sad about the job, but the truth was that after her last conversation with Kate she had all but forgotten about getting fired. All she could think about was losing Kate.
“Are you glad to be home from Texas otherwise?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
She had expected to land in Portland and feel nothing but relief. Everything was familiar and comforting. She was back at her favorite bar with her best friend. The climate was warm without the scorching heat, and there were no Biblical billboards preaching at her from the roadside. She could get coffee at Joe’s in the morning and then catch up with the rest of her friend group. And yet she didn’t feel all that happy to be home. Not when she was there without Kate.
“I won’t miss the heat,” Rowan managed.
“I bet not,” Alycia said. “And probably not your crazy conservative neighbors.”
She didn’t laugh along with Alycia. “They weren’t so bad actually.”
Alycia looked at her for a long time as though trying to figure out where Rowan’s head was. Rowan shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny.
“Are you okay?” Alycia asked finally.
“Yeah,” she said, automatically. “Of course. It’s been a long day.”
But she wasn’t okay at all.
She was embarrassed about losing her dream job, heartbroken about losing Kate, and haunted by a million nagging “what ifs.” But she was home. Eventually that would be all that mattered, so in the meantime she bit back her heartbreak. She didn’t have time for it. She had friends and family to catch up with.
There was no use pining for the woman she’d left in Texas.
❊ ❊ ❊
Kate spent the week after Rowan left working harder than perhaps she had ever worked in her life. As long as she kept busy she could keep the thoughts of Rowan at bay so she didn’t stop. She got up at the crack of dawn and worked the ranch until it was dark, hardly stopping even to eat. The to-do list, which had previously seemed to get longer with each item she crossed off, was finally shrinking to a manageable size. She fixed fences, rotated cattle, cleaned stalls in the barn, and tended to the animals, all while helping Owen and Dean with modifications to make the ranch more accessible for her dad. In the evening she went inside to make dinner for her dad and herself, then spent the evenings poring over the budget and client invoices and filing paperwork. She even managed to secure another client, in addition to On the Range, to sell beef to on a regular basis. She worked until she was bone tired and fell asleep the instant her head hit her pillow. It was the only way to keep the thoughts of Rowan from creeping in. There was no point in thinking about Rowan, no sense wasting any more tears.
Nevertheless, as much as Kate tried to move on, she still felt a giant void. Rowan had come during one of the darkest times in Kate’s life, bringing joy and levity when Kate needed it most. Suddenly she had been able to see beyond the day-to-day. She’d seen a future with Rowan, a future full of fun and adventure— beyond trips to the hospital and helping her dad with physical therapy and the overwhelming pressure of being the only one left to care for the ranch.
About a week after Rowan left, her dad confronted her about the amount of work she was putting in. Kate woke extra early that morning. It was still a good hour before sunrise. But once she woke, she knew she wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep. Thoughts of Rowan crept in, and rather than allow them to grow she got dressed and went to the front entrance of the house to get her boots on. She was about to go out to the barn to feed the horses when she heard her dad wheel up behind her.
“Where do you think you’re going at this hour?” he asked. “It’s pitch dark out.”
Kate felt as though she’d been busted doing something she shouldn’t have been doing, and she was glad the darkened hallway masked the blush that rose to her cheeks.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I thought I’d get a jump on some of the day’s chores.”
Her dad sat in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest, an unreadable expression on his face, and she felt every bit the child again.
“I’ve heard you get up before the sun every day this past week,” he said at last. “And you don’t come in until it’s dark. Come sit and talk.”
She didn’t want conversation. She wanted to get to work. She wanted to burn off all of the anxious energy that coursed through her when she thought of Rowan. She wanted to shovel hay until she couldn’t lift her arms, and her body was too tired to feel the ache. She wanted to ride Stryder through the fields until the sun burned off the sting of rejection. She couldn’t stay inside and dwell.
“I’m busy, Daddy,” she said. “I have to go clean stalls and feed the horses and get things going for the day. I’m trying to keep the ranch afloat.”
“That’s a load of horseshit and you know it.” His tone was gentle, but the harsh language pierced her defenses.
“You’re trying to keep yourself afloat,” he continued. “The ranch is doing fine. You’ve done a fantastic job since my accident. I can’t see why all of a sudden, this week, it would be failing. And the horses can wait. You’re going to come sit and talk to me.”
“I don’t suppose there is any point in telling you I’d rather not?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
He shook his head. “No game. Sorry, kid.”
When her dad made up his mind, that was that. There was never any other option.
She followed him to the living room and took a seat on the couch while he lifted himself onto the other side. He was getting better at maneuvering in and out of his wheelchair. A month ago he might not have bothered and opted to sit in the wheelchair instead.
“What’s going on, Katie?” he asked, bringing her focus back onto herself.
She tried to think of something to tell him other than the truth. The truth made her feel so foolish. She wracked her brain, praying she could come up with something. Anything.
“It’s about that Rowan?” he asked.
Tears burned behind her eyes, and she hated herself for being so raw. “I was so stupid. I knew she was never going to stay.”
He was silent for a long time, and she couldn’t look at him. She was scared she’d see confirmation on his face. Instead, she stared down at her hands.
“You know, Katie, over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of horses, and I’ve trained most of them.”
“Now some of those horses were gentle mares or geldings,” he said. “But that wasn’t always the case. I worked with a good number of ornery horses that tried their damnedest to toss me. When I was with your mother, she told me I was crazy and begged me to stay away from those horses, but I never listened.”
Kate thought about how Rowan leaving left her feeling upside-down and hurt. “Yeah, and I got bucked off, is that the point? Tossed in the dirt. Like when mom left?”
Her dad shook his head. “No. That’s not the point.”
Kate closed her mouth, waiting for her dad to continue.
“The point is, there were plenty of times when getting on the horse seemed like the stupid thing to do. And if any one of those horses had resulted in my accident, that would have confirmed how stupid I was. Everyone would be thinking it. I’d probably be thinking it, too. But you know what? It wasn’t some stallion that tossed me. I didn’t break my back thanks to a bucking bronco. It was my gentle gelding, Pip, who got spooked one day.”
Kate sat quietly, processing her dad’s words.
“You never know when and how you’re going to get hurt,” he said. “And the only way to prevent hurt is not getting on the horse— any horse— in the first place. I don’t want that for you.”
She swallowed hard, trying desperately not to cry. She’d done so much of that already, and she didn’t want to cry in front of her dad.
“I’m sorry you got hurt, Katie. But never regret getting on the horse.”
She thought back to her time spent with Rowan. She didn’t want to regret trying, but damn the fall hurt so bad.
Her dad swung his gaze over to his wheelchair. “Even the worst hurt— it’s not the end.”
This was the first time since the accident that her dad was there for her to lean on instead of the other way around. “Thanks Daddy.”
He nodded and lifted himself back into his chair. “I’ll let you get back to work if that’s what you want to do, but Katie?”
She looked over at him and waited for him to speak.
“Was she a bucking bronco who was always going to toss you, or was she a gentle gelding who got spooked one day?”
“Does it matter?” If she landed in the dirt, wasn’t the outcome the same either way?
He shrugged. “I suppose that’s for you to decide.”
Her dad wheeled himself back to his bedroom, leaving her to get back to the ranch as she’d planned, but she didn’t move. She sat on the couch mulling over everything he said to her, his last question playing over and over in her mind.
Chapter Nineteen
Rowan was grateful her dad was willing to go with her to Texas to help her pack her belongings and empty out her apartment. There was no way she would have been able to get through such a task on her own. The thought of going back to Texas filled her with a near panic as the emotions— her dislike for the state, shame about losing her job, guilt about leaving Kate, and desperate longing to see Kate again— were all amplified tenfold within her.
She was so overwhelmed by the barrage of feelings as they left the airport she almost didn’t notice the sticky heat until her dad commented.
“God, it’s hot. I don’t know how you lived here,” he said.
“I don’t know, either,” she answered robotically.
“Maybe while we’re here you could show me around a little bit,” he suggested as they climbed into the back of the taxi to take them to her apartment where her car was waiting to be driven back to Portland. She’d left quickly, desperate to get home, and now she had to deal with the actual practicalities of the move.
“Yeah,” she said. “If we have any time.”
If her dad noticed her hesitation, he didn’t say anything. He took the hint and they sat quietly for the duration of the drive.
Rowan looked out at the interstate, at the billboards for Whataburger and Six Flags. Those billboards had made her feel like a tourist when she’d first moved to Texas, but now they were familiar and oddly comforting, a fact that was disarming in itself. She didn’t want Texas to feel familiar to her, not even if it was familiar to her only in a place-I-lived-for-a-while sort of way. She didn’t want Texas to leave any kind of imprint. She wanted to move home and erase this chapter of her life.
The taxi turned down the local roads to her apartment, and the familiar feeling was amplified.
She gazed out the window as her dad paid the taxi, and only when he came around to open the door for her was she jarred from her thoughts enough to unbuckle her seatbelt and exit the cab.
“Pro-God. Pro-Gun. Pro-Life?” her dad asked, reading the bumper sticker on her neighbor’s truck.
“That’s Dave’s truck.”
Her dad gave her a curious smile, but said nothing, and Rowan offered no explanation as she led the way up the stairs and fished for her keys to unlock her apartment.
She’d only been gone a couple of weeks, but it felt as if she’d been gone for a couple of years and mere seconds, all at once.
“Wow,” her dad said, stepping into the apartment. “The place looks good. You really made it your own.”
She shrugged, following his gaze as he looked around at her photos and wall art, at her bookshelf and her furniture. She’d tried to make the apartment home even if the state wasn’t. Everything she’d hung on the wall, from the photos to the band posters, had a sentimental meaning to her. It all had a story. Her gaze fell on her cowboy hat which rested on the hook by the door. She wistfully picked it up and held it in her hands, thinking back to the spark she’d felt as Kate brushed against her to place it on her head for the first time, and the look of pure delight that had shone on Kate’s face.
She set it back on the hook. The hat would stay in Texas, a reminder of Kate that she didn’t need.
“I guess we’re going to need boxes,” she said, looking around the living room.
Her dad was already pulling a Shiner beer out of the fridge, and he stopped to look at her with the bottle in hand.
“We’ll get them,” he said. “We’ve only barely landed. Sit. Let’s have a beer. Relax for an hour or so. We don’t need to have everything packed tonight.”
She shook her head. “No. You can sit and have a beer, but I’m going to go get some boxes.”
She was already reaching for her keys again when he stepped toward her and handed her the second Shiner Bock that he had in his hands.
“Sit,” he said.
She saw that knowing “dad look” on his face. She did as he said, taking a seat on her couch, staring at the label on the beer.
“You know, you don’t have to leave Texas,” he said.
“Dad, I came for the job, and I lost that. Why would I stay?”
Her dad took a sip of his beer and she could tell he was choosing the right words. “You’ve been really sad lately. When we packed your things in Portland for you to move to Fort Worth, you were sad to be leaving, but there was also excitement there. Packing up to move home? There’s just the sad.”
“It’s the job,” she lied. “I’m upset and embarrassed that I have to move home because I got fired.”
He studied her for a long moment, and Rowan shifted under his scrutiny.
“Rowan,” he said slowly, “I know getting fired was hard on you. You’ve always been a perfectionist and harder on yourself than you need to be with any kind of failure. I’m sure you are sad about the job. But I know you. This is something more. Being in Portland, you’ve been listless and quiet. You’re never those things.”
She couldn’t tell him why. If she told him about Kate and how she’d fallen in love, it would only make the heartbreak all the more real. She and Kate were over, and there was no point in wondering if things could have been different. They were from two different worlds and would remain that way.
“Listen,” he said “You
r mom and I, we love you so much and we’ve missed you more than you can imagine, but if you decide you want to stay, we will support that decision 100 percent. We can visit you here, and you can visit Portland. Moving doesn’t have to mean gone forever. We want you to be happy, more than anything. And since you’ve come back . . . you’re not happy.”
“I don’t have a job here,” she said.
“You don’t have a job in Portland yet, either.”
She frowned and took a long pull from the beer. She didn’t know why she was even considering it. She did want to move home. Texas had unbearable heat, an abundance of guns, and oppressive religion. She thought of the homophobic state trooper, and the anger rose in her at the memory.
Then she thought of Kate, the sunset bringing out the gold in her rust-red hair, the shine in her eyes that were the green of a summer field. She thought of the way Kate smiled at her, holding her in her gaze in a way that told Rowan that she was all Kate saw. She thought of Kate laughing at her when she’d ordered way too much fried food and the sparkle of amusement in Kate’s eyes when she’d placed that silly cowboy hat on Rowan’s head for the first time.
“I’d be giving up so much,” she said, not sure if she meant by staying or by leaving.
Her dad held her gaze. “Maybe think about what you stand to gain, instead.”
She didn’t know if there was anything left to gain. She didn’t know if she could get Kate back. Maybe if they’d had this conversation before she’d ended things with Kate . . . maybe then it would be different. But she’d already lost Kate, and she doubted she would be able to change that. Kate had barely trusted her the first time, and Rowan had left, just as Kate had predicted. Even if she wanted Kate back, there was no way Kate would ever trust her again.
“What if it’s too late?” she asked.
“Would you forgive yourself if you didn’t try?” her dad countered.
She thought about Kate, hope and fear simultaneously blooming in her chest.