Rough Terrain (Vista Falls #1)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “That wouldn’t have happened,” Wes said with conviction. He couldn’t imagine ever resenting either of them. Especially since he’d spent so many years wishing they could be a part of his life.

  “Maybe, maybe not. But that wasn’t a chance Sage was willing to take. And I can’t say that I blame her. In her position, I would have done the same damn thing.”

  “Are you telling me if you got pregnant with Colt’s baby, you would have left town, put the baby up for adoption, and never spoken to him again?”

  Someone cleared their throat from the door. Gabby and Wes looked up to find Colt leaning in the doorframe, arms crossed, straining the plaid flannel shirt rolled up to reveal his powerful forearms.

  “I’m kind of curious about that myself,” Colt admitted, staring at Gabby. “I’ve asked myself a dozen times what we would have done if we’d found ourselves in Sage and Wes’s position. You honestly don’t think we would have gotten married, tried to make it work?”

  Gabby seemed stunned by his question as she reached for her purse on the coffee table. “If being married taught me one thing, it’s that you can’t make it work, no matter how hard you try. If you have to force it, it just wasn’t meant to be.” She leaned in to kiss Wes’s cheek. “Thanks for letting me stick my nose into your business. Think about what I said?”

  “You know I will.”

  Gabby rushed past Colt, muttering his name as she passed. Colt was still watching her when Wes heard the ding of the elevator in the hall announcing her departure.

  “What was that about?” Wes asked. “Were you just messing with her, or have you really thought about shit like that?”

  “Sure, I’ve thought about it,” Colt said, sinking into the leather club chair as he kicked his feet up on the scarred pine coffee table. “What might have happened to me and Gabby if fate had decided for us instead of letting two dumb kids think they knew it all.”

  “What does that mean? You’re having regrets about leaving her?” Colt had seemed a lot more introspective since their return to Vista Falls, and Wes knew he was a lousy friend for not knowing the reason behind his pensive moods.

  “I have a lot of regrets,” Colt said, tipping his head back as he closed his eyes. “Gabby is just one of many.”

  “Tell me about it.” Wes wanted to help his friend any way he could. Even if he couldn’t find peace, he wanted Colt to.

  Colt opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. “You ever feel like your life is so far off track you don’t know what to do to make things right?”

  “I think we all feel that way sometimes.” Wes crossed the room, took two longnecks out of the mini-fridge, and twisted the caps off before handing one to Colt. If he’d ever seen his friend in need of a cold one, it was now.

  “Thanks,” Colt muttered before taking a long pull of the beer.

  “But that doesn’t mean you have to stay there. Break it down. Figure out what’s wrong and fix it.”

  “Easier said than done, my friend.” Colt sighed. “I knew coming back here would be hard, but I had no idea that girl would still have the power to turn me inside out after all these years.”

  Wes sat on the arm of the chair across from Colt, propping the heel of his boot on the leather cushion. “Ah, so this is about Gabby?”

  “Among other things.” He looked at the same photo Gabby had been staring at moments before when he said, “She married another man. I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around that. She was someone else’s wife.”

  “I know.” Wes knew it would have been hard for him to imagine Sage being someone else’s wife.

  “Did you know she had a miscarriage a while back?”

  “No,” Wes said, wondering how his friend had come across that bit of news. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing Gabby would tell him during a casual conversation.

  “Rusty told me. Apparently she was pretty broken up about it.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And you know what I thought?” Colt looked disgusted as he said, “I said a silent prayer of thanks that she’d lost the baby, that she didn’t have that connection with someone else. What kind of sick, selfish bastard does that make me?”

  Wes considered his response, knowing that nothing he said would make Colt feel better about his reaction. “I’d like to say I wouldn’t have done the same thing had it been Sage who was pregnant with another man’s baby, but I can’t. So at least we’re both dirtbags. Don’t feel so bad.”

  “I hate myself for thinking that.” Colt closed his eyes again, bringing the beer to his lips and damn near draining the bottle. “How could I wish pain on someone I once claimed to love?”

  “So you don’t love her anymore?” Wes had an opinion on that, but he wanted to hear his friend’s take on it first.

  “How can I?” Colt asked, frowning. “I don’t even know her anymore. We were kids when we were together. I’m a grown-ass man now, and I’m ashamed to admit I still don’t have my shit together. So even if I did have feelings for her, how could I expect her to give me another chance?”

  “The other stuff you mentioned,” Wes said, trying to get a clearer picture of why Colt was really beating himself up. “That have anything to do with your family? Your old man?”

  “I can’t go back there.” Colt clenched his jaw. “I’ve been back here for months, and I haven’t set foot back in that house. Not even to see my mama. What kind of son does that make me? Hell, what kind of man does that make me? A coward who—”

  “That’s bullshit.” Colt was one of the strongest men Wes had ever known, and he refused to allow him to get down on himself because he didn’t want to go back into that house of horrors he’d grown up in. “You don’t want to go back there? Don’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a relationship with your mama if you want one. Take her out for lunch. Ask her to meet you somewhere. Hell, buy her a new house. You can’t be the only one who has bad memories of that place.”

  “You really think I should offer to buy her a new place?” Colt asked, looking thoughtful.

  “Why not? It’s not like you can’t afford it. I think it’d be good for her. And for you. Clean slate.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Colt nodded. “Anyway, enough about me. I want to hear how things went with Sage this afternoon. We got so busy with work stuff when you got back that I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it.”

  That was what Wes loved about his best friend. No matter what he was going through, he always made time to ask about other people’s challenges and offered to help in any way he could. “She wants to go with me.”

  “You mean to meet him?”

  “Yeah.” Wes peeled the label off his bottle, sighing. “But Gabby’s worried about how Sage will handle it if he doesn’t react well to us just showing up after all these years, trying to make things right.”

  “I can understand that.” Colt leaned forward and set his empty bottle on the coffee table. “So maybe you should think about going alone, you know, see how he reacts to you before you decide whether or not to bring Sage into the mix.”

  “He’s our son,” Wes said, frustrated by his own indecisiveness. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Sage, but he wasn’t sure he could take this step without her. “She has every right to see him if she wants to, right? And who knows better than she does whether she’s ready?”

  “If you’re sure, then don’t worry about what Gabby said. Just go for it,” Colt said, looking Wes in the eye.

  “But what if Gab’s right? What if he lashes out at us for abandoning him and that makes things even worse for Sage? It took a hell of a long time for her to recover from the adoption. Is it selfish of me to want to stir all this up again?”

  “That depends,” Colt said, stroking the dark stubble on his jaw. “Are you doing this because you want this or because you think Sage does? Or are you doing it for your son because you want him to know you let him go because you loved him?”

  “I don’t know.�
�� Wes had asked himself that question a dozen times and still didn’t have the answer. “Maybe a bit of all three?”

  “Some people weren’t meant to be parents,” Colt said, looking at the plank hardwood. “Like my old man, for example. And some were. Like you, man. You would have been a good dad, even at that age. I really believe that. And if I didn’t think your son would be better off for knowing you, I’d tell you to stay the hell out of his life. To be smart enough to leave well enough alone. But that’s not the case.”

  Wes was almost too choked up to say thanks because Colt was giving him the confirmation he’d never even realized he needed. He wasn’t a bad guy, and his son wouldn’t be worse off for knowing him.

  Colt crossed the room to the door. “I really believe you need to see him. Whether or not you take Sage with you that first time is up to you. But if you want my advice, don’t waste any more time. Meet your boy, Wes.”

  ***

  Sage was at her obligatory weekly dinner with her parents, but she’d have rather been anywhere else. She was grateful her father’s recovery had progressed to the point he was able to speak again, but that also meant he could pass judgment on the way she was running his business.

  “I heard you went out for lunch with Wes Davis today,” her mother said, pursing her thin lips as she passed the roast beef.

  “The grapevine must be malfunctioning,” Sage said, trying to hold her temper as she loaded her plate with food she’d rather not eat. “He came in to buy a truck. We took it out for a test drive.” She looked across the table, where her father was sitting in his wheelchair and studying her with that same ever-present scowl he’d worn since she was a little girl. “You’ll be pleased to know he bought a new 450. Didn’t even want to trade his old one in. I don’t have to tell you that really helped our month.”

  Before her father could respond, her mother rolled her eyes while piling food onto her husband’s plate. “I think it’s disgusting the way he’s been throwing his money around since he came back to town. First he bought and renovated that big ol’ factory. Then he bought that piece of land, and have you seen the size of the house he built on it? It must be five thousand square feet. What does a single man need with all that space?”

  Sage looked around the house she’d grown up in, wondering why her parents needed six bedrooms and bathrooms when they only used one. “It’s his money, Mom, and he earned it the hard way.” She cut her meat into small squares so she wouldn’t choke on it given how dry her throat was. “I’d say that gives him the right to spend it any way he wants to.”

  “You always were defending that boy,” she said, brushing her sideswept ash-blond bangs out of her eyes. “In your eyes, he could do no wrong. However, we were always the bad guys, weren’t we? We didn’t know anything. You thought you knew it all. And look at you now. No husband, no children…”

  Sage set her knife and fork down carefully, glaring at her mother. She couldn’t believe her mother had the audacity to attack her when she’d done everything she could to help them. “My only concern since Dad had his stroke has been keeping the business afloat. I put everything else, including my own career, on the back burner. Maybe I would have had time for a social life if I didn’t spend every goddamn waking hour at that dealership!”

  “Watch your language,” her mother said, sounding shocked.

  “And don’t talk to your mother that way,” her father muttered, his scowl deepening.

  “I am sick and tired of being treated like a child,” she said, tossing her pressed linen napkin on the table beside her plate. “You’ve always assumed you knew what was best for me. You even managed to convince me for a while. But now I can see that you may very well have cost me the best things that ever happened to me.”

  “What are you talking about?” her mother asked, grasping her pearls as the color drained from her face.

  “I’m talking about Wes. And our son.” She let that sink in as her parents looked at each other, clearly deciding how to react. “I loved him, and he loved me. I let you convince me that we were too young to be parents, that I’d be ruining all of our lives if I didn’t agree to go through with the adoption.”

  “You would have,” her father said, looking weary as he shook his head. “You were just a kid yourself.”

  Sage felt a modicum of guilt for having this conversation with her parents while her father was still recovering, but it was long overdue. For years she’d been the dutiful daughter, carefully avoiding the topic of her son so as not to upset anyone. But she was done hiding from the past. And the truth. It was time to face it head-on and let her parents know exactly how she felt.

  “I know you may have thought you were doing what was best for me, but you didn’t care what I thought was best. You assumed you knew Wes better than I did, and I’d say time has proven you dead wrong.” She raised an eyebrow. “He’s a successful businessman—a multi-millionaire, in fact. For you to have assumed that he was lazy and wouldn’t have worked his ass off to provide for us—”

  “Language,” they said in unison.

  Sage clenched her teeth, pushing her chair back. “I will continue to do right by this family because my conscience won’t allow me to walk away and leave you high and dry with Dad in this state. But I’ll be damned if I allow you to continue weighing in on every decision I make.”

  “Sage!” her mother said when Sage pushed her chair back and stood. “Where is all this coming from? You know we love you, that we only want what’s best for you.”

  “But that’s just it,” Sage said, standing behind her chair and gripping the back of it. “You don’t know what’s best for me. Hell, I’m not even sure I know. But I’m making it my business to find out. And if you want to have any kind of relationship with me, you’ll kindly stay out of my way.”

  ***

  Gabby was waiting on her front porch when Sage got home, and she was glad to be saved a phone call.

  “Come in,” Sage said, fitting her key in the lock. “We’re opening a bottle of wine. I need my best friend.”

  “Um, I’m not sure you’ll feel that way when I tell you what I did.”

  Gabby wasn’t big on regrets. She usually just plowed ahead without thinking twice, so if she was feeling remorseful, it had to be big.

  “At least let me open the wine before you tell me,” Sage said.

  Following Sage into her tidy Tudor-style home, Gabby said, “You know I love you, girl. That’s the only reason I did it.”

  “Oh, God.” Sage reached into the fridge for the emergency bottle of white wine. “My parents just said the same thing to me. Now I’m really scared.” Sage’s hand trembled slightly as she poured two glasses of wine and handed one to her friend. After a healthy swig, she closed her eyes. “Okay, let me have it. What did you do?”

  “I went to see Wes.”

  Sage’s eyes flew open. “What? Why?”

  “I got to thinking after I left your office,” Gabby said, claiming a stool at the island in the middle of the room which served as both a table and prep space. “I’m not going to lie—I’m worried about you going with Wes to meet your son… and I told him so.”

  Sage sighed, bringing the bottle of wine with her as she claimed the stool beside Gabby. “Honey, I know your heart is in the right place, but I can take care of myself. If I didn’t think I could handle it, I wouldn’t have agreed to go with Wes.”

  “But I thought I may have pressured you into it,” Gabby said, her eyes filling with tears. “If you had a setback after meeting him because of me, I’d never forgive myself.”

  Sage gave her a one-armed hug, laying her head on her friend’s shoulder. “You got me through those months after the adoption. I’m not sure I would have made it without you.”

  “Don’t say that!” Gabby said, swiping at her tears. “Don’t even think that!”

  “It’s true, and we both know it.” Sage sat upright and took another sip of wine while handing Gabby a napkin to dry her eyes. “But I’m
not that same broken girl anymore. I’m a grown woman now, and a lot of years have passed. I’ve gotten a lot stronger. Writing the book helped me work through a lot of those emotions, and I really think I’m ready to meet him, assuming that’s what he wants.”

  “What if he doesn’t?” Gabby asked, looking at Sage out of the corner of her eye. “Have you thought about how you’re going to feel if he doesn’t want to meet you guys?”

  “Of course I’ve thought about it.” She took another sip. No amount of alcohol would dull the pain if that came to pass.

  “And?”

  “And I can’t live my life in fear anymore. I have to face the past, come to terms with what I did. Tell my son that I’m sorry, I’ll always love him, and just make sure he’s okay, you know? He’s getting to that age where he’ll be thinking about college soon. What if his adoptive parents can’t help him with that? I want to be able to.”

  “Don’t you think you have your hands full trying to support your own family?”

  “But he’s my family too, and I’d do anything for him.” If she got a call asking her to donate an organ to him, she would do it without hesitation. That was how much she loved this person whose name she didn’t even know.

  “You really think Wes would let his kid stress about how he was going to pay for college? Come on, you know he’d step up.”

  “Yeah,” Sage said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she kicked off her high heels. “I know he would. But I’d want to do my part too.”

  Before Gabby could respond, Sage’s doorbell rang. “Are you expecting company?”

  “Nope, though a pizza sounds good right about now. I left my parents’ house before…” Sage stopped in her small foyer when she realized who was standing on the other side of her door. Wes.