by Liz Isaacson
He raised his hand in thanks and made the walk down the hall, his heart thumping as loudly as his boots. He poked his head into the appointed classroom and found a tall brunette moving from one group of desks to another, dropping notecards on each one.
“Mornin’,” Walker said, swiping his hat off his head.
The teacher turned toward him, her face breaking into a smile when she saw him. “You must be Mister Thompson.”
“I am. Michael said I had to come in this morning.” He wanted to give Miss Triplehorn the benefit of the doubt. If his son had been hit, he’d want action taken, even if Michael had done the taunting.
He moved into the classroom and Miss Triplehorn closed the door behind him. “Did Michael tell you what happened?”
“A nine-year-old version of it.” Walker settled into the chair she indicated. “I’d like to hear your side.”
She sighed as she sat next to her desk. “Michael is a sweet boy. I’ve never had a problem with him. I don’t think he hit the other boy maliciously. I was told he was being taunted and got so upset that he started swinging.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Of course, that’s still not okay, as I explained to Michael.”
“Of course not,” Walker agreed. “I’ve spoken to him about it.”
“I wanted you to know, and I need to be able to tell the other parents that action has been taken.”
“I understand.”
“Have you noticed any changes in Michael? Is he going through some changes at home?”
Walker’s throat turned dry, and he barely scraped “I haven’t noticed anything.” But he knew at least one thing had changed: He’d started dating Tess. Sourness turned his stomach, but he managed to shake Miss Triplehorn’s hand and hold his head high as he exited the school.
Once in the safety of his truck, he let his head sag to his chest. He thought of the song he’d played that morning.
When the summer’s ceased its gleaming, when the corn is past its prime,
When adventure’s lost its meaning, I’ll be homeward bound in time.
It was definitely fall, and the corn had all come down weeks ago. He knew the song wasn’t about ending a relationship with a woman, but about passing to the other side. Still, it spoke to him. He believed that he would be reunited with the people he loved—including Tess—at the right moment in time.
Maybe now simply wasn’t the right time for them to be dating. He’d told Michael he’d put him first, and here he sat, stewing over what to do about Tess.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed her. She answered with a fun, flirty tone, and Walker wanted to end the call. “Can I come over?” he asked instead.
“Sure,” she said, her voice full of surprise. “Do you want to go to breakfast or something?”
“No, I just need to talk to you for a few minutes before I head back up to the ranch.”
“All right. See you in a few.”
Walker drove the several blocks back to Tess’s, a nest of live snakes writhing in his stomach, his lungs, his throat. Tess waited on her front steps, her knees drawn to her chest. He fumbled getting out of the truck, a numbness spreading from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.
He paused a healthy distance from her, sure he’d lose his resolve if he got close enough to breathe in the scent of her hair, feel the softness of her skin, look into the depths of her beautiful eyes.
“Tess,” he said, his voice completely agonized.
She stood, her fingers fluttering around her collarbone. She said nothing, making him work for what he needed to say.
“Michael’s gotten into some trouble at school,” he said. “I need….” He wanted to say you. I need you, but instead he said, “I need to focus on him for a while.” He swept his hat off his head and ran his free hand through his hair. Everything in his life felt disheveled, like there’d been an earthquake and had shaken everything up.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be picking him up from school. I can still take Graham in the mornings if you need me to.”
“I can take him.” Her words barely had any form at all.
“I’m sorry, Tess.”
“Are you saying we can’t be together?”
He shook his head. “I’m saying that I need to focus on Michael right now.” He took a step toward her and then fell back. “Maybe we can just push pause.”
She sucked in a breath. “I don’t think so, Walker. It’s either stop or go. There’s no pause.”
Walker’s muscles tensed. “Then I guess this is stop.” He mashed his hat back onto his head and turned away. “Sorry, Tess.” He walked back to his truck, his step sure but his heart cracking, then breaking, then shattering. He drove away and managed to make it around the corner before slamming his palm against the steering wheel.
Chapter Twelve
Tess didn’t see Walker again until the following Thursday, when he pulled up to her house and sat in his idling truck. Megan had called and asked if Michael could still come home with Graham for the last few weeks of soccer. Megan. Like Tess and Walker weren’t grown-ups and couldn’t have an adult conversation about something as simple as soccer practice. His behavior angered her almost as much as it tore at her heart.
He sat in his truck, his eyes straight forward, everything about him testifying that he had turned into a statue. Tess positioned herself next to the column on her front porch and folded her arms. She’d called upstairs to Michael, and now they all waited for the boy to gather his belongings.
He finally burst through the front door. “Thanks, Miss Tess,” he called as he jogged past her.
“No problem, Michael. See you later.” She lifted her hand in a wave, but the little boy didn’t turn back. And Walker certainly wasn’t looking. Tess tore her eyes from him and went back into the house. She would not be the one to show how much his absence sliced at her.
With the door closed, she pressed her back into it and took a deep breath. The thought of dinner overwhelmed her, and she wondered how far she could drive on the gas she had in her tank. Then she and Graham could stop wherever they happened to be and find a taco joint.
With a jolt, she remembered that Paige had invited her to dinner that night. She flew into action, grabbing her purse and snatching her keys from the drawer by the garage entrance. “Graham!” she called. “We’re going over to Paige’s for dinner. Let’s go.”
Footsteps pounded upstairs and then flew down to the first floor. “I haven’t finished my homework.”
“That’s okay,” Tess said. “We can do it in the morning before school.” She tried to give him her best smile, but it felt stitched on. “Grab your shoes. You can put them on in the car.”
So though Graham needed a bath, and still wore his soccer practice clothes, and hadn’t finished his homework, Tess took him over to her friend’s house.
Paige had a pair of boys, one thirteen and one nine. Graham immediately glued himself to Scott’s side, leaving Tess alone with Paige and her husband Bryan.
“How’s life?” Paige asked as she chopped cucumbers. Chop, chop, chop. The knife scraped as she collected the pieces and dropped them on top of the lettuce.
“Fine.”
Paige paused, her hand hanging in midair as she reached for a tomato. “What happened?”
Tess shrugged. How she’d managed to avoid Paige for almost a week was a complete mystery. Sometimes their lives intersected every day, and sometimes they didn’t.
“Walker Thompson broke up with her,” Bryan said in a bored tone, not even bothering to look up from his tablet.
Horror snaked through Tess’s bloodstream. “How did you know that?”
“Yeah.” Paige drew the word out and narrowed her eyes at her husband, who finally felt the weight of it and looked up. “How did you know that?”
“He came into the hardware store today, lookin’ miserable—about like her.” He nodded toward Tess. “I overheard him talking to Jim about it. I guess
he’d ordered something for…something with Tess, and now he didn’t need it.”
Tess felt like someone had scrubbed out her insides with steel wool, and then poured bleach down her throat. She covered her mouth with one hand, sure she was going to be sick. But she kept breathing, kept blinking, kept smelling the deliciousness of the beef roast Paige had obviously put in the crock pot hours ago.
“When did this happen?” Paige asked.
“Last Friday.”
Understanding crossed her friend’s face, and a sympathetic tilted appeared on her lips. “I’m surprised you came tonight.”
Tess shrugged though she felt like every movement might crack a bone. “I was living before Walker. I’ll survive.” How she’d do that, she wasn’t exactly sure, but she’d made it through the past six days. Sure, she’d cried a little over the weekend. She’d skipped church so no one would see her puffy eyes, and Graham accepted her declaration of “I’m sick,” and left her alone.
And maybe she’d eaten all the ice cream she could find at the convenience store on the north end of town. She went there, because she knew Walker wouldn’t. At least three other gas stations existed between the ranch and the northern edge of town, and she didn’t want him to see her in sweat pants, as many of those pint containers as she could carry in her arms.
And maybe, just maybe, she’d had a chocolate party of her own last night. Wednesdays were made for desserts, and she didn’t see a reason to waste one just because the ladies weren’t coming over.
“Oh, honey.” Paige wrapped Tess in a tight hug. “There’s more to life than surviving.”
“Not for me,” Tess mumbled into her friend’s shoulder.
Paige stepped back like she’d been electrocuted. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve spent the last five years of my life surviving. First when Brandon died. Then when I was diagnosed with cancer.” A rage Tess didn’t know how to calm rose within her. “You realize that’s what you do when you have cancer, right? You survive. There’s no cure.” Sharp edges tore at her lungs. Coming over here was a mistake. She shouldn’t be around people when she felt so ragged.
“I was just starting to think I could live, and maybe with Walker, and then….” She shook her head as tears filled her eyes. “It’s fine. He needs to take care of Michael, and if there’s anyone who understands that their kid comes first, it’s me.” She glanced around like one of Paige’s famous chocolate cakes would materialize on the counter in front of her. She’d probably start fisting it in at this point. “It’s not like I was in love with him.”
Paige’s eyebrows rose right up to her hairline. “No?”
“Of course not.” Tess added a hearty scoff to her statement. “We’d been dating for what? Two months? If that.”
Bryan, who Tess had always liked, said, “Paige and I were engaged after two months.”
“That’s because we’re crazy,” Paige said quickly. She gave Bryan a look that clearly said not helping. Be quiet.
Bryan shrugged and went back to his tablet. Tess didn’t mind what he’d said. Everything was different when you were twenty-something, single without kids, still in college. Their dating experience compared to hers was like trying to make an apple taste like an orange.
Paige snatched the tomato and cored it like it had done her a personal wrong. “Well, Walker’s an idiot then. And here I thought you guys were perfect for each other. You’ve been friends for so long, and have so much in common.” Slice, slice, slice. She made fast work of the tomato and continued her tirade as if she were alone in the kitchen. “How does a reasonable man miss what’s standing right in front of him? I’m so going to give him a piece of my mind next time I see him.” Her dark hair swished with every syllable.
Before Tess could beg her not to say anything to Walker, Paige strode to the mouth of the kitchen and called, “Boys! Time for dinner.” She turned back to Tess, her stern expression melting into compassion. “Come on, honey.” She draped one arm around Tess’s shoulders and whispered, “I made a chocolate cake, and you can have two pieces.”
Tess smiled even as emotion choked in her throat and tears filled her eyes. Even if she never had another chance at marital happiness, she’d always have Paige.
A week later, the barbs that had taken up permanent residence in her heart had dulled. She could get up without thinking about Walker. Drop Graham off without looking for Walker’s truck. Enjoy Taco Tuesday without thinking about the teasing sparkle in Walker’s eyes or hearing his deep voice teasing her about how no one needed to eat one hundred tacos.
She helped Graham’s class decorate marshmallow spiders at their Halloween party; soccer season ended; the first snow appeared in the Uinta Mountains. Tess survived it all.
She went to church really late every week so she could sit somewhere far from Walker. She couldn’t risk accidentally getting a whiff of his cologne or even catching a glimpse of his handsome face. And if she sat far enough behind him, she didn’t have to see or smell anything that would make the sharp points inside her return.
Just over three weeks after Walker put a stop to their relationship, Tess laid in bed, keeping her promise to herself to take care of herself. Her fingers traveled around her chest, feeling for what she hoped never to find again.
She sucked in a breath and went back.
She stared at the ceiling. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Another lump.
Chapter Thirteen
“When are you gonna stop moping around?” Landon sank into the chair opposite Walker, they being the only two on the front patio that day. Walker had sent Ted and Justin down to Vernal for more feed, and Emmett hadn’t come in from the hay fields yet.
Walker bit into his peanut butter and banana sandwich and glared. He swallowed, said, “I’m not moping.”
Landon gestured between the two of them. “What do you call this then?”
Walker looked at his plate, still half-covered with potato chips. “Eating lunch.”
Landon rolled his eyes. “I know what moping looks like, Walker.”
“Have I been slacking on the job?”
“No, of course not.” Landon stuffed half his sandwich in his mouth, but Walker knew that wouldn’t deter him from saying what he wanted to say. At least he chewed and swallowed first. “Has Michael had any more problems at school?”
Walker narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“So you could maybe push play again.”
“Landon.”
“Walker, you’re unhappy. I’ve never seen you as happy as you were when you were dating Tess.”
Walker hadn’t been that happy in years. He’d admitted it to himself in the quiet moments before he went to sleep. He’d thought many times about getting to Tess as fast as he could, apologizing for everything from what he’d said to global warming, and begging her to take him back.
He’d managed to make it through five weeks without doing that. He’d spent the time with his horses and his son, and he knew that world. Had once thought that world was all he needed.
“What’s keepin’ you from going back to her?” Landon asked.
“Pride,” Walker answered immediately. “And fear.”
“You think she won’t take you back?”
“I don’t know what she’ll do.”
“You think you can’t be happy with her?”
“Of course I could be happy with her.”
Landon finished his lunch. “I don’t know what you’re doing then.”
“Living in fear, not by faith.” Megan had appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, sunshine.” Landon stood and pressed a kiss to Megan’s cheek. He disappeared into the house and Megan took his place at the table across from Walker.
“Megan,” Walker warned. “I just heard it all from Landon.”
“Just tell me if I’m right.”
Walker’s heart stormed in his chest. “About right,” he clipped out between stiff lips.
&
nbsp; Megan smiled at him, a soft, kind smile that reminded Walker that she cared about him. “Fear gets you nowhere.”
“Sometimes faith doesn’t either,” he said.
“It only seems like that.”
“Yeah, well.” Walker pushed himself up and gathered his now-empty plate. “Thanks for lunch, Megan.” He cleaned up in the kitchen and went back to the horse barn. The work was never-ending, and for once, Walker was grateful for that.
That evening, as he stirred the spaghetti he’d just dropped into boiling water, Michael entered the kitchen. “Dad?”
“Yeah?” He glanced over his shoulder to find Michael carrying his backpack.
“I have to do a science fair project, and I need help picking an experiment.”
Walker groaned. He hated school projects, because he usually did more work than Michael. “When’s it due?”
“Next week.”
Walker abandoned the stove. “Next week? Have you been workin’ on it in class?”
“A little. I just need help finding a project.”
“How could you work on a project if you haven’t picked one yet?”
“I had a good one,” Michael said. “But someone else got it approved before me.”
Walker didn’t much care what had happened. He just wanted to get dinner over with so he could go to bed. Now that the sun set sooner, Walker’s limit came earlier as well. “Let’s get out the laptop.”
Michael followed him into the living room. “Dad, why did you stop dating Tess?”
Walker froze, his hand halfway in the drawer where he kept the computer when he wasn’t using it, which was most of the time. “I told you,” he said. “Wasn’t a good time.”
“You liked her though, right?”
“Yeah, sure, I liked her.” Walker’s voice sounded like he’d swallowed glass.
“How do you know when it’s the right time?”
Walker pulled out the computer and faced his son. “I don’t know, Michael. I honestly don’t.”
