by Lola Stark
“You going to fight for her or what?”
My head shot up as the question left his mouth. Gramps stared at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.
“She has a fiancé, Gramps. She lied to me, and she came in here pretending to be something she wasn’t.”
“Have you asked her why?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to speak with her. I don’t know what to say to her.”
“Do you love her, boy?” He stood from where he was sitting and moved to sit beside me on the hay bale. “You wouldn’t be reacting like this if you didn’t. She deserves to tell you her side of the story. If this girl is messing you up like this and making you punch trees, then, my boy, she deserves to have you to fight for her.”
“But she has a fiancé, Gramps,” I repeated softly, desperately trying to ignore his question.
“Grams had a fiancé when I met her, Destry. She was meant to be marrying Willie Mason from the next farm over. They had the date, the plans; they even had a house bought for them. I met your Grams at the school dance; she was the prettiest girl I ever did see. I knew the moment she first held my hand when we had that very first dance, that I would fight for her and I would marry her. Look where we are now. We have this farm; we have you boys and Ellie-May, and I am damn proud of who you have all grown up to be. I got your grams, Destry, because she was who I wanted; her fiancé was just a road bump. If you want the pretty girl, get her. Listen to her. The farm will need a woman to run it when we leave any way.”
“When you leave?”
“What? You think we bought that home on wheels just to park it out front. Grams and I are traveling, Destry. This is your place now. You are the man of the house now. You are the manager of this farm; everything around us is now yours. I couldn’t be prouder to leave it to you. I want you to live here, start your family here, love her, make this your family home and make sure that pretty girl is with you. Don’t lose her, Destry. One’s like that just don’t fall in your lap often. Remember how she made you feel; that’s what you need to focus on. I love you, boy, but I know you have a temper on you and I know you are a stubborn ass. Now, isn’t the time for that.”
Without another word, he stood, patted me on the back and left me in the silence of the barn. They were leaving? Grams had been engaged? Starting my own family? Fighting a rich man for his fiancée? My head was swimming with admissions and I felt dizzy with the overload of information. Rubbing my uninjured hand over my face, I groaned at the clusterfuck I found myself in. I couldn’t just forgive and forget, could I? I needed answers. I needed to know why Amelia had chosen to string me along? I needed to know why she had decided to give herself fully to me when there was some asshole in the city waiting for her to come home. I needed to know if I meant anything at all.
X X X
Gramps and Gran spent some time after dinner telling everyone their new plan was and all the details before they retired to bed, leaving the rest of us sitting around shooting the breeze.
The summer air of Texas swirled around us; this was my favorite place: just the four of us sitting on the veranda with the world zooming around us. The four of us hadn’t had it easy, but we didn’t have it that hard either. That was because of the two people who just told us that they were leaving. To say I felt nervous was an understatement. I always knew the farm would land in my lap one day, but I didn’t think it would be happening so soon.
“So what does this mean?” Ellie was the first to break the silence. My head shot up to look at my baby sister, such an amazing woman she was growing in to. She looked back at me nervously, with the look of the world on her shoulders.
“It means that things will be a little different here but nothing with change for the four of us.”
“Will you want to make this yours and Amelia’s family home?” Austin questioned from beside me. What the fuck? My eyes narrowed in on him as I tried to comprehend his words. Amelia? Family home?
“This is our family home. The four of us.”
“And Amelia.” Brax decided to jump in. What the hell was happening? It was like they were having some kind of intervention.
“Well I know this will always be our family home but I’m sorry but I’m not going to be living here my whole life. Ill be shaking up with a girl one of these days and having my own farm.”
“Austin Reeves, did I really just hear you mention, god forbid, settling down?” Ellie scoffed with wide eyes.
“Not for a very long time sis. A very long time.”
“Well I don’t want to leave. I couldn’t imagine leaving you guys. You three have been the only people I’ve loved.” Ellie’s soft voice broke under the honesty of her words. “It scares me the thought of this kind of change.”
“Ellie bug would I let anything happen to you? This is your home forever and it will be always here. Nothing is going to change between us. I just might need some more help around here now that gramps and grams are leaving, that’s all I mean.”
She nodded and moved so she was sitting beside me and her small hand took mine. I had always been so protective of her and now as she sat beside me I felt like she was a baby needed protecting all over again. When mom passed I knew I had to provide. Ellie was our mom all over. The same eyes, the same flowing hair, the same button nose. She was perfect and I would protect her until the last breath I took.
“Oh, shit.” Austin’s low curse had my head snapping up to find Amelia stepping out of her car. I was so lost in thought; I hadn’t even heard her car pull up. My mood darkened instantly. I moved to stand up and leave when Austin put his hand on my chest. “Just hear her out.”
“I don’t think I can. I thought I could talk to her, but I’m… I just can’t.” I clenched my fists and winced as pain shot up my left arm. I pushed out of the swing seat and headed inside, ignoring her when she called out, “Destry, wait. Please.”
I slammed the screen behind me and went directly to the fridge, pulled out a cold beer uncapped it and took a few long pulls. Breathing heavily through my nose, I pulled another bottle out of the fridge and downed the rest of the first one before slamming it down on the counter. I could hear Austin and Amelia talking at the front of the house, but I wanted to hear nothing she had to say. Ellie walked up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “You should give her a second to explain, D.” I ground my teeth together and gripped my beer.
“Not you too.” I shook my head and pinned her with a look that quite obviously said stop. Ellie being Ellie ignored me and kept going, “Just listen. You might be surprised.”
Halfway through my second drink of cool amber liquid, the front screen banged against the frame and a few seconds later, a teary-eyed Amelia stopped a few feet in front of me. Her tears stabbed at my heart, but I shut it down and looked past her, not able to bring myself to look at her treacherous and equally gorgeous face. One look at her would have my walls crumbling back down and I couldn’t afford for that to happen. Ellie had disappeared almost as soon as Amelia entered the room, leaving us to have a talk that just wasn’t happening.
“Destry, just let me explain, please,” she pleaded quietly.
“Nothing to say, Amelia. You should just leave. Go home to your fiancé and let me be.” I picked my beer up and left through the back door. Jumping into my truck and driving out through the fields, I pulled up at the lake. I hadn’t intended on ending up there; I hadn’t even been sure where I was going. I made my way to the bank and sat on an old log. Elbows on my knees, I hung my head and picked at the label of my beer. A few minutes later, I heard a car pull up. Without turning around, I knew it would be her.
She sat down on the log beside me and cleared her throat. She slowly slid towards me and I tensed immediately; just the smell of her set my senses alive. Fuck, she had control of me and I hated that.
“Please give me a chance to explain. I need you to hear me out.” The warm summer breeze blew against us, doing nothing to ease the chill in
my body that was all about our situation and nothing to do with the temperature. “Destry, you changed my life the moment you stopped for me on that road.” I stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing, “You changed who I thought I was when you opened your home to me. You made me the person I had always dreamed of being the moment you opened your heart to me. I want to explain.” Seconds passed and I received no sign he was going to say a word. “You can’t just ignore me, Destry.” I just wanted him to say something, anything. The waiting was agonizingly painful.
“What do you want me to say, Amelia? How do you think it felt to be told that the woman I had been sleeping with, who I opened my home and family to, who I finally let into my heart, had a fiancé? Honestly, how do you think that felt?” he asked roughly. He didn’t want to talk.
“Tell me what to do, Destry. Tell me what I can say to make this okay. I am so sorry. I should have told you everything. I can’t lose this; I can’t lose us.” I placed my hand on his arm and he froze at my touch. Finally, he looked at me.
“Amelia, I can’t do this. I don’t know what the hell this is? You have a fiancé and I am definitely not the type of guy that fucks around with another guy’s girl. I just, I can’t be that person.. Nobody else has hurt me like you have, Amelia.” A tear trickled down his face. “I want to trust you, but you lied to me. You kept secrets, secrets that shouldn’t ever have been kept. You should have been honest and upfront. I shouldn’t have started this. I should have known better than to think a city girl and a country boy could have had a future together.” He cleared his throat and stared out somberly at the moon reflecting on the lake. “I did know better.”
“Destry, don’t,” I croaked out through the tears streaming down my face, my heart shattering into pieces. I knew where this was headed, and it was breaking me apart. I’d never wanted to hurt him. I’d ruined us and there was nothing I could say to make it right. My heart hurt. I had a feeling of utter dread and helplessness.
“I wanted you. That’s all I ever wanted, was you. Past and all, ‘Melia.” He reached out and wiped gently under my eye with his thumb as my breath hitched on a sob. He leaned forward and laid his warm lips on my forehead, took a deep breath and let me go. A step back and he turned and walked away. His head hung low, he walked past his truck and into the darkness, taking with him a piece of my soul. I crumpled to the ground and let the tears flow freely. All the hurt I’d felt in the world didn’t equate to the pain pouring from my broken heart.
X X X
Days had turned to weeks and those weeks had slowly trickled by since that night at the lake where I had realized I’d lost the true love I’d accidentally run into. I had found a small run down place on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. I’d spent hours slaving over broken windows and overgrown hedges but I’d made it livable.
Daddy and Mother had put up a good fight at first, but I finally found out I was already entitled to my inheritance, and it’d been transferred to my new bank account, the one I set up the moment I found my job. I was now the newest waitress at Rach’s Bar.
I was, for the first time in my life, completely independent and I was taking my independence by the balls. Destry hadn’t let me explain anything; he’d flat out ignored me every time I’d tried to speak a word to him, and the last time was my breaking point. I promised myself I would no longer cry myself to sleep over him or any man ever again. I would be the strong woman I’d always wanted to be. Self-assured and full of confidence. There were only so many times you could try and right a wrong, before you were beating a dead horse… or rather a drunk cowboy.
That was exactly what Destry had morphed into, a drunken cowboy. He was at the bar every night I worked, drinking beer after beer. He hadn’t shaved in what appeared to be weeks and he sure as hell looked like he hadn’t bathed in twice as long.
While I hadn’t been free of blame, I wasn’t allowing myself to pine after something that wasn’t mine to have. Destry and I were doomed from the beginning; if at the first sign of trouble, he turned tail and ran. I still kept in contact with Austin, Brax and Ellie-May. Matter of fact, I had a lunch date with Ellie that day. She was going through a bit of boy trouble, and since I was the only female friend she had, she’d come to me to talk it out. Not that I had the best track record with the opposite sex, but it was nice to be needed all the same.
I picked up my purse and key and went in search of my cell so I could leave to meet Ellie-May for a little girl time. I just hoped she didn’t talk too much about her eldest brother. I knew she meant well, but I’d made my choice as had he. It still hurt me to hear about his downward spiral though.
“Knock, knock,” I heard called out from the small, paint-chipped front door.
I poked my head around the hall and saw Ellie-May standing at the open entryway. “Hey, you.” I cocked my head to the side slightly in confusion. “I thought we were meeting at the diner?”
“Yeah, uhhh,” she shuffled her feet a little and blurted, “Destry’s there.” I smiled at her concern. She was such a sweet girl.
“Come in then; we’ll have lunch here,” I told her and put my belongings on the cute hall table I had sanded back and whitewashed.
“It’s looking so pretty,” she told me, gazing around my kitchen and living room. I followed her eyes when they landed on my cute outdoor sitting area.
“It wouldn’t be without the help Brax and Austin gave me.” I took the big jug of lemonade from the refrigerator, snagged two glasses and wandered outside, setting them down on the sweet two-seater table I had set up under the gazebo.
“He’s losing it,” she told me quietly when we sat down. My head snapped up from pouring the lemonade and I stared at her, unsure if I wanted her to go on or not. “I don’t know what to do about it. He’s destroying himself trying to forget how much he loves you.”
“I— I’m. I can’t fix it. I tried. He won’t listen to me.” I knew how bad it’d gotten. I was watching it too, but what was I supposed to do? I was nursing my own broken heart and Destry wouldn’t listen to me if I said anything about the way he was behaving.
“Did you love him?” Ellie-May asked sincerely.
“I still do, honey.” I ran my hand down my face and explained, “I do still love him.” Sad, but it was the God-honest truth. I loved him like I shouldn’t, like I’d never loved before or probably ever would.
Weeks had passed since I’d held her in my arms, been lost in the sound of her laughter or been overcome by the familiar perfume that lingered in the air at home. Home was empty now she wasn’t there. Austin liked to inform me daily of what was going on with her. I wish he would get it through his thick skull that it killed me hearing about what she was doing. She had moved into a little rundown house at the end of Edgars Lane. The boys had been spending their spare time helping her fix it up while I slumped over the bar at Rach’s and slowly drank myself into oblivion. That was my life now. Work, drinking, passing out and then doing it all over again.
Was today Thursday or Friday? All I knew was that it was another day I was walking through the double wooden doors of Rach’s bar and heading to the familiar booth that was now my sanctuary. I didn’t even need to order; before I knew it, Rach had slid an opened beer in front of me and slid in opposite me, looking at me with concern flooding her face.
“Back again?”
“Where else would I be, Rach? I am here hanging out with my friend.”
“Or are you here because a certain girl is due for a shift tonight?”
It was only last week that Rach had made me aware that my visiting times at her bar always seemed to coincide with the shifts that Amelia was working at the bar. She would work and I’d drink. She didn’t speak to me and I didn’t speak to her. She had tried about a week ago, and in my drunk stupor, I had made a scene; that was the last of her attempts to talk, but it didn’t stop me from being here.
“What the hell is it with you and my brother thinking you can Doctor Phi
l on me and get away with it? You are as bad as Austin!” I smirked and threw back my beer; the feeling of the cool liquid sliding down my throat offered the emotional comfort I desired. In a few short hours, I’d be passing out and forgetting this shit storm. As I watched her, I noticed something flash over her face, something I had never witnessed before. Was she blushing? Why had her eyes darted away from mine at the mention of Austin’s name?
“Well, someone has got to tell you what it’s like, and if that’s me or your idiot of a brother, then so be it.” She slid out of the booth and took a step towards the bar.
“Rach, wait. Is there something you’ve got to tell me?” I asked, knowing full well I was prying.
“Yeah, there is.” She hesitated briefly before smiling. “Warn me next time you are going to have a breakdown. You are almost drinking my bar out of beer.”
She took off towards the bar in a cloud of laughter. Rach had been a fixture in my life for more years than I could say. I remember her in school. She was in Austin’s year and I swear I thought the two of them would end up shacked up, but then he ran off with Claire and they suddenly stopped hanging out as much. She was a good girl. She could stand her ground; I had witnessed her stand up to guys twice her size many times, and she had a mean left hook. She was everything you’d expect a bar owner to be, but underneath, I knew she was just a girl with a big dream. My thoughts were shattered by the sound of Amelia’s voice floating through the air as she announced her arrival. My heart twisted at the sound of her sweet voice.
