Page 28 of Serious Cowboy
And when she’d so tactlessly entered his bedroom and infringed on his privacy to pick up that reminder of what he’d once had...
What could’ve been? His life had been so irrevocably altered by that singular event. She’d been thinking that he’d been infuriated by her actions, but what if it was worse? What if she’d hurt him by reminding him so vividly of that horror? Of thatgrief? If he’d never healed from it, and she’d been picking at a barely scabbed over wound?
At some point she must’ve said goodbye to everyone and gone home because she found herself there without any memory of the journey. She completed her evening routine using rote muscle memory on autopilot, then climbed into her bed, only to lay there sleeplessly for hours.
Could someone go through what Zeke had without being permanently scarred from it? Could a man like that ever love as freely and easily as others?
Or might he be too damaged, too broken to ever risk his heart again?
And what about her part in all this? As the person who’d persuaded him to make another attempt at a relationship, how culpable was she for harming him? Should she offer more apologies than the ones she’d already sent via voicemail, text, and email? Something better, maybe?
She didn’t even know what that might look like.
Also, he hadn’t responded to her efforts so far.
Callie cared about Zeke deeply, heck, she was probably in love with him. But should she be the one to dare to try to heal him? Especially if he would no longer let her in? And was healing even possible in a man who didn’t appear to have even begun the healing process after all these years? Would he even let her in again? She doubted it. And then she was reminded that people have to want to be healed and they have to find that on their own.
She honestly didn’t know, but she spent the entire night tossing and turning as she wrestled with the answer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
An early springblizzard dumped snow on that part of Montana, slowing operations within town and making things more difficult on the ranch. Zeke studied the falling layers of grayish white outside as it made the nighttime world around them into a monochromatic painting. Despite his years of driving in such conditions, the storm had become so bad that he and some of the other staff ended up staying overnight at the main house.
It felt so peculiar to wander around this home that now housed Bryce and Lindsey Duncan but had, over the decades, housed all the Duncans. He knew this from the display of framed photos someone—likely Molly, Lindsey’s mother-in-law—had placed along the hallway and various walls.
There was the exceedingly youthful Jim and Molly Duncan on their wedding day. Then came the pictures of the four boys born one right after the other. Unlike some of the employees, Zeke hadn’t worked here for so long that he’d actually witnessed those boys growing up, but he knew them all now at least somewhat.
Bryce, being his direct supervisor, was the one he dealt with the most. But Josh, the second born, was around managing the horses and constantly talking glowingly about his teacher wife, Maddie, and their kid. There was Sam and Whitney, who’d become the parents of twins not too long ago. And Pete, the veterinarian, and his lady Lilliana.
The Duncans had expanded into quite the brood, and Zeke imagined that at times, this simple two-story ranch house had likely bustled with activity and noise. It was quiet now, though, nearly silent. The snow did that. It blanketed the land in a manner that Zeke had always liked, always appreciated. As a child, he’d loved going outside to enjoy that quiet, especially when the inside of his home had been nothing but raised voices.
He continued to survey the images that had caught specific moments in the lives of the Duncans until his gaze went unfocused and his mind brought him the image of a heavily pregnant Maria. Then as if his brain had created a snapshot, it brought him the memory of Callie holding up that framed photo, bone-deep curiosity lighting her features.
Zeke had done his best to avoid that memory, but for some reason, maybe due to his surroundings, it came back to him in sharp relief. Normally, he didn’t ever analyze why he felt how he did. The feelings and emotions involved with losing both Maria and their newborn child had felt too huge to wrap his mind around, had sliced out too gigantic a piece of his heart.
The same remained true when it came to walking in on Callie helping herself to look through the most excruciating part of his past as if she had a right to.
But little by little, glimpses of finding her in his room like that kept returning to him. As he made analyses of the feed. Ashe drove his antique truck. As he tinkered around with one of his many projects. Just because his hands were occupied didn’t mean his thoughts were, he already knew that. But he didn’t know why that single image kept sticking, kept playing itself behind his eyes as if on repeat.
He’d moved beyond her intrusiveness fairly rapidly. Being nosy was very Callie-like behavior.
Yet as more and more time elapsed between that moment and now, he began to consider why he’d experienced such a strong reaction. Sure, she shouldn’t have been in his room. That was a given.
But Callie happening upon that picture wasn’t what bothered him. It was that she stumbled upon something he had intentionally kept buried. A secret. Even though at the time, the whole town knew.
Their pitying looks had just made everything worse.
Even now, nearly twenty years later, some of the townsfolk still looked at him that way.
Was that what had bothered him so much? The idea that Callie knowing the horrible truth would somehow reopen all those old wounds? Or was it that the basic act of her discovering this about him meant he’d have to talk to her about it all? That he was sure she wouldn’t be capable of leaving well enough alone.
He didn’t know.
Zeke opened his phone and peered at the last message she’d sent. It’d been a text, one of duplicates she’d been sending weekly until last week. Except this one had differed.
Callie: Zeke, I could keep bugging you with these texts, but although I’m a stubborn woman, I’m beginning to think there’s no point. I’m sorry. So very sorry. I don’t know how many times you need me to type those words out. I’d say them a hundred times to your face if I could. But if you don’t respond to this message, I’ll do us both a favor and stop.
That’d been it. She’d cut things off on this odd little note, and he didn’t know how to feel about it. He didn’t know how to feel about anything.