“Stop looking at me like that,” I ordered.
Waylon huffed out a sigh that ruffled his jowls. He looked more mournful than usual, which was saying something for a basset hound. He was also sitting in my lap, with his paws on my chest, creepily staring at me.
Apparently my dog wasn’t a fan of the fact that we were back at the cabin full-time.
He didn’t see it as sparing Naomi from seeing me at the dinner table.
He didn’t care that it was the right fucking thing to do.
It was the right thing to do, I reminded myself.
No matter how hurt she’d looked.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself, swiping a hand over my beard.
Dragging it out would have only made things more complicated, hurt more feelings.
She’d been so relaxed and happy, sitting across from me at Dino’s. So damn gorgeous I couldn’t look directly at her or look away. Then the light had gone right out of her.
I’d done that. I’d extinguished it.
But it was the right fucking thing.
I’d feel better soon. I always did. The relief from ending a complication would come, and I wouldn’t feel so…unsettled.
With nothing better to do, I popped the top on my third beer.
It was Monday. I’d put in a full afternoon at Whiskey Clipper, moving into my office when clients and staff started shooting dirty looks at me. Word spread fast in Knockemout. I’d planned on working tonight at the bar, but when I’d walked in the door at Honky Tonk Max and Silver had booed me.
Then Fi flipped me the bird and told me to come back when I learned how to be less of an asshole.
This was why I didn’t mess around with Knockemout women.
They were rattlesnake mean when riled. So here I was. Home for the night. Enjoying my solitude.
It would all blow over soon. I’d stop feeling like shit. Naomi would get over it. And everyone would move the fuck on.
Waylon let out another grumble and shot a pointed, droopy look at his empty food dish.
“Fine.”
He jumped down, and I fed him, then returned to the living room, where I flopped down on the couch and reached for the remote.
Instead, my fingers found the picture frame. Since I had nothing better to do, I picked it up and studied it. My parents had been happy. They’d built a life for me and Nash. A good one.
Until it had all crumbled because the foundation was unstable.
I ran a finger over my mom’s smiling face in the photo and wondered for just a moment what she’d think of Naomi and Waylay.
What she’d think of me.
After a long pull from the bottle, I shifted my attention to my father’s face. He wasn’t looking at the camera, at whoever had taken the picture. His attention was on my mom. She’d been the light and the glue. Everything that had made our family strong and happy. And when she’d gone, we’d collapsed in on ourselves.
I put the photo down, angling it away so I wouldn’t have to look into the past anymore.
The past and the future were two places I had no business being. The only thing that mattered was right now. And right now…well, I still felt like shit.
Ready to numb out for a night, I reached for the remote again when a loud knock sent Waylon galloping to the front door, ears flapping.
I followed at a more dignified pace.
Crisp, September evening air wafted in when I opened the door.
Nash stood on the doorstep, jaw clenched, hands fisted at his side.
“You’re lucky I gotta do this right-handed.”
I didn’t get a chance to finish the question before my brother’s fist connected with my face. Like any good sucker punch, it rang my bell and knocked me back a full step.
“Ow! Fuck! What the hell, Nash?”
He pushed past me and stomped inside. “What did I tell you?” he snarled over his shoulder. He opened my fridge and helped himself to a beer.
“Jesus. Tell me about what?” I asked, working my jaw back and forth.
“Naomi,” Lucian said.
“Christ, Lucy. Where did you come from?”
“I drove.” He clapped me on the shoulder and followed Nash into the kitchen. “Feel better?” he asked my brother.
Nash handed him a beer and shrugged. “Not really. He’s got a hard face to go with that thick head.”
“What are you two assholes doing here?” I demanded, swiping Lucian’s beer and holding it to my jaw.
Nash handed him a fresh one.
“Naomi, of course,” Lucian said, accepting the beer and squatting down to pet Waylon.
“For fuck’s sake. That shit is none of your business.”
“Maybe not. But you are,” Lucian said.
“I told you not to fuck it up,” Nash said.
“This is bullshit. You can’t just come into my house, punch me in the face, play with my dog, and drink my beer.”
“We can when you’re being a stupid, stubborn son of a bitch,” my brother snapped.
“No. Do not sit. Don’t make yourselves comfortable. I finally have a night to myself and I’m not wasting it with you two.”
Lucian took his beer and wandered into the living room. He sank into one of the armchairs and put his feet up on the coffee table, looking content enough to stay there for the rest of the night.
“Sometimes I really hate you assholes,” I complained.
“Feeling’s mutual,” Nash growled. But his hand was gentle when he leaned over to give Waylon the loving he demanded. The dog’s tail blurred into happiness.
“You don’t hate us,” Lucian declared mildly. “You hate yourself.”
“Fuck off. Why would I hate myself?” I needed to move. I needed to buy a thousand acres and build a damn cabin in the damn middle and never tell a damn soul where I lived.
“Because you just told the best thing that ever happened to you to take a damn hike,” Nash said.
“A woman is never going to be the best thing that happens to me,” I insisted. The words tasted suspiciously like a lie.
“You are the stupidest son of a bitch in the state,” my brother said wearily.
“He’s not wrong,” Lucian agreed.
“Why in the hell do you two have your panties in a twist over who I do or don’t date? It was never real anyway.”
“You’re making a huge fucking mistake,” Nash insisted.
“What do you care? Now you get your shot at her.” The thought of it, just the split second imagining him with Naomi, nearly brought me to my knees.
My brother set down his beer. “Yeah, I’m definitely hitting him again.”
Lucian dropped his head back against the cushion. “I said I’d give you one. You’ve had it. Find a new way to get through his thick skull.”
“Fine. Let’s try something new. The truth.”
“How novel,” Lucian said.
I wasn’t going to get rid of either of them until they’d said their piece.
“Say what you need to say, then get the hell out.”
“This happens every time he sees him,” Nash complained to Lucian.
Lucian nodded. “I am aware.”
I didn’t like that my brother and my best friend seemed to have a history of making up and discussing my issues.
“Sees who?”
Nash leveled me with a look.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come the fuck on. I broke it off with Naomi because she was gonna get herself hurt. I did the right thing, and it had nothing to do with anyone else. So stop trying to fucking analyze me.”
“So it’s just a coincidence that you see him, and the very next day you decide things are getting too serious?”
“He has nothing to do with anything I do,” I insisted.
“How much did you give him?” Nash asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“How much cash did you give him? That’s what you do. You try to solve problems with money. Try to buy your way out of feeling pain. But you can’t. You can’t buy Dad into sobriety. You couldn’t buy me into a life you were comfortable with. And you sure as fuck can’t make yourself feel better about breaking Naomi’s heart by handing her a wad of cash.”
Lucian’s gaze cut to me. “Tell me you didn’t.”
I slammed my bottle down on the counter, sending a geyser of beer everywhere. “I warned her. I told her not to get attached. She knew there was no chance. It’s not my fault she’s this romantic who thought I could change. I can’t change. I don’t want to change. And why the fuck am I even having this conversation with you? I didn’t do anything wrong. I told her not to fall.”
“Actions speak louder than words, dipshit.” Nash threw up his good hand.
“Luce, you take this.”
Lucian leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees.
“I believe what your brother is trying to tell you is that while you said you couldn’t and wouldn’t care, your actions told her something else.”
“We had sex,” I said flatly. Great sex. Mind-blowing sex.
Lucian shook his head. “You showed up for her time and time again. You gave her a place to live, a job. You went to her niece’s school. You bashed in her ex’s face.”
“Bought her a cell phone. Helped her get a car,” Nash added.
“You looked at her like she was the only woman you saw. You made her believe,” Lucian continued. Waylon trotted over to him and hefted his bulk into my friend’s lap.
“And then you tried to buy her off,” Nash said.
I closed my eyes. “I didn’t try to buy her off. I wanted to make sure she was taken care of.”
And she’d thrown it back in my face.
“And what part of that sentiment says ‘I don’t care about you’?” Lucian asked.
“You can’t use cash as a replacement for actually showing up for someone.”
Nash’s voice was miserable enough that I opened my eyes and looked at him. Really looked at him.
Is that what he thought I’d done when I’d offered him the lottery money?
When I’d all but shoved it down his throat.
His career in law enforcement had been a sticking point for us. But rather than sit down and talk to him about it, I’d tried to pull his strings with the promise of a pile of cash. Enough that he’d never have to worry or work
again. I saw it as taking care.
“You should have kept the money. Maybe then you wouldn’t have ended up bleeding in a fucking ditch,” I said evenly.
Nash shook his head. “You still don’t get it, do you, Knox?”
“Get what? That you’re more stubborn than I am? That if you’d listened to me that carjacking coward wouldn’t have almost ended your life? By the way, Luce, you dig up anything yet?”
“Working on it,” Lucian said.
Nash ignored the sidebar. “You don’t get that I’d still put on that uniform.
Even if I knew I was going to take another hit tomorrow. I’d still walk into that building your money paid for even if I knew it was my last day on earth.
Because that’s what you fucking do when you love something. You show up.
Even if you’re pissing your pants scared. And if you two don’t stay the fuck out of police business, or if you even think about going vigilante, I will throw both your asses in a cell.”
“Agree to disagree,” Lucian said. Waylon’s tail thumped on the arm of the chair.
“You about done?” I asked, suddenly too tired to fight.
“About. You wanna do the right thing, you need to tell Naomi the real reason you let her go.”
“Oh? And what’s the real reason?” I asked wearily.
“That you’re scared down to your fucking bones that you’ll fall hard and end up like Dad. Like Liza J. That you won’t be able to hold up under the bad.”
His words landed like arrows zeroing in on a bull’s-eye I didn’t know I was wearing.
“It’s funny. I used to think my big brother was the smartest guy on the planet. Now, I realize he’s just a delusional fool.” He started for the door, pausing when he got to it. “You could have been happy, man. Not just safe.
Happy. Like we used to be.”
Lucian scooped Waylon onto the floor and followed him out the door.
WHEN THEY’D GONE, taking my beer and their righteous frustrations with them, I sat in the dark and stared at the blank TV, doing my best not to think
I went so far as to start looking for large parcels of land far the fuck away from Knockemout.
My phone signaled a text.
Stef: Seriously? I warned you, man. You couldn’t have just not been a selfish dick?
I tossed my phone aside and closed my eyes. Could it possibly be true that my best efforts to take care of the people I cared about amounted to me pushing a mountain of money between us? Money gave them security, and it protected me.
The pounding on my door jolted Waylon awake.
He gave a short sharp bark, then decided the chair was more comfortable and immediately went back to sleep.
“Go the fuck away,” I called.
“Open the damn door, Morgan.”
It wasn’t Nash or Lucian back for round two. It was worse.
I opened the door to find Naomi’s dad standing there in pajama pants and a sweatshirt. Lou looked pissed. But the bourbon I’d switched to after my last uninvited guests drank all my beer numbed me.
“If you came here to punch me in the face, someone already beat you to it.”
“Good. I hope it was Naomi,” Lou said, pushing his way inside.
I really needed that 1,000 acres.
“She’s too classy for that.”
Lou stopped in the foyer and turned to face me. “She is. She’s also too hurt to see the truth.”
“Why is everyone so obsessed with ‘the truth’?” I asked, using air quotes.
“Why can’t people just mind their own damn business and stick to their own truths?”
“Because it’s easier to see someone else’s. And more fun to kick someone else’s ass when they’ve got their head shoved up it.”
“I thought you, of all people, would be doing a victory dance over this.
You never liked me with her.”
“I never trusted you with her. There’s a difference.”
“And I suppose you came here to educate me.”
“I suppose I did. Someone’s got to.”
I’d add a moat around my bunker as a last line of defense.
“I’m forty-fucking-three years old, Lou. I don’t need a father-son moment.”
“Tough shit. Because that’s what you’re gonna get. I’m sorry that you suffered so much loss so early in life. I’m sorry that your mom died and your dad abandoned you. Liza’s told us bits and pieces. I’m sorry you lost your grandfather just a few years later. It’s not fair. And I can’t blame you for wanting to hide from all that pain.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m a goddamn open book. I told your daughter what she could expect from me. It’s not my fault she got her hopes up.”
“That would be true if it weren’t for one thing.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “If I let you tell me the one thing, will you leave?”
“You didn’t do it because you didn’t care. You did it because you cared too damn much, and it scared you.”
I snorted into my glass, trying my best to ignore the tightening in my chest.
“Son, you fucked up big-time,” he continued. “I may be Naomi’s father, and that might bias me, but I know my daughter is one-of-a-kind. A once in a lifetime woman. Just like her mom. And I don’t like what it says about how you feel about yourself that you don’t think you deserve her.”
I put my glass down. He hadn’t said that I didn’t deserve her. He’d said I thought I didn’t deserve her.
“Do you deserve Amanda?” I asked.
“Hell no! Still don’t. But I’ve spent every day of my life since I met her trying to be the kind of man who does. She made me a better man. She gave me the kind of life I never dreamed I’d have. And yeah, we’ve had our rough times. Most of them revolving around Tina. But fact is, I’ve never once regretted sticking.”
I remained stalwartly silent, wishing I could be anywhere else but here.
“Sooner or later, you have to accept that you’re not responsible for other people’s choices. Worse, sometimes you can’t fix what’s wrong with them.”
He looked me dead in the eye when he said it.
“I’m not responsible for my daughter’s choices or the outcomes of those choices. You’re not responsible for your father’s. But you are responsible for the choices you make. And that includes walking away from the best thing that will ever happen to you.”
“Look, Lou, this has been a nice chat and all—” He clapped me on the shoulder. His grip was solid, firm. “You couldn’t save your mom from an accident any more than you could save your dad from addiction. Now you worry you won’t be able to save anyone else. Or stand losing someone else.”
My throat was tight, and it burned.
Lou’s grip tightened. “Somewhere, deep down is a man stronger than your father ever was. I see it. Your grandmother sees it. My daughter sees it.
Maybe it’s time you take a look in the mirror.”
