Serious Cowboy (Cowboys of Duncan Ranch #2)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

APRIL

Callie had what she’d always thought of as endless optimism, but she’d started to lose her faith in there ever being anything more between her and Zeke. He’d been avoiding her, and if he was so dead set on not being with her, who was she to object? Maybe she wasn’t always the greatest at taking hints, but even she couldn’t miss the messaging now.

Not when Zeke had made his aversion to her more than clear.

It saddened her on several different levels, but what else could she do? Short of going over to his house uninvited and pestering him until he called the cops on her, she didn’t see a solution. Breaking boundaries was the catalyst that had gotten her here, so she’d be smart to keep that fact in mind. Zeke needed his boundaries. And she really didn’t covet the idea of spending some time in a jail cell for a man who no longer wanted her near him.

If he ever had wanted her to begin with.

She’d pushed and prodded Zeke into spending time with her, into letting her into his life, and all she had to show for it was a sore heart. Maybe she should let well enough be.

She’d been thrilled that a little persistence on her part brought her and Zeke together. She believed he’d been worth the push on her part. Until she messed it all up by forgetting the patience she’d learned to exercise since they’d been together.

The one bright spot—or brighter spot, at least—that she had was that she and Tim had made up. Initially, he hadn’t spoken to her at all despite being a foot away from her in the office. But after a few days, a physician not communicating with his lone member of administrative staff became impractical. At first, his communiques were nothing more than necessities, but bit by bit, he started making small talk and eating lunch with her again. She was thankful the family ties had been restored.

She knew things had returned to normal when he came up to her, mussed her curls like he had when she was five, and said, “Quit daydreaming, Cauliflower. There’s work to do.”

Callie had been swift about playing along. “Stop it, Timothy, or I’ll schedule you’re next appointment at nine o’clock in the evening .”

He’d merely rolled his eyes at her and gone about his day. Frankly, being off her brother’s enemy list was a huge relief.

It also meant she’d been welcomed to his home for Easter. She did her best to enjoy watching Tim play the Easter Bunny while Amanda prepared a lovely homemade lunch. She’d tried to get into the spirit and encourage the kids as they’d hunted and searched for both dyed hard boiled eggs and the plastic filled with candy kind, but it was hard for her to fully commit. Callie must’ve given herself away more than she realized because Amanda noticed.

“You feeling under the weather, Callie?”

She faked a smile. “No. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Callie sighed. The truth was that she missed Zeke. But she had no one to blame for his absence in her life but herself. It had really been long enough that some of the sting should have worn off, but that wasn’t the case. She’d come to realize Zeke was in deed as special as she’d believed him to be and that she’d missed out on a man who could be her perfect match. They were different as night and day, but the way she saw it they filled each other’s gaps. And she missed his laughter so much.

Then, she glanced up to find two familiar faces peering back at her. “Mom, Dad, you’re here!”

Her dad gave her a squeeze, his ankle totally healed, then her mom followed suit. Something about her mom’s vanilla and mint scent flew right to her olfactory senses, and her nose burned. So did her eyes. It was her mom who wiped at the tears now streaming down Callie’s cheeks.

“Oh, honey, we meant for this to be a surprise but not for you to cry,” her mom said, but that, of course, wasn’t the real reason for those rivers of saltwater to appear.

Callie embraced her mother and wouldn’t let go, and luckily, without her having to say a word, her mom knew. She drew her off to the side until they were inside Tim and Amanda’s kitchen.

“Oh, Mom, I’ve seriously messed things up.”

All of it came out. How she’d pursued Zeke and convinced him to be her tour guide, how all that was a set up to get to know him better, then to date him. How once their relationship had started to evolve into something more meaningful, she’d blown it completely out of the water because she’d been incapable of leaving well enough alone.

“I’m sorry, honey, but maybe you shouldn’t give up on him just yet. Maybe he needs some time.”

“He’s had four weeks, though.” Four interminable, never-ending weeks. And not a peep. Not a single attempt at communication.

“Oh,” responded her mother softly, and the glum tone broadcasted a clear enough indication of what she thought.

Regardless, her mom was an expert comforter, and after downing more of Amanda’s chocolate chip cookies—Callie had already indulged in five—she did feel the teensiest bit better. Callie distracted herself by catching up with what had been going on back in Washington with her parents and by watching the kids play.

Their lives were so simple, and they seemed to need so little to be happy. A video game for Brian; he was like his dad in that way, Tim had often been glued to a gaming console when he was younger. A coloring book for Sallie. Something sweet for Kimmie. Seemed Kimmie was a girl following in Callie’s sweet-toothed footsteps.

She also had to give her brother credit for improving his relations with his nursing staff. When overwhelmingly busy sometimes he forgot, but for the most part, he’d been going out of his way to be a better listener and to not dismiss whatever either Erika or Julie was trying to tell him in the moment.

In fact, he’d done such a solid job of it that both nurses had attended the festivities. Julie had plans for later so had only come for lunch, but Erika was still here. And while Callie had been extra friendly with her to make up for Tim’s gruffness, she hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know Erika on a deeper level.

“Hey, Callie,” the RN had greeted her. “Seems your brother and sister-in-law know how to throw a party.”

“They do,” she said. “Though most of the credit has to go to Amanda.”

“I’m surprised that Zeke isn’t here. Isn’t he Tim’s best friend?”

Callie gaped at her. “Do…” She had to clear her throat. “Do you know Zeke?”

“Sure. We went to Rocky Ridge High together.” Callie forced herself not to ask more of Erika. Butting into his business is what led to her being without him in the first place. Then, the nurse continued anyway. “He was always such a nice guy.”

“Yeah?” Callie couldn’t hold that much back.

“Yeah. Smart. Inquisitive. I thought he’d go on to be a scientist or engineer somewhere. I guess feed manager on a ranch works, but he always talked about trying his fortune elsewhere. And maybe he would’ve if his senior year hadn’t happened like it did. So tragic. So awful.”

Tragic? Awful? Callie’s breath froze in her lungs.

“Had a rough childhood, too,” Erika continued. “I mean, I know a lot of us are children of divorce. It’s never fun. But his folks didn’t treat him fairly. Some of the stuff I saw out of them…”

“What did you see?” Callie inquired when she trailed off.

“Well, I used to be one of the student volunteers for the PTA, and both his mom and dad were on it. That sounds nice, like they were keen to help the school by participating, but turned out it was only to wield their son against one another like a weapon.

“His mom would be all like, ‘The Science and Math Club needs more funding,’ and his dad would argue, ‘No, it needs to go to the library. That’s where the most intelligent kids spend their time.’ They were really talking about Zeke and his preferences. Or more likely their preferences for him. It was a nightmare.”

“His parents had it out in front of the PTA board?”

“Oh, yeah. They didn’t care how severely they dragged each other—or Zeke—through the mud. They didn’t care how much of their dirty laundry they aired in public, either. That was back when we were sophomores or maybe freshmen, I think. They each got thrown out of the association for disorderly conduct, and they divorced the next year. Never knew a couple who needed to separate more than those two. Poor Zeke.”

Callie blinked, having no clue what to say to that.

“Then all that stuff with Maria. The early marriage and pregnancy. They were so young, too. Hadn’t even graduated yet. He’s never been the same, you know, but I doubt I would be either if I lost my significant other and newborn baby. It’s a wonder he survived such a loss at all.”

“Maria died ?” Callie choked out.

Erika nodded. “Had pre-eclampsia and both her and the baby were in distress. Neither of them made it.”

Being the sister of a doctor meant Callie had more than average knowledge about health matters, particularly since Tim had considered going into obstetrics previous to going into pediatric care. She knew that pre-eclampsia, or a condition that caused dangerously high blood pressure along with some other complications had a certain mortality rate. One that could be high if it went untreated.

But for Zeke to be a teenager with so much responsibility on his shoulders only to suffer the deaths of the two people he probably loved most in the world was incomprehensible.

Callie spent the rest of the celebration in a daze. Everything continued around her, but she barely took note of any of it. Only distantly did she register the simple dinner Amanda later served or the string of patio lights being lit above her. Conversations occurred between the parties nearby her, but she couldn’t absorb much of anything going on.

She was too caught up in the turmoil roiling inside her own head.

To imagine Zeke enduring so much pain during such a formative time in his life staggered her. No wonder he rarely smiled or laughed. No wonder his disposition tended to be stoic and detached. He’d been attempting to protect himself. He must’ve been.

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 that grief? 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.