Serious Cowboy (Cowboys of Duncan Ranch #2)

Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

An early spring blizzard 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. As he 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.

“Zeke?” At his name being called, he spun around, spotting Bryce coming down the stairs in some thick pajamas and a robe. “Couch not keeping you awake I hope.”

“No, your couch is quite comfy.”

Bryce opened the fridge hunting for something, then upon locating it, closed the door. He poured milk in a saucepan, tipped in a dash of cinnamon, and slowly began to heat the liquid over the gas burner. “Want some?”

Zeke waved his boss off. “It doesn’t always put me out, but usually, it makes me sleepy enough that once I lay down, I’ll nod off.”

“As a fellow insomniac, I can commiserate.”

“The older I get, the less I sleep. Dad’s the same, so I guess I inherited it,” Bryce explained, then let the conversation drift into nothingness. Yet Zeke lived in nothingness most of the time. The lack of speech didn’t disturb him like it did others.

Once the milk was steamy over the stove, his boss switched off the heat, poured the beverage into a coffee mug, and aimed his sock-clad feet for the stairs. The faint smell of the cinnamon reached Zeke’s nostrils, a cozy aroma. One that spoke of warm nights by a fire cuddled up with a loved one. He’d never known such nights himself.

The Duncans must have access to those experiences, though. What must that be like? Would Zeke himself ever get a chance to try an evening like that out, or had he decimated any opportunity he ever might’ve had?

“Bryce…” he started, then trailed off. Zeke had been about to ask him a very personal question about how he secured his relationship with his wife but thought better of it. “Never mind.”

“Sure I can’t grab you an extra pillow or something?” his boss paused long enough to play a good host.

“No, but thanks.” Then, Zeke changed his mind. “What’s it like to have your life together?”

It was a stupid question. One that revealed far too much about Zeke’s state of confusion right then. But Bryce surprised him with his answer.

“Once I get there, I’ll let you know.”

“But,” Zeke spluttered, if this man with his ranch and his wife and his family didn’t have things figured out then who did? “But you already do.”

“Some things, maybe. I love Lindsey and my family. I love being in charge of this property. But it’s a lot of work and responsibility. I’m under a lot of pressure to not mess it all up. To maintain the legacy established by my parents before me.” He jutted his chin toward his cup. “Hence my sleep remedy.”

“Well, you’re such a natural at it.”

“I’m not a natural. Not really. But I am able to lean on a lot of dependable people, many of whom are blood relatives. That helps. Support helps. And with that support I’m able to fake it till I make it.”

Bryce continued up the stairs, and Zeke mulled over his last statement. His boss had support, but did he? He had Tim, but that was it. And even in his friendship with Tim, he hadn’t allowed his buddy to offer him much. Zeke gave and gave of himself in small ways, but he had to admit to not being overly good at taking from other people.

The only person who he’d allowed to support him at all had been Callie, and recently, she’d thrown in the towel with him, too. But then again, he hadn’t exactly made up with her. Maybe it was high time he offered her an olive branch.

The only problem was that he had no idea how to do that.

What did he say? He had a feeling that, “Hey, I know I’ve been ignoring you for weeks, but I think I’m done with that now,” wouldn’t go over so well. He wished he could just pretend that their tremendously awkward evening hadn’t transpired, but he couldn’t. Zeke doubted she could, either. It’d been the catalyst that had led them to separate. Led him to separate from her.

He kind of stunk at making conversation on a good day, much less a bad one. It’d been a challenge just to meet Callie halfway. But she deserved better than what amounted to a cold shoulder.

Zeke jerked out his phone and stared at her last message again. Then, he clicked out a response and sent it before he could back out.

Zeke : Callie, I miss you. And I’m sorry, too.

He tried not to obsess over Callie returning his message, but he couldn’t help it. Is this what she’d been going through waiting for him to respond? If so, he’d been cruel to her. Absolutely cruel. Leaving her hanging like this was unacceptable. Even if, in his case, he deserved it.

The next day the blizzard passed, leaving a crystalline clear sky in its wake that morning. It was amazing how the weather at this time of year could switch on a dime like this. Zeke had put in his shift, marveling how the temps rose all the way into the fifties after being in the twenties the day before. The snow compacted down from melting, and he knew the roads should be passible now.

The skies had grown overcast again, but the plows had been active. So after putting in his hours, he jumped in his truck to head home. His gas gauge reminded him that he needed to go into town to fill up before the next day, so while at the station, he grabbed a quickie hot dog dinner, eating it as he drove.

Dusk came early due to the clouds overhead, and he had to turn on his headlights to scare away the shadows. It’d been above freezing all day long, but now the mercury dipped back below the thirty-degree mark. Zeke felt glad he’d slipped on his gloves with his coat before he left.

They didn’t make modern LCD bulbs to go in trucks this dated, so he’d stuck with the standard and not as bright incandescent ones. The only problem with that was he couldn’t see quite as far as modern vehicles, and call him a traditionalist, but he hadn’t wanted to disrupt the International’s aesthetic. He could still make out the most important features of this old country highway, though. And it helped that he’d driven it daily for months.

When a semi-truck came around one of the hairpin curves that led away from the ranch, making Zeke shove the tires on the right side of his pickup off the edge of the pavement, he nearly ended up in the ditch. The shoulder was nonexistent on this part of the country lane, and he felt his wheels grab a bit of the water saturated soil as he barely managed to right himself.

Dumb driver.

Heart thundering, he continued on his way home glad he was less than a mile from his turnoff. All he had to do now was cross the short bridge that spanned over Ugly Fish Creek. Legend had it that the name came not from some angler catching an ugly fish, but that an indigenous native from the area had told a new settler the name of the creek in his original language. In English, the words sounded like Ugly Fish, so the name stuck.

Zeke had just been thinking about that local story when he passed the sign that said, Warning: bridge may ice over during cold weather. His eyes registered the words, but he’d passed the thing a million times. He didn’t worry about it.

He knew this route like the back of his hand. In fact, his phone had lit up right then, and thinking it might be Callie, all his attention zeroed in on it. It was just an email notification from his local grocery store, so he transferred his focus back to the road.

Even still, he hadn’t been prepared for what happened next.

Zeke’s tires lost contact with the road so suddenly that he didn’t have the option of straightening himself out, and his pickup whirled in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle. He hadn’t been speeding, but he’d been driving fast enough that he completely lost control of his vehicle.

He was still spinning when he saw the flash of headlights and the sound of not a horn but of brakes. Jake Brakes, to be exact. The kind that eighteen-wheelers used. It must’ve come around the curve at the other end of the bridge. But although Zeke yanked his wheel, the semi was already on top of him.

They slammed into one another with an impact that jarred Zeke so badly that it physically hurt. Then, there was a bright light right in his face as he was spun in a completely different direction. He crashed through the cement structure of the wall that outlined the bridge, and despite having his seatbelt on, he felt gravity tearing at his body as if he were nothing but a ragdoll.

Still fastened into his pickup they both fell, giving him the sensation of weightlessness for a brief second, then they landed, rolling so that he couldn’t tell up from down or down from up. He thought he might’ve screamed, but he couldn’t be sure. All at once everything came to an abrupt halt, and agony, pure and acute, radiated through him so powerfully that the only thing he wanted was for it to stop.

Only after the darkness came, one so impenetrable that it overtook his consciousness, did the pain end. And with the dim knowledge that he might not wake up, his thoughts eddied into nothing one last time.