“I knew your Mom was unhappy in Alabama. I could have followed her and allowed her to go after her dreams. Instead, I insisted on staying. Dug my heels in and wouldn’t drag them out again. Doesn’t make anything she did right. The cheating. The fire…” he choked, and I wondered if the smoke tortured him as much as it had tortured me. “As for Liza, I should have gone after her. I could have let her know we’d be waiting when she was done building those schools in South America. But instead, I told her that if she left, she should never come back, even though all I really wanted was for her to do just that. To come home to us.”
Emotions overwhelmed me. Sadness for the love we’d both lost out on because of wounds that had taken too long to heal. But mainly for Dad, because I knew he hadn’t gone after Liza for me. He’d chosen the love of his son over the love of a woman.
“I’m sorry you had to stick around to take care of me when you should have gone after Liza. If I had it to do over again, I’d…” I didn’t know how to finish my thoughts. Would I have told him to go? Would I have gone with him? Left Maisey and Swift Rivers behind? I would have hated it, and myfather had known that and made the tough choice so I didn’t have to.
When I lifted my gaze to his, it looked like I’d sucker punched him. “Beckett, is that what you thought? That I had to give them up to keep you?”
I shook my head, but it was halfhearted. He’d never known I’d overheard his conversation with Liza. Didn’t know how much my heart had been shattered, not only at another mother figure abandoning me but by the knowledge I’d been the reason my dad had lost the love he’d finally eased back into his life.
“Beck, you weren’teverthe reason my relationships failed. Not once. I didn’t have the guts to go after Liza. That’s on me. But if I had gone after her, you can be sure I would have dragged you with me, even if you were kicking and screaming. You and me, we’re family. Tied together in unbreakable knots. Always have been. You got that?” He looked back out at Maisey as she leaped through her lasso and landed on Titan with ease, and the crowd applauded. “That young lady there is just adding another knot to our rope. Liza could have added one too if I’d gone after her and apologized, but I didn’t.” He took a breath. “So, you do what you need to do to keep those knots secure, and if they try to unravel, you do whatever it takes to pull them tight again. You got me?”
My throat relaxed, and the pressure in my chest that had built while we talked eased. I nodded. “I got you.”
Maisey executed an elaborate turn and a giant bow as the crowd cheered and shouted her name. Dad and I added our own claps and shouts to the avalanche of applause my girl was already getting.
Dad patted me on the shoulder. “Gotta head down to the lake and make sure the bleachers are set up. Tell Maisey I thought it was her best show yet.”
He started to walk away, and when I called after him, he looked back over his shoulder. “Is it too late?” I asked. He frowned. “For you to go after Liza? Is it too late?”
He lifted his cowboy hat off his head, ran a hand through his hair, and then set it back down. “It’s been fourteen years, so…maybe…I don’t rightly know.”
“Think about it,” I told him and then turned as the corral gate opened, and Maisey walked out leading Titan.
I caught her in my arms, planted a kiss on her lips, and whispered in her ear just what I wanted to do with her in—and out of—that sparkly outfit.
She flushed until her skin nearly matched the red of her clothes, and for the first time all day, for the first time in two days, my heart actually felt light.
? ??
After Maisey rubbed down Titan, she changed out of her show number back into the dark jeans, sleeveless button-down, and worn brown cowboy boots she’d had on before. She’d been more relaxed after the performance. Her time on Titan’s back had been the same salve it had been when she’d been growing up, and I was glad she’d gotten a moment of reprieve.
But as people filtered into the barn, each one stopping by to express their sorrow over her dad’s supposed death, her relaxation disappeared.
She may have needed the distraction of the show this morning, she may have needed to be with her horse, but she didn’t need to hang out amongst the booths and festivities, lying to people about her dad while worrying if their words would become the truth.
So I made the call to end it. “We’re heading up to Fallon’s to pick up Dorothy, and then we’re going home for a few hours.
She rubbed her forehead, and she whispered, “I wish I could see Dad.”
“I know, Maise. I know.”
When we got home, I did my best to distract her again, this time with my hands and mouth, and then afterward with taunts about Vader and the stupid cat. My hard work paid off. Eventually, I saw her expression soften and her shoulders ease. But as the afternoon started to fade, and the sun cast long shadows over my backyard, and the time to return to the ranch arrived, the tension slammed back into both of us.
While, technically, Stoney’s crew was on call at the firehouse, the small size of our station meant we were all-hands-on-deck for the Fourth of July. We always divided the coverage up with half remaining in town to battle fires set by idiots using illegal fireworks, and the rest at the ranch, ensuring the pyrotechnic display didn’t catch wind and spark a blaze in the dry summer foliage.
Usually, I didn’t mind being on call for the holiday, but tonight it meant, for at least a few hours, I wouldn’t have Maisey in my sights. I’d have to trust the other people Parker and Wylee had arranged to protect her, and I knew it was going to be nearly impossible for me to relax.
Reading me the way I usually did her, Maisey said, “It’s going to be okay, Beckett. I won’t leave the grandstands. I’ll be safe in the crowd.”
“I’d hoped we would have heard something from Wylee by now.”
“Me too,” she whispered, grabbing her bag and heading for the back door.
I whistled for Vader, who looked from me to the cat, clearly torn. I chuckled. “You can’t take her with us, bud. But she’ll be here when we get home in a few hours, and I need you to stick with Maisey tonight.”
As if he understood, the dog gave Dorothy a huge lick and then trotted over to us.
He had his head out the window, tongue lolling in the breeze that had picked up as we drove through the gates at the ranch. It was busier than it had been this morning, with the entire drive now lined with cars, and the two makeshift parking lots the staff had set up in fallow fields packed to the edges. The ranch’s golf carts whizzed by with people, shuttling folks from the designated parking areas down to the beach and the temporary stage, dance floor, and bleachers.