Page 24 of Promise You Forever

“I’m eating. I actually had pizza with your brother last night while we went through the ranch’s finances.” I trace my finger over Cooper’s smooth cheek. “Did you know he’s been infusing the ranch with his own money for over a year?”

Her eyes widen. “No, but I’m not surprised. Despite being a monumentally huge asshole to you once upon a time, he’s got a good heart.”

“A black heart.” I have to remember the pain so it’s easier to keep my walls up.

“The blackest,” she agrees with no hesitation. “And he’s ugly.”

“And smells like horse shit.”

“Dumb as a box of rocks, too.”

“I don’t even want to know what you two say about me when I’m not around,” Sam says as he walks into the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, I forget that you exist when you’re not right in front of me taking up all the oxygen in the room.”

He crosses the room and cups her cheek. “I can’t wait to put another baby in you.”

My lips tilt up watching them interact. This is what a marriage should look like. Love and chemistry, not stilted conversations and the constant need to people please.

My eyes drop to the diamond ring I still haven’t taken off. It’s never felt like me, but for some reason I keep clinging onto it as a security blanket. A barrier between me and the endless, open possibilities of my unknown future.

“I can take him.” Sam holds his hands out for Coop, so I pass him over but not before dropping a kiss on the soft hair covering his head. If there’s a silver lining to everything happening with my family, it’s that I’m able to reconnect with my friends here.

Janey watches Sam carry their son off toward the nursery with love shining in her eyes before turning her attention back to me. “How’s Paul doing?”

“Some days he’s great. Others he’s really not.” I tear a paper napkin into strips in front of me. “Yesterday was amazing. It was like he was back to who he was when I was a kid. And today I saw him out working with Luke bright and early.”

She covers my nervous hands with hers. “But?”

I drag a deep breath in my lungs, steeling myself against the tears I can’t stop shedding. “He told me it was time to move him to the care center in Denver.”

“Oh, honey,” she walks around the counter and wraps me in a hug. “That’s so hard.”

Her compassion releases the flood gates, and I spend the next fifteen minutes sobbing against her. I’m so sick of crying. Of hurting. I haven’t even sat with the sudden loss of Grams yet, and it just feels like I keep getting hit with sucker punch after sucker punch. I’m over it.

She hands me a box of tissues and sits down beside me. “You know, it’s actually really wonderful of him to tell you that while he’s thinking clearly. It would be a thousand times harder to wait until the dementia progresses and he becomes combative and resentful.”

She’s right, I had the same thoughts last night. It doesn’t make it any easier though.

“Let’s change the subject.”

“Okay.” She gives my engagement ring a pointed look. “What are you going to do about that?”

“I ended it the day of Gram’s funeral. He kept pushing me to sell the ranch as soon as I found out that I was inheriting everything.”

“Fuck that and fuck him. We never liked him anyway.”

“Who is we?”

“Sam, Colt, Amber, and me.”

“Were any of you going to clue me in at some point?”

“Did you really need to be clued in?” she counters knowing damn well that I knew how they felt about it. “I wouldn’t have said anything because I’m biased. Even though my brother is a complete asshole, I still want the best for him.”

The unspoken words at the end of that sentiment hang in the air between us. I’m not even thinking about Luke in that way. I’m civil because it’s who I am, not because I still have feelings for him.

“I hope he finds whatever that is.”

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