Page 26 of Rancher's Return

“No. Nobody...”

“Nobody wanted to punish the whole family because of me?”

“Basically,” she said, feeling regretful. “Listen... I don’t want to make you feel bad.”

“Oh. I get something out of feeling bad. Or have you not noticed that yet?”

“You’re awfully self-aware.”

“It’s one of my better qualities. But then, that’s also a side effect of having been on my own for a long time. Nothing to do but think about myself. A form of narcissistic healing.”

She snorted out a laugh. “I’m actually kinda familiar with that.”

“Right. Single parenting?”

“Specifically, when I was pregnant.”

“Tell me about that,” he said, getting his cutting board down and putting it on the counter.

“Why?”

“Because I’m interested, Marigold. And I want to know. Because...we’re doing this thing together. Also, I like you. I’m trying to get to know you.”

She squinted. “Why?”

“Misplaced guilt, probably. But if it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” She took a breath and took her butcher paper–wrapped steak out of the bag and began to carefully take the paper off. “After Jason died, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to disappear and I wanted attention. I wanted to explode, and I wanted to hide. I loved him. My parents were really going through it. Of course they were. They lost their son. I started rebelling in small ways. But really, the way I was able to get all those needs met was men.”

“Boys, you mean.”

She laughed. “I wish. No. I liked them slightly older. I didn’t really want to sleep with somebody at my school.”

“When you were fourteen?”

“Usually they were nineteen or so. A lot of times I wasn’t honest about my age. Okay, anytime. Granted, it didn’t come up. I don’t think they cared. It was just the way I found this false feeling of control and power. And then it really came home to roost. Because I got pregnant. And he was headed off to college. He didn’t want a baby. I realized I needed the baby. Which is maybe a terrible reason to have a baby, but I wasn’t making the best decisions at the time, as we have established.”

“And you had a bunch of assholes ready to take advantage of you being so lonely.”

“That’s the world, Buck. We make weird, bad decisions when we’re in pain, and someone is always willing to take advantage of those reactions and traumas. I own my part in that. But you know, it’s not any different from what we all did to you. We were angry. Collectively, as a community, and you were the survivor, so you became the scapegoat. Because nobody could yell at the three boys who had made the same decision you did. To get behind the wheel drunk, to get in a car with somebody drunk. To spend graduation night wasting their potential. The truth is... I was probably angry at Jason. But he was dead. So yelling at you was a replacement.”

“Maybe.” He looked sad. Thoughtful. That he still carried the grief of it all made her feel... Not better. That sounded mean. But she felt a kinship to him she had never imagined she might feel. “That whole period of time was a dark one for me too.”

“So you mentioned.”

“I had to hit rock bottom before I changed. I mean, I really had to.”

“I think I would have too. If not for Lily. I think I narrowly escaped rock bottom. Some people would consider getting pregnant at sixteen rock bottom, I’m sure. But for me, it was the hand up that I needed. It was the only thing that was ever going to reach me.”

“And now she’s headed off to college. That means you did something right.”

“I hope so. That’s all you can do with kids, Buck. Hope. Hope you did the right thing. Hope your best intentions matter. Because sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. You hope the good you do outweighs the bad. The mistakes.”

“Thanks,” he said. He was silent for a long moment. “It’s heavy. The way having kids makes you see things differently. The way being close to kids, even if they aren’t yours, changes the way you look at your own life. Even when I was just working at the ranch, looking at those kids made me feel, for the first time, an appreciation for how young we were back then. But especially now. Looking at my boys. I feel old. And they feel so, so young.”

“It’s difficult,” she said. “Because being a teenager should be a time when you’re allowed to be stupid. But you and I both know that, depending on the stupidity...” She swallowed hard. “You just can’t take some things back.”

“No,” he said, his voice rough. “And I’m trying to figure out how to impress that upon them while...”

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