Page 14 of Perfect Composition
“Ahh.” Flynn Lewis, our sheriff, fairly recent addition to our community of 1,574, and newly single father has caught a certain Kensington’s eye. It’s just not mine.
My father pounds his fist on the table. “Well? What’s wrong with the damn boy?”
Sliding from my chair, I make my way over to the refrigerator and pull out the pitcher of sweet tea I know will be there—just like it’s been there my whole life. I pull down a glass and lift it to my father without a word. He gives me a curt nod. I get down a second before I begin to pour.
Flynn Lewis is gorgeous with thick black hair and melty chocolate-brown eyes. He’s got a body that would make someone swoon, I think absentmindedly as I place the tea in front of my father. Sitting back in my seat, I wait for him to take a sip before I answer, “Not a thing. So, when are you two going to go out?”
Tea dribbles out of my father’s mouth as he sputters in response. Calmly, I reach for the napkins in the center of the table and hand him a few as a flush begins to ride his cheeks. “Not me—you! I think he’d make a fine man for you.”
“I can find my own man. Thank you, Father.” I lift my glass to my lips.
“Really? How many have you found since that boy left you high and dry? Thank goodness the rest of us were here, because he sure wasn’t.”
Every part of me freezes. My arm holding the glass, my mind causing my lips to move, and worst, my heart. I’m uncertain how long the silence stretches out between us, but when I can move, the first thing I do is find my shoes.
“Paigey…” he begins, voice filled with regret.
“Don’t,” I lash out. “I came here tonight assuming you had something to say to Austyn before I go to New York. To find out this is the reason…” I swallow my temper. I’m good at it; I’ve had years of experience. Calmly, I address my father, “Do you have any messages for her?”
“Tell her I love her. That I’m half tempted to hire security to follow her around that city if the stories she emails me are true.”
I really can’t wait to hug my daughter after hearing that. Then I want to know what the hell she said so I, too, can worry right along with my father. “Then if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go for a ride before I head home.”
Pushing to my feet, I leave the remainder of my tea sitting at the table. Hurt and fury propel me toward the door when my father’s voice stops me. “I just want to see you happy, Paige. I don’t want you to grow old alone.”
I don’t turn around before I give him this much. “I know. And I love you. I always will.”
But I still leave the house.
On the back of Shadow Under the Moon, simply my Shadow, I gallop across the fields without much thought to where I’m going. Fortunately, since he’s taken over day-to-day operations of the farm, Jess doesn’t bitch about the fact Ethan and I keep spare clothes in the tack room just for this reason.
There are days when it’s just easier to compose your thoughts when you’re on the back of a horse. At least that’s true if your last name is Kensington.
Our family has lived in the town incorporated in our name since the late 1800s. Our relatives were among the earliest settlers who helped build the original town hall, the first church, and the original bank. Our family homestead was built about two miles from where Daddy’s house stands today—still on Kensington land but as far away as you can get on the east border.
As much as I have Texas in my blood, if it wasn’t for the blood of the people who’ve lived under the Kensington roof and are woven in my soul, I’d have left long ago.
There are too many demons I face every day by staying.
As if she knows why my heart’s been in a state of repair for twenty years, instinctively the five-year-old quarter horse starts toward the east border.
It was fury that propelled me to seek out the old homestead the first time too. It was a mix of anger at him for once again telling the story about how he proposed to a mother I never knew in order to cheer up my older brothers, the innate guilt I felt over being born and taking away Melissa Kensington, and indignant because once again, he ended it by telling Jesse and Ethan “When the time’s right, you’ll go to the old homestead and carve the initials of your intendeds into the family piano. For years, it was done after the wedding by an actual engraver. Now, since the damned thing was the only piece of furniture that survived the fire in ’72, Kensington grooms have done the deed themselves cause the old beast was too heavy to move.”
I jumped on one of Shadow’s ancestors and followed the clues Daddy didn’t even realize he dropped in his story.
Tonight, I do just what I did that fateful night. I ride with the blazing Texas sun at my back for miles when I spot the stalks of green in the distance. Only when I reach the wall of sunflowers and rein in Shadow, there are two things missing.
Discordant music being played on the old piano.
And Beau Beckett Miller.
Aloud, I whisper not for the first time, “Why did you leave me?”
When no answer comes, just like it hasn’t for so long, I whirl Shadow around and head back toward the farm. I have things to do for my trip to go see my daughter.
I sure as hell don’t consider her Bea…Beckett’s. After all, he’s not the one who raised her.
I was.
