Page 54 of The Mountain Echoes
She puts a hand to her heart, stricken. “Mav, but…you’re always there for me. I know what you feel for me.”
“I’m notalwaysthere for you,” I correct her. “I make time when I can, when I’m able. Right now, you lost your father, so I’m being supportive.”
Regardless of what she’s purporting, I’m not Celine’s ‘three a.m., my car broke down, pick me up three hours away’phone call. She has a husband for that.
“No.” She has a determined look on her face. “You love me. I can feel it.”
Well, this is awkward!
“I care about you as I care about all my friends.”
“Like Elena?” Her eyes flash with something ugly, something I’ve never seen before, or maybe I didn’t want to see it. I was so busy thinking she’s sweet and naïve that....
“Elena is not up for discussion,” I warn softly, but shedoesn’t notice, because if she did, she would’ve shut the fuck up.
“You said you never slept with Elena.” There’s hurt in her voice.
I don’t like to intentionally hurt anyone.
“I like my women soft. Classy. The kind who don’t confuse attitude for value.”
I sigh as I remember my harsh words to Aria. That was unprovoked and cruel. Those words seem so much worse in the light of what I learned today.
Rami didn’t hate his daughter for leaving; he was sorry for not asking her to come back. He was sorry for treating his daughter unfairly—not the one who’s making googly eyes at me, but the other one, the one I unfairly and wrongly called ‘unattractively masculine’.
Joy once told me that men often devolve into name-calling because they lack a moral high ground to stand on. I did that with Aria when I insinuated she was an angry little girl who wouldn’t know femininity if it slapped her in the face.
“Celine, who I sleep with and don’t is onlymybusiness and my partner’s,” I say softly, but with steel in my voice.
I’m fucking done here.
“Mav—”
“You have a nice rest of your day, Celine.”
I leave Longhorn Ranch and barely make it past the county road before my phone buzzes.
It’s one of my foremen. Water pressure’s dropped. The pump at the southern irrigation line is acting upagain. I turn the truck around and head straight to the lower pasture.
Ranchers don’t get days off.
This isn’t a job—it’s a life where breakdowns happen in the middle of your dinner, where calves are born at two a.m., and weather forecasts dictate your sleep schedule.
The water pump’s been limping along since the start of the year. I’ve been meaning to replace the valve, but I just didn’t have the time. Now, it’s screaming for attention. Now, I gotta make time.
I still have an ugly taste in my mouth after the confrontation with Celine when I pull up.
I hop out, grab my tools from the bed of the truck, and kneel in the mud, sleeves rolled. The pipe’s old, the joint corroded, and I know I’ll be here a while.
While I work, I think about Aria and go over what I learned during the will reading. Recall how she walked away from Hudson, how Nadine and Earl made room for her.
Nadine and Earl were tough salt-of-the-earth people. If they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t give you the time of day. They cared about Aria. I saw it in the way they held her hand, supported her.
I have a feeling I’ve pegged the older Delgado sister wrong because of Celine, who I’m now starting to believe is suffering from garden-variety sibling rivalry, which makes no sense.
Celine is technically married and lives a comfortable life, livingoff her family.
Aria has to work for a living and, from all accounts, seems to be single, though I actually don’t know. Maybe she has a boyfriend, a husband, or a harem back in California. Who the fuck knows?
