Page 28 of Barbed Wire Fences
“It’s good to see you,” I say, offering her a genuine smile and a firm squeeze. “I can’t believe it’s been a decade. I’ve been meaning to text you since I got back in town, but this past week just got away from me. Work at the new hospital has been... a lot.”
She waves a hand dismissively, like my absence is no big deal, but her kindness doesn’t erase the gnawing guilt in my gut. Everywhere I go I feel it. I can’t shake the weight of how I left this town and everyone in it behind so easily. I didn’t just put distance between us; I buried the relationships completely, cutting them off like I was severing a limb. Thankfully, Lainey doesn’t seem to be holding it against me.
“Well, you’re here now, and that’s what matters,” she says brightly, her grin so warm it almost convinces me to forgive myself. Almost. “Molly will be here tonight, too. She’s so excited to see you.”
“So am I,” I say with a smile.
“Tell me more about what you’re doing at the hospital. Rhett said you’re here on a traveling nursing contract?”
“Yep, just for the month. They paid me extra to come since the local hospital here doesn’t have ICU trained staff. I'm working in the emergency room but trying to share some different techniques with the other nurses along the way."
She nods as she turns to walk into the kitchen. “Have you met Doctor Hayes Walker yet? Total dream boat former professional bull-rider.”
I laugh, because yeah, I have met Doctor Walker. He was one of the first people I met on my very first day at the hospital. Tall, broad, with a face so sharply handsome it almost seemed unreal, like he didn’t belong in the chaos of scrubs and hallways. And those scrubs clung in all the right places, muscles bulging inways that clearly told me he did more than just lift stretchers or perform surgeries. The guy is jacked.
It made sense when he later told me he wasn’t from Whitewood Creek. He’d moved here for the job, bought a property out in the country where he could have horses and ride… and then, somehow, stayed. For a woman. Fell in love and had a baby. Just like that.
“I did. He’s great.”
“He married Regan Marshall last spring.”
“He mentioned that.” In fact, I think he mentioned his wife, the youngest of the Marshall family and Colt’s twin sister about five times in the short conversation I had with him.
“Walk and talk with me, please. I just need to finish these snacks for the kiddos. Don’t worry, they’ll be upstairs with the sitter while we’re down here, but if I don’t have at least a platter full of snacks out, they’ll sneak their way down, and I don’t want them to see the drunk mess that Lark and the guys make,” she says, laughing.
We walk down a short hallway and then into a beautiful open kitchen, decorated in soft green and yellow pastels. Though I’m not usually a fan of pastels, the style works perfectly for the space, and blends together so naturally it makes the whole place feel like a tiny oasis. I can’t help but feel how much it makes the space feel like a home. Something I’ve never actually lived in.
“Lark recently redid it,” she says, grinning while watching my reaction. “Rhett keeps him busy at work, but with the new contract he’s hopefully getting in Meadowbrook, he’s going to be hiring more guys onto the team so Lark will have more free time to work on the place.”
“It’s beautiful. I had no idea Lark was so talented.”
"Oh yeah, he and Rhett are always building something. Sometimes Colt and Cash pitch in too," Lainey says. “Hey, do you want a beer?”
I nod. “Sure. That sounds good.”
Lainey pops the cap off a glass bottle with an easy flick of her wrist and slides it across the island to me before opening one for herself. The dark liquid fizzes against my lips, cold and sharp as it goes down, the smooth bitterness spreading through me and loosening the knot that’s been cinched in my chest all day.
I hadn’t realized just how tense I was about seeing my old friends again. How much I’d been bracing for judgment, for the weight of old stories dragged back into the light. But the nerves slowly give way to something softer, a quiet pull of belonging I didn’t expect to find here.
It’s been years since I last saw Lainey. At first, the awkwardness sat heavy on my shoulders, making me feel like a stranger peeking into a life that used to be mine. My jaw was tight, my words halting, like I might trip over the wrong memory and ruin the moment. But as I sit here, sipping the beer she handed me, surrounded by the place where she’s raising a family with her husband, the edges of that discomfort start to blur.
What’s left is a tangle of nostalgia and shame around how I tossed this away, hard to separate, both pressing against me in equal measure. And yet beneath all of it, there’s relief. Like maybe, just maybe, I’m allowed to slip back into this world again.
I take another sip, letting the coolness of the beer slide through me. I look down at the label but see there isn’t one.
“This is good. Who makes this?”
She smiles. “It’s the last of the summer brew that the Marshall’s made this season. Bitter but somehow soft, right? Lawson’s idea. He and Rhett collaborated on creating it.”
I nod as I take another sip, finding it curious that Rhett worked on this with the Marshalls. Sure, he’d always been friends with Colt, but they must have grown even closer over the last decade that I’ve been away.
Lainey changes the subject, chattering on about her plans for the acres that stretch behind their home. A garden, a greenhouse and an inground pool for her kids. I smile and nod, providing feedback when she pauses and relieved that she’s carrying the conversation.
Maybe this is exactly what I needed. A little liquid courage to help me loosen up, to remember the good parts of what we all used to have together. To let myself belong here again, even if just for a few hours. I thought most people might be angry to hear that I was back, but so far, it feels like Lainey wants to pick up just like old times.
“So how many kiddos do you have now?” I ask when she pauses to arrange celery, carrots and some ranch dressing on the plastic tray in front of her.
“Three. You know, they say that the transition from one to two is the hardest and then anything after that gets easy, but three just about broke us. Lark got a vasectomy one month after Nathan was born, and it’s improved our sex life immensely,” she winks and grins as I laugh.
