Page 144 of When It's Us
I slip my feet into my boots and instead of dragging my ass back upstairs and crashing in the sheets that still smell likeher, I step out into the dusky evening.
Hank’s at the fire pit, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, a small fire crackling in front of him. I walk up and take a seat, and without a word, he reaches for a second cup and hands it to me.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
He doesn’t say anything for a while as we sit and drink coffee. He’ll probably regret it later when he can’t sleep; morning comes pretty early for a cattle rancher, but I’ve been sleeping for days, so I can afford to be awake for a while.
“Ever since I was a kid, all I ever wanted was the ranch,” he says, taking a sip.
I take one of my own and sit back, waiting for him to speak again.
“A piece of land to work, sun on my face, a place that was mine. A bed to lay my head at night…” He trails off.
“Someone to warm it,” I joke.
“That too.” He huffs out a chuckle, lips curling in a smile.
“Well, you got all that, that’s for sure,” I tell him, feeling grateful that he’s living the life he always dreamed of.
“Wren, the ranch…my baby girls. Hell, I couldn’t ask for a better life,” he says.
“I’m sure you couldn’t.” I nod, taking another sip of my coffee.
When I think he won’t speak again, he says, “Do you remember the day Mom went into labor with Hales?”
I swallow hard, knowing exactly where my brother is going with this, and I find that I can’t meet his gaze. So I nod. I was five, if that, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
“Mom had been laboring all day…refused to go to the doctor because pop was waiting on that heifer to give birth, remember?” Hank asks.
I remember how scared I was watching Mom pace the living room, breathing labored, but smiling through the contractions.
“Dad wasso surethat heifer would calve before she had the baby.”
Hankslaughs lightly. “Now we know where Hales gets her stubbornness from.”
I smile a little because it’s not only Hales. Every single Hayes is stubborn. From Pop all the way to Paige. I’m sure Amelia and Hazel and even baby Huck will be, too. Even Wren and Finn are, and they just got married.
“Do you remember what you said to me when shit went south, and Pop ended up delivering Hales on the kitchen floor right there while the three of us boys watched?”
I swallow again, nodding. “I don’t remember the exact words. I was barely five.”
Hank nods. “Well, I do. You said you wanted to be a dad someday. You wanted to be the person someone looked up to, like Pop was for you—for all of us—that day.”
“Yeah, and look how fucking well that turned out.”
Hank shakes his head, finishing his coffee. “Look, I know you’re afraid of commitment—"
I scoff with a smirk. “Says the man who pined for Wren for twenty years and never had a serious relationship otherwise.”
Hank shoots me a look, brow raised in that infuriating ‘congrats, you done now?’way that he’s so damn good at.
“Sorry. Go on,” I tell him.
“You’re probably scared as hell you’ll fuck up not just the relationship with Ginger, but those boys, too. And I get it. What happened before with Sarah, don’t punish yourself by walking away from something good now. You deserve to be happy, Hutch. You deserve a different version of the life you didn’t get to have back then.”
“Well, fuck,” I mutter, through the tightness in my throat. “When the hell did Hank Hayes get so good at the emotional shit?”
“My wife might tell you I got some experience punishing people for shit they can’t change.” Hank looks uncomfortable as he shifts in his seat. “But it was all her. She’s everything. Nothing in this life is worth more to me than her. She teaches me everyday what it means to love someone. The way she is with Amelia and Hazel… Hell, the way she is with my stubborn ass, too. And I suspect you might feel the same way about Ginger, too, if you’d let yourself.”
