Page 6 of A Reckless Memory

Two

AGGIE

Ten years later...

I took another shot and thunked the glass on the counter. Fireball burned my throat like it could incinerate the memories pounding at my brain. The din in the bar added to the assault, reminding me who I used to come here with. A man I had steadfastly and resolutely forgotten. Mostly.

I was home for Meg’s funeral. A short bout with brain cancer and she was gone, leaving Cody a widower and a single dad to my niece and nephew. Loss didn’t fill me as much as I thought it would. She’d put less effort into building a relationship with me once I had left, but I worried for Cody. He was understandably quieter than normal. Somehow he had gotten more uptight with age, and grief had added a rigidity I hadn’t expected.

In the last week, I’d tried to spend time with him, but he politely dismissed me, citing work he needed to catch up on. Meg’s parents doted on the kids and practically strong-armed everyone out of the room.

The night out with Sutton was a welcome break even though I was staying with her and her husband, Wilder, my second oldest brother. She understood my conflicted feelings about Meg. Hers were the same. Just like she knew why I wouldn’t go home to the ranch if I didn’t have to.

“He did not say that,” Sutton wheezed. She’d just taken her own shot. It was our second each.

“His exact words were, ‘I thought you’d warm up, but you’re cold and uncaring, and it doesn’t bother you your dog hates me.’”

Sutton snorted and dropped her head into her hands. “I always knew Tex was the goodest boy.”

I grinned, but my smile quickly faded as I recalled the familiar words my ex, Lawson, threw at me. Cold and emotionless had been just the beginning. The description echoed what my boyfriend before him had said. But neither of them had called me a spoiled princess like the other guy—the one I didn’t remember. Mostly.

Lawson had pressured me to mend the bridge between me and Daddy. He probably thought I’d soften if I made peace with Daddy. I’d given in a few times and called home. It hadn’t gone well. Lawson assumed I was the issue.

I poured another shot, having bought a half-full bottle from the seventy-five-year-old bartender who called me Birdie—my mother’s name. “He said I made him feel unneeded.”

Sutton groaned and slid her glass over. “Men can be so clingy.” I filled her glass and pushed it back. She lifted it and studied the amber liquid in the neon bar sign across from us. “Except for your brother,” she muttered and downed the liquid.

I followed suit, not knowing what to say.

Between the funeral and my recent breakup, me and the bottle of cinnamon-flavored hell in front of me were destined to have a long night together. My third oldest brother, Austen, had taken leave from the army and was staying with Cody, but he spent a lot of time on the ranch with my youngest brother, Eliot. Wilder was out there too. My irrational fear that I’d get sucked back into the house that had been a posh yet rustic prison was too strong.

The funeral was the second time I’d seen Daddy since I’d left home with Tex. The first time had been memorable, and though I lived only a few hours away now, I didn’t think another visit would go better. The few phone conversations we’d had told me enough.

My move was a recent change, and the motivation behind it was one of the reasons Sutton and I were holed up at the local watering hole, surrounded by obnoxious bar signs and pictures of Highland cows.

She pushed her glass to the edge of the counter—a sign she needed a break from downing shots. “So, tell me about your new place. Wilder doesn’t say much other than it bugs the shit out of Cody.”

Cody had other things to worry about now, but he’d pestered me from the beginning of my move over a year ago. Until Meg got sick, I was interrogated every time he checked in. Why are you moving for an equal-paying job? Why aren’t you paying down the land before you build? You have that trailer house to stay in on the property. You’re surely not building when lumber prices are so high? The economy sucks, Aggie. You majored in finance. Run the numbers. A hobby farm, Aggie? While you’re working full-time? You know that’s not possible.

He’d gotten Wilder, Austen, and Eliot to address the same concerns. If I avoided their calls, one of them showed up on my doorstep.

Daddy never left the ranch.

I poured a fourth shot but let it sit. “My place is as bad as the photos I sent, but it’s mine.”

Sutton rested her head in a hand with her elbow propped on the bar top. Her light hair spilled onto the counter. She was dressed the same as she had been when I first met her—worn Ariat boots, Wrangler jeans, and a T-shirt with an old flannel over it. I’d seen her dressed up, and oddly, she didn’t look much different. As gorgeous in a powder-blue bridesmaid dress as she was gloved up and ready to do a bovine rectal exam.

She was the same contemplative woman I had first been introduced to by Wilder, but I was no longer the hick girl she’d first met. I’d like to think I was a real Cinderella transformation, but I just grew up. Tonight, I was dressed much like I had been for the funeral, which was what I wore at work and in my off time. I had my knee-high riding boots on that had never seen a horse, cranberry leggings, and my favorite striped eyelash chenille sweater. My complexion was perfect, and my hair was tamed and in its standard bun.

I looked like what I was—a finance manager and a property owner. The property, however...

I liked a challenge.

I pulled out my phone and paged through photos of the defunct hobby farm I’d taken over from the bank. The animals were gone, having been adopted out—or butchered, not that the real estate agent put those details in the description. My new house and shop sat in front of an old red barn, a sagging smaller brown barn, randomly pieced together pens and fence line, and old riding rings that were really diamonds in the rough I didn’t have time to polish. “It’s in tough shape, but now that the house is built, I can get the barn spruced up and fix some fence.”

“How’s the new job?”

“Good.” It was a corporate job in a blue-collar industry. “The refinery has a good work environment, and my boss is tough but fair. He’s not warm and cuddly, and he doesn’t expect me to be.” So, it was perfect. I’d had enough bosses who thought I should be the maternal voice in the office because I had boobs. I’d just left a boss who passed me over for an asshole.

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