Page 4 of Second Chance Valentine

“I will be fine. I need to get back to work and get my mind off of it. That’s all.”

“You want to come over tonight?” she asks. “I’ll make margaritas.”

Margaritas with your bestie. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do after a breakup? But this isn’t a breakup. We’ve been broken up for a decade and I’ve cried into more than enough margaritas over this man. “Can’t tonight. I’ve got a ton of Valentine’s orders to fill,” I say, stuffing my phone into my pocket. “It’s that time of year you know. Maybe later this week?” I shrug casually.

She doesn’t have to tell me she’s not buying my act, because the exasperated look on her face says it all. “I’m fine. I just needed to get over the shock of seeing him and now I’m fine!” I force a big smile and make sure Trudy catches a glimpse before I head out the door.

Driving back across town, I put on some music, trying to get focused so I can go back to work. But in a town like Evergreen Mountain, every place is a memory. The diner where we used to get milkshakes, the pancake house where we had breakfast the morning he left town. By the time I turn the corner at Jim’s Hardware where Branson worked after school, my stomach is churning. For months before we started dating, I made up excuses to stop in the store just to see him. Lord, how many random washers and bolts did I buy just for an excuse to talk to him? And finally, after a fictitious plumbing incident, he asked me out on a date between the PVC and the plungers.

I’m wiping the tears away before I even realize I’m crying again. No! I worked too hard to get past this. I am not going back to that dark place. There is plenty of living to do right now.I will not let myself get dragged back to the past, by a man that essentially abandoned me without any explanation.

FOUR

Branson

The dusty scent of hay and horses fills the air when I enter the barn looking for my brother. “Baylor? Are you in here?”

“I’m in the tack room,” a muffled voice calls out.

Seeing my brother for the first time in years, it hits me like a ton of bricks that when I left Evergreen Mountain, Ginger wasn’t the only one I missed. A saddle falls from his hands with athwackas it hits the floor and we slap each other on the back, a manly way to cover the fact that neither of us is ready for the hug to end.

I hold him at arm's length and take in the changes in his face. The crinkles around the eyes, the tautness in his jaw. All evidence that while he’s been away almost as long as I have, his time was spent in the darkness of war. We managed to reconnect a few times over the years when we happened to be on the same continent. I knew that he was struggling, more from what he didn’t say in letters and phone calls than anything he expressed outright.

“Hey, Brother,” I say, my hoarse voice betraying the emotion of coming face-to-face with my twin after too much time apart.

“Hey, Brother,” he answers, the tears in his tired eyes threatening to spill out. “The prodigal son returns.” He wipes his eyes with a fist. “This calls for a drink.”

He slings an arm around my shoulder and we walk toward the house we grew up in. I settle into a rocker while Baylor fetches our drinks. The old house still looks the same, rough cedar logs with a wide porch across the front, and memories run like a film strip in my mind: digging holes and playing with Tonka trucks in the yard, sneaking in as teenagers when we’d stay out partying too late, and everything in between. It’s funny how easy it is to block things out when it hurts too much to think about them. And it’s funny how easily they rush back.

Baylor holds up a bottle of Jim Beam and I take one of the glasses, as he sits in the rocker opposite me. He pours two fingers of the brown liquid into each glass and we tap them together before draining them.

“Good call on the bourbon. I sure needed a drink.”

“I guess you saw Ginger then.”

“Yep.” I shouldn’t be surprised that he knew I’d go to her first. He always knew me better than I knew myself.

“How’d that go?”

“About like you’d imagine. I confessed my undying love and she walked out on me.”

“Understandable. Especially since you’re the one who walked out on her first.” He uses the toe of his cowboy boot to keep up a rhythm in the rocker, his eyes steady on the sun as it drops behind the mountains.

“You never did mince words.”

“I don’t see the point in it. It’s a waste of time to say anything other than the truth.”

I shrug, take the bottle off the table and refill our glasses. “How are you doing? You’ve been back home for about a year now, huh?”

“Yep.” He sips his bourbon slowly and for a minute I think that’s all he’ll give me. I was always the more outgoing brother, but after he joined the Marines, he seemed to get more quiet. I photographed some terrible things while traveling in the Middle East. But my experience as an observer must be nothing compared to what my brother experienced firsthand. I wouldn’t know because he never talked about it. I hope now that I’m home, he’ll finally open up to me. Keeping all that stuff locked up can’t be healthy.

“I’ve got the horse training business up and running.”

“How’s that going?”

“Pretty steady. Enough to pay the bills.”

“That’s good.” I pause and take a sip, trying to figure out how to pose the next question.

---