CHAPTER 51

west

A voiding Jackson was easy. I buried myself in my work. Figuring out Betty and all her little behaviors took up a lot of time. She had no social skills with other horses and didn’t know what to do with them. It turned her snippy, and while she wasn’t outright aggressive, I knew better than to put her around the other horses until she was completely relaxed.

I relied on Bailey all over again to be the comfort point. Bailey was just fine being a social buddy. Granted, Bailey liked anything that involved following me around, and she was damn good with the other horses.

It was easy to lose myself in my work. The consistency and constant flow of tasks kept my brain from spiraling—at least more than it already was as it teetered on the edge of fucking chaos. The horses made me feel better, and anytime anyone else showed up, I made myself scarce. I didn’t want to deal with people.

Which was all well and good until Jackson tracked my ass down two days later while I hid out in the stables. He’d traded the cowboy hat for a backwards baseball hat and his work shirt for blue flannel. It struck me that the man looked good no matter what he was fucking wearing, which bothered me more than it probably should’ve. It’d be easy to be mad at him and keep my distance if I wasn’t so wrapped up in him.

So I focused hard on sweeping stalls and fucking ignored him.

“You know,” Jackson began as he strode down the center aisle, “you can only avoid me for so long, considering I’m your boss.”

“I’m not fucking avoiding you,” I snapped. Why? Who the hell knew? It wasn’t like we both didn’t know I was lying my ass off.

“Right.” He nodded slowly. “Look, I think you and I need to talk about a few things.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. The last thing I wanted to do was fucking talk. I tried to leave but he stepped in my path. “I don’t want to fucking fight you right now.”

“I don’t want to fight either,” he promised. “But I do want to go for a ride.”

We took Zeus and Thunder Jack out for a ride. I let Jackson take the lead. A little over halfway there, I realized where we were going. The northern ridge. Fuck, I hadn’t been out this way since the night I left Double Arrow. My chest tightened uncomfortably with the meaning of this place. A million fucking memories were tied up with the simple plot of land.

I followed his lead as he tied up Zeus to an old tree branch and dropped to the ground, sprawling out in the long grass with a sigh. I laid down next to him. Every inch of my body was tense as I waited for him to say whatever he had on his mind.

“I think you and I need to talk about what’s going on,” Jackson began, and the bottom of my stomach dropped out. I didn’t know how to talk about any of this shit. How the fuck did I explain how goddamn broken I was?

How did I tell him anything without making him run in the other direction?

“I don’t need details,” he continued. “I ain’t about to pretend that I understand a thing about what you’re going through… what you’ve been through. But I think we’d both be idiots if we didn’t acknowledge that it’s affecting things between us.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. Any other relationship he had would be normal. I couldn’t give him that. Maybe scaring him away was the better option. For his sake. “I told you I’m not fucking worth it.”

“I’ll keep believing you are for the both of us.” He said the words with such conviction that I wanted to believe him. I wanted to so fucking badly that it hurt. “I’ve got all day, West, so take your time. I just want to know what happened the other night. You left without saying a word. I tried calling you but you didn’t answer. I didn’t have a clue if you…”

“I didn’t fucking drink,” I snapped. Yeah, my defenses were a little too high, all things considered, but I also had no idea how to fucking lower them. It was the only way I knew how to survive. “I didn’t.”

“I believe you.”

“I wanted to.”

“I had a feeling.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s good,” Jackson told me. “That’s real good, West, but where did you go?”

“I went to drink,” I admitted. My gaze was pointedly fixed on the moody sky overhead. I couldn’t look at him. Maybe I was too ashamed of my own faults or maybe I just couldn’t handle the kindness I knew I’d find in his expression. I didn’t deserve the way he treated me no matter how much he thought I did. “Almost did but I called my sponsor instead.”

“That’s progress. I’m a little confused about why you left. I’m trying not to draw conclusions here. I’m trying not to push you into talking about things you don’t want to talk about—I get why you don’t want to talk about them—but I don’t know how to be in a relationship with you if I’m kept in the dark about everything.”

“Then don’t,” I cut him off. It was probably easier for him that way anyway.

“That ain’t what I want and you know that,” he retorted. “I meant what I said: your stables, your rules. But I need a heads up on the rules or a heads up on what’s going on. It ain’t just you anymore, West. I’m right here.”

My chest constricted painfully tight at the sentiment. I was very used to being alone—to handling everything alone. I was just fine alone. I didn’t know how to let people in. I didn’t know how to talk to people or any of that shit.

But he was right. He didn’t deserve me running out on him all the time because I couldn’t handle my own shit either.

Fuck, this shit was hard.

“When I say that nothing has worked, I mean nothing has worked… down there,” I said quietly. “It’s not a stupid medical thing… it’s just… I’m just broken. They…”

My voice caught in my throat just saying it. My eyes burned, and I blinked hard.

“They broke me,” I managed to whisper.

“You’re not broken, West,” he said.

“Nah, I’m fucking broken,” I repeated. There was no denying that shit. “I have been for years. Still am. I just…”

I blew out a shaky breath. I didn’t know what the fuck I was trying to say. In the silence, Jackson’s hand found mine. His fingers wove through mine, and he held on tight.

Something about the gesture made me braver—just a tiny bit.

“I like you,” I rasped, sounding pathetic as fuck. “I just… can’t get the logical part of my brain to match the part of my fucking brain that can’t tell if you’re going to hurt me or not.”

“I won’t.”

I knew he meant it, but my brain struggled with that. With believing him .

“I don’t let people touch me… I’ve never let people touch me. Not since…”

Not since they broke me.

“I don’t know how,” I admitted. Silent tears burned down my temples and I let them. There was no point in fighting it as my chest seized horribly. I wasn’t in control all over again. I fucking hated it.

“Tell me how to help, baby,” Jackson whispered as he squeezed my hand for reassurance. The weight of his stare was heavy—fucking unbearable. I resisted the urge to wipe away the tears. That’d only make it worse. Would only draw attention to how ridiculous I was.

“I don’t know,” I said .

“It’s okay,” he replied. His voice was so fucking gentle that it hurt. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

Together. What a foreign concept. I’d been doing this thing alone for so damn long that I didn’t know how to let anyone help me.