CHAPTER 97

jackson

eight months later

J ackson. Door!”

I rolled my eyes and ignored my mom. There was no way in hell I was answering the goddamn door. I didn’t want to see a single fucking person.

“Jackson—”

“Tell ‘em to fuck off!” I practically shouted back. I ignored whatever the hell else she said. She was all about being polite whenever I had visitors. I was not. I was so far down a hole that I didn’t want anyone to see me.

Not in this fucking chair.

Rampage had ruined me. I’d been a fucking idiot to think I could ride that bull and last eight seconds.

Instead, I probably wouldn’t walk again. My hip had been replaced, and my left leg was all metal plates and screws. They wanted me to do physical therapy and work toward some semblance of walking again, but I didn’t fucking want to. Everything hurt, and pain meds did jack shit to fix the problem.

My mom came into the room and shut off the news, eliciting a scowl from me.

“There’s someone here to talk to you, Jackson,” she said.

“Tell them to fuck off,” I snapped.

“You need to talk to him.”

“Unless it’s Peter or Mickey, I don’t want to fucking talk to anyone.” I spent months in and out of the hospital between surgeries and recovery. At first, the visitors were in excess—riders, bunnies, my agent, and other random people I knew. But I didn’t want to see any of them. The only person I wanted to see had left me. With the way my mood grew increasingly angrier, my list of guests dwindled. Not that I fucking blamed them.

“Jackson Ford Myles.” She put her hands on her hips as she leveled me with a menacing glare. Except I didn’t give a fuck anymore. “I raised you better than that.”

“There’s not a damn person—”

“Either you go to the kitchen to talk to him, or I’ll bring him out here,” my mom threatened. She’d fucking do it too.

“Fine,” I muttered.

“Do you need help—”

“I can fucking do it,” I interrupted angrily. “I don’t need my fucking mother wheeling me around my own goddamn house.”

With Peter’s help, my entire living room had been pushed around to make sure a wheelchair could be navigated through. The couch had been outfitted for me to sleep on—much to my mother’s dismay, but I refused to sleep in the only downstairs room I had. I refused to take over West’s room. I refused to fucking open the door to his goddamn room.

Pissed that I even had to do this shit, I wheeled into the kitchen, making sure to take the turn slow. The whole propped-up leg thing was fucking annoying.

Standing in my kitchen was Charles Hart, West’s attorney. Fuck. He gave me a well-practiced smile when he saw me.

“You’re looking good, Mr. Myles,” he greeted .

“Bullshit,” I retorted. I looked like fucking crap. I’d stopped shaving, I hadn’t washed my hair in God knew how long, and I knew I looked tired as fuck. Because I was. “What do you want?”

“May I sit?” He gestured to the table, and I nodded. Putting his briefcase in front of him, he sat down. “I’m here on behalf of Mr. McNamara to settle the issue of Double Arrow Ranch.”

Good. Then I could be done with West and every painful fucking feeling his name incited.

“Now, before you say anything,” Hart continued, “I have been made aware of the agreement you and your foreman, Mickey Hughes, had about Mr. McNamara’s requirement to work the ranch.”

“Whether it’s by sale or by forfeiture, the land is fucking mine,” I said. “I don’t fucking care how I get it. I just want to be done with this shit so I can take care of my ranch.”

Or what was left of it. I wasn’t sure I had a business left anymore, but what did it fucking matter? I couldn’t ride. I couldn’t walk. Why not lose my fucking business too?

“Three months ago, Mr. McNamara appealed his father’s will and the conditions put on his inheritance.” He what? Hart opened his briefcase and began laying out papers on the table. “After taking into consideration Harrison McNamara’s behavior, the judge granted his appeal and awarded Mr. McNamara his full inheritance of Double Arrow Ranch.

“With that being said, Mr. McNamara has signed over the entirety of his half of Double Arrow Ranch to you. This document here covers the transfer of land while this one covers the transfer of the business and all its assets.”

“He could’ve just waited the fucking contract out and we would be exactly where we are now,” I said.

“He didn’t do it for you,” Hart replied. “He did it for himself.”

Why the fuck did he do that?

“And then there’s the matter of Bailey, Thunder Jack, and Betty,” Hart continued. Right, the fucking horses. He set out another piece of paper and an envelope. “While Mr. McNamara is uncertain of when he can retain the rights to take care of his three horses, he has hired me to be the middleman of their care. This is a contract stating the horses will continue to be cared for at Double Arrow Ranch but at the expense of Mr. McNamara. There’s a check in the envelope to cover the expenses of each horse going back to eight months ago and extending through the rest of the year. At the start of the year, I’ll make sure you receive another check. If any emergencies do arise, Mr. McNamara will cover those costs as well. You just have to—”

“Contact his attorney?” I finished bitterly. “And what if I don’t want to take care of the fucking horses?”

“We request one month for Mr. McNamara to find alternative boarding and care for the three of them,” he replied. Placing a pen on the contract, he pushed it in my direction.

Who the fuck was I kidding? Of course, I’d take care of the goddamn horses. I grabbed the paper and signed it. At this rate, I’d never be rid of West.

“Is that all?” I demanded.

“Mr. McNamara asked that I give you this.” He set another envelope on the table. I recognized West’s handwriting on the front. “It’s a letter explaining why he left.”

“I don’t fucking want it.” I didn’t need to know that shit. I’d spent too many nights trying to figure out why he’d left, but I no longer cared. He was gone and that was that.

“He is aware that you may feel that way,” he said. Closing his briefcase, he stood. “And now, I’m off to track down a firefighter captain in Merillville for him. Thank you for allowing me the chance to give you everything.”

“Not like I had a fucking choice,” I grumbled. I remained in my spot as he made his exit.

“For what it’s worth, Mr. Myles,” Hart began, pausing in the doorway, “I’d read the letter if I were you.”

“Yeah, well you’re not me, are you?” I snapped.

“No, I suppose not, but it might just give you the answers you’re looking for.”

Hours later, I sat on my porch with that stupid letter in my lap. West’s handwriting taunted me. One-half of me wanted to open it. The other half of me wanted to feed it to my bull and call it a fucking day .

Yeah, I’d bought the fucking bull that trampled me.

When Mickey had told me in the hospital that they planned to put him down, something inside me broke. He was just a bull turned into a monster for entertainment. He didn’t deserve to die for that. It took a little convincing but Mickey managed to secure the sale for me.

Bringing Rampage back here hadn’t gone over as well as I’d hoped. None of my guys wanted the bull around, so I had Mickey put the bull in my yard. Was it my best fucking plan? No.

But the bull was so goddamn happy for grass and space to run that he quickly became the easiest animal to care for. Peter spent a lot of time with Rampage. He could say it was for work but no one believed him.

Oh, but I didn’t call him Rampage no more. I renamed him Ferdinand because the first five days that he was in my yard, he was glued to the corner where my mom’s flower beds were. He didn’t eat them. He just stared at them like he’d never seen them before. Maybe he hadn’t.

Ferdinand wandered to the edge of my porch, resting his head on the rail as he stared at me.

“Would you fucking open it?” I asked the bull. His long tongue stuck out as he attempted to lick me from where he stood—and thankfully couldn’t. “That ain’t helpful.”

The front door creaked as it opened.

“Did you know?” I demanded when my mom joined me. “Did you know where he was?”

“I did,” she said. She took her time pulling a chair up next to mine, but I refused to look at her. Disappointment and anger bled together inside me. Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why the fuck did my mom get to know where he was and I didn’t?

“How long?”

“He told me before he left the hospital,” she answered honestly. I wished she would’ve fucking lied as my anger spiked.

“Then why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me?”

“Because he asked me not to tell you.”

“And why the fuck does he get to be the one who decides that?” I snapped. “He left me. Not the other way around.”

“Because he wanted to tell you when you were ready,” my mom said .

“Ready for what—”

“You have to understand something about West, baby boy,” she cut me off. “West has been crawling through barbed wire most of his life. The world may offer him brief reprieves but he can’t escape it.”

“And what? Running away from me was the escape he needed?” Fuck, I even hated saying the words. Had I really been that bad for him?

“Maybe… just maybe, Jackson, this isn’t about you,” she replied. “Maybe West is just tired of crawling over barbed wire as a way of living.”

Standing, she combed her fingers through my hair and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“Read it or not, baby boy, that’s up to you,” she whispered. “But I think you need to read what’s in that letter.”

She left me alone sitting on the porch to stare at that stupid letter. I traced the lines of my name over and over as I debated it. I didn’t have a clue how long I sat there, but eventually, I opened it.