5. Seth

Chapter Five

SETH

Seth couldn't punish Aiden, no matter how much he deserved it, so he took his frustration out on the busted feed truck instead, working until long after dark and getting nowhere. The sky had opened up, steadily filling his footsteps with soft flakes, and the night smelled of evergreen and distant wood smoke. Cold bit at his gloved fingers, and his breath hung like mist before his face. A rusted toolbox sat at his feet, half-buried in snow, as he pried at a stubborn bolt with a wrench that once belonged to his grandfather.

Sometimes, it felt like he was living in a ghost story, like Scrooge, except that the future never appeared. He was haunted by ghosts of might-have-been. The same turning points repeated in his head, over and over, playing out potential outcomes: the day his father died, his last memory of his mother, the first time he ever noticed a lanky freshman with blond curls tossing a football in the high school parking lot.

For better or worse, Aiden filled most of those moments: Aiden, duct-taping himself to a skateboard and hitching a tow rope to the back fender of an old Toyota; Aiden, blitzed out of his mind and taunting a half-grown black bear at a summer barbeque; Aiden, throwing his head back and clutching his stomach in a full-body laugh; Aiden, ashamed and trying to hide the dampness in his eyes the night his mother kicked him out.

That was the night Seth helped him pack his meager belongings in a few garbage bags and took him back to the ranch, the night they'd bedded down in the barn and matched each other ounce for ounce in whiskey. The night Seth had kissed him. They'd drunkenly completed their forgotten chores in the middle of the night, and they woke the next morning to churning stomachs, splitting headaches, and a herd of sick cattle. It took them a few days to realize what happened. Ionophores were a therapeutic feed supplement in small doses, but it was deadly when mixed in large quantities.

Everything changed after that.

Now, a new what-if had taken the first-place podium in his nightmares. No matter how hard he tried to shove it to the back of his mind, he couldn't shake the image of Aiden waltzing out onto Copper Lake, all by himself, while the ice cracked around him.

Seth hadn't been ice fishing in years; he rarely had time. If he hadn't chosen at a whim to head out that day, he'd never have been there to drag Aiden out from beneath the ice. Aiden would be dead now. He'd have drowned, all alone, trying to do something good and fucking it all up as usual. Seth wouldn't have even known what happened to him, not until the ice thawed and his body surfaced months later. It haunted him; how close he'd come to losing him—all for a rangy, half-weaned bull elk. Even after all these years, Aiden's big fucking heart was still getting him into trouble. He hadn't matured at all.

Even a recluse like Seth heard the stories. He couldn't avoid Sweetwater all the time. Gossip was still the main currency, and Aiden drew attention wherever he went. People gravitated to him. He was always the life of the party, laughing too hard and drinking too much. Everything was noisy and bright and fun when Aiden was around. Nobody ever wondered why Aiden lit up the room like a supernova whenever he entered, and they didn't notice how his shoulders slumped when their backs were turned. But Seth understood. He knew Aiden was only trying to keep the darkness at bay.

That recklessness got him into trouble. Seth greedily eavesdropped whenever he made a supply run to town, enough to hear all the stories in passing. He knew about the time Aiden fooled around with Cherilyn, a girl far too pretty and sweet for a playboy like him, and how Cherilyn's ex-boyfriend had dumped Aiden out on Pine Bluff Road buck-naked except for his boots. Folks laughed when they told the story, like it was just another quirky day in a small town, but Seth remembered how cold it had been that night. He knew how desolate that road was and how long it must have taken for Aiden to even cross paths with a passing vehicle willing to stop for him. He knew how easily a mean-spirited prank could have become a missing person report. It made his blood boil.

Seth had distanced himself for a good reason all those years ago. He'd finally seen how unhealthy their friendship was, how naively and greedily Aiden sucked up attention from Seth without ever realizing how much more Seth wanted from him. They both needed to do some growing up. Aiden's star was rising. He was happy and well-liked; he'd finally gotten out from beneath his manipulative mother's thumb, and a new ranch had picked him up almost immediately after he lost his job at the Double Jay. He didn't need Seth and a mire of grief and guilt dragging him down; he needed to learn how to rescue himself for once.

But that close call on the frozen lake had shaken Seth. Even after all these years, Seth couldn't quit simping for a man who had never once looked at him the way he wanted. It was pathetic.

He worked his frustration out in darkness and silence, clamping a mag-lite between his teeth while he struggled to remove the radiator with hands tingling from cold. The rusted frame was so frozen that his skin stuck to the metal whenever his shirt sleeves rode up, but he needed to see how bad the damage was. The truck was an old beast, and it always got temperamental in extreme weather, but he had a sinking feeling the problem was worse this time. Hundreds of dollars worse, most likely. That was the way his luck usually ran.

"Hunk of junk," he muttered around the mag-lite.

The ranch had seen better days, and so had he. Everything was falling apart. Running the place alone hadn't felt like such a burden at twenty-three, but at thirty-three, he felt every minute of it. At night, he fell into bed so exhausted he could barely breathe. He didn't even have the satisfaction of a job well done to carry him off to sleep, only an endless list of unfinished chores.

Tessa used to beg him to sell the place, livestock, furniture, and all, to the first bidder. "Let them turn it into a hemp farm for all I care," she said. Some days, she probably even meant it. But it wasn't so simple. The ranch had become Seth's prison, but it was also their lifestream. It paid for Tessa to go away to college, and besides, he didn't know any other way to earn a living. Nobody in Sweetwater would hire him with his reputation. If he sold the ranch, he'd be forced to move out of state and live in a bunkhouse, doing the exact same job for someone else's profit.

He couldn't stomach the thought of a life like that. He was a damned good cowboy. It ran in his blood. More than a hundred years ago, his great-grandfather had started their homestead from nothing. Seth could bring it back from the dead now.

The rhythmic crunch of approaching footsteps jerked him out of his funk, and he turned the flashlight toward the sound. His sister trudged across the pasture in the pitch dark with only a tiny clip-on lantern attached to her jacket zipper to guide her. She'd turned into a tall, voluptuous beauty while she was away at college, but she still looked like a little girl to him, bundled up with a cranberry red scarf and a knitted hat with a giant pom-pom on top. She clutched a thermos and a bundle of wrinkled wax paper in her arms.

"You never came in for dinner," she said accusingly.

"I'm not hungry." Seth leaned against the truck, tucking the wrench under his arm and tugging off his gloves to blow on his chilled fingers.

"You're always hungry," she said, rolling her eyes. She cracked open the thermos and thrust it beneath his nose. The rich, meaty scent of barley soup wafted into his nostrils, and his mouth began to water. He reluctantly set down his tools and accepted the offering.

"Don't look so smug," he said, slurping his first mouthful and closing his eyes. Warmth spread through his body, thawing his stiff limbs.

"You've been in a bad mood all day," Tessa observed, watching him closely. "Ever since Aiden Doyle showed up."

Seth cut her a sharp look. "How'd you know about that?"

"I've got eyes, don't I?" Her expression was scathing. "I watched him pull up through the kitchen window. Then I watched him leave, looking like he'd swallowed a thundercloud. I would've asked about it, but you were too busy stomping around."

"Sorry," he muttered, eyes cast downward.

He always tried to be gentle with his sister. By this point, he'd spent more time raising her than either of his unlucky parents, and he knew she looked at him as some Frankenstein-style graft between father and brother. His mood impacted her hard, and his opinion carried more weight with her than it should.

"It's fine. Now you just get my meatloaf in sandwich form." She huffed and took back the empty thermos before handing over the paper-wrapped sandwiches. "Did he say something nasty?"

"Who?"

That earned him a smack on the shoulder, probably her hardest, but he only laughed and deflected her with ease. "What do you mean by nasty?" he asked.

Tessa shrugged and glanced away, toying with the zipper of her jacket. "Just…anything," she said vaguely. "People talk."

Especially people in town—and usually about Seth. Whispers weren't as subtle as people thought. It was one of the reasons he'd sent her away to college when she hadn't wanted to go. She needed a bigger world that didn't revolve around their family's reputation, for better or worse.

"I remember how nice he used to be," Tessa muttered.

"You mean how cute you thought he was," Seth teased. "You used to have a huge crush on him."

His sister lifted her nose and pointedly ignored him. "It's just that it's weird for him to show up after all this time. He must want something. Anyone who would ditch you right when you needed him most is a lousy friend. Especially after what you did for him."

"It's more complicated than that," Seth said wearily.

"How?"

He tore a huge bite out of his sandwich, chewing viciously to buy himself some thinking time. Then he added another bite and thought some more before settling for half-truths. They had served him well thus far, and he saw no reason to change his habits. "He was going through a hard time, too. Don't forget that he lost his job when the herd died. He was scrambling for work, dealing with his mom, and I was busy cleaning up the mess here?—"

He broke off abruptly, fighting back the visceral sense of revulsion he felt whenever he remembered the carnage. He'd been responsible for those animals, and he'd failed them. So much had gone wrong.

Aiden was a wreck that night. Seth had been on the phone with him, listening, forgotten on Aiden's mattress while his mother screamed at him. Then he'd heard the heavy thunk-thunk-thunk of flying books.

"She was only throwing them toward me," Aiden had excused later that night. "Not at me."

Seth couldn't sit around and listen to the verbal abuse, so he'd started up his truck and headed down the mountain. The drive took so long that by the time he pulled up to their little hobby farm, Barbara Doyle had already left in a fit of righteous indignation. Her son, barely eighteen, sat alone on the floor of his ruined bedroom, stuffing clothes into a garbage bag.

"What happened?" Seth asked. He tried to sit on the freshly made bed but froze when his hand landed in something cold and squishy. "Why is your mattress wet?"

"Mom was throwing water at me," Aiden said without looking up.

"Why?"

"I don't know." Aiden laughed, sniffed, and rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist. When he finally raised his head, his eyes were red and bloodshot. "Grab the envelope under the mattress, will you? It's got some cash. Enough to stay at the Creekside for a few nights until I find a place."

"You're not staying at the Creekside," Seth told him, fishing around under the mattress. "You're coming home with me."

He'd taken Aiden home that night, and Aiden had taken most of his mother's liquor cabinet. Seth's father was out of town on business, and Tessa was at a sleepover, so they bunked out in the barn and cooled off in the green summer breeze creeping through the loft. They drained a bottle between them. Seth had never been so drunk. All he remembered was how badly he'd wanted to lean down and kiss Aiden. Cattle began falling sick the next day.

All because of a little black-label whiskey.

"Aiden offered to help back then," Seth told his sister, pulling out of his grim memories. "I just didn't want it."

"That's stupid. You needed it." Her expression was barely visible in the darkness, but disdain colored her tone.

Seth chuckled despite himself. "Sometimes that's just how I am."

"So, why are you so mad that he came to visit?"

He polished off the sandwich and stuffed the balled-up wax paper in his pocket before tugging his gloves back on. "I'm not mad," he said. "Just tired. Work has been piling up."

"You're always tired," she said sympathetically. "I wish you'd let me help out."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed. Seth hugged her back, resting his cheek briefly on the top of her head. She was soft and squishy in her winter gear, and she smelled like strawberries. Her love humbled him. He knew how much she wanted to help. She'd quit school in an instant if he allowed it, but nobody who smelled like strawberries should be busting their ass in the dirt.

"You don't have to do everything alone," Tessa murmured into his chest. "You used to have so many friends. Not all of them turned their backs on you. Some of that was your doing. Maybe you're just mad because Aiden reminded you of that."

Seth sighed and detached her arms from around his waist. "Some things are just easier to handle by myself."

Tessa glared at him, almost as tall as he was but far better looking. Her eyes were darker than his, shrewd and filled with intelligence, just like their father's eyes. "Not easier," she corrected. "Safer, maybe, but not easier. I never really thought about how lonely it is up here until I came back from school and realized how quiet it is. You go weeks without even talking to other people, Seth. That's not healthy."

"Maybe I don't like other people," he teased, tugging at the pom-pom on her hat.

"Yes, you do," she retorted, slapping his hand away and adjusting the hat to a jaunty angle. "You've just forgotten that you like them. It's a good thing I'm here to remind you. Why don't you come to town with me tomorrow? Angie wants to help me plan my outfit for Winterfest."

"You're not thinking of going to that shindig, are you?" he asked disgustedly.

"Why not?"

Seth shrugged and crouched to repack the toolbox. He wasn't getting any more work done tonight. "Just seems so touristy. We're a cow town, not fucking Vale. "

"Language!" she interjected with a scowl.

"You cuss all the time," he said incredulously.

She grinned. "I know, but I'm trying to quit. Angie says it's a turn-off."

When she smiled, it transformed her pretty face into something breathtaking, even in the darkness. Seth was shocked he'd never had boys pounding down his door, even this far out in the boonies. He felt guilty whenever he thought of how much she'd neglected her social life to make things easier for him.

"Turn off for who?" he asked suspiciously, and then he caught up to her earlier comment. "Why do you need to plan an outfit just to drink some cider around a bonfire?"

"No reason."

He waited, but she wasn't intimidated by silence the way Aiden was, so she didn't cough up any extra information. Eventually, he gave in with a heavy sigh. "I guess I could drive you," he said reluctantly. "I need to repair my saddle, anyway. Might as well give it a try in town."

West Owens had always been a shy, good-natured kid. If he'd really taken over running the tack shop, Seth might have a chance of fixing his father's saddle without making the long drive to a bigger city.

"Great!" She grabbed him by the face and yanked him down to plant a smacking kiss on his cheek. "It'll do us both good. Maybe we can even grab lunch at The Hungry Pig."

Seth's chest tightened. Sitting down for a meal at a crowded diner felt like willingly putting himself on display like a zoo animal. He wasn't the man he used to be—strong, open, willing to face whatever came his way. He didn't need to surround himself with people like Aiden did; he'd always been self-reliant and confident in his solitude. But he was beginning to realize exactly how much he'd withdrawn from the world.

"Maybe," he conceded, unable to suppress a smile at his sister's delight. "No promises."

The lilt of Tessa's laughter flowed behind her as she skipped toward the house, the tiny lantern swinging from the end of her zipper. Seth took a deep breath, filling his lungs with icy night air, and let some weight drop from his shoulders. He watched until she disappeared into the darkness.

Only that little light remained, bobbing like a firefly in the snow.