Chapter Two - Westin

CHAPTER TWO

WESTIN

BEFORE

I'm seven years old when my father puts a gun in my hands and lifts it.

In the distance, the tin cans waver in my eyeline. He steps back, resting his hand on his hip, and I glance over my shoulder, keeping the gun steady.

He's watching me without offering any corrections this time. Inside, I glow with pride. My father isn't a bad man. I'd go so far as to say he's an honest man who loves his family, but his jaw is always set at a grim angle.

He looks out at the world like a bullet from the barrel of a shotgun. If it threatens him, he'll shoot back.

And my father doesn't miss. For me, at seven, that means the pinnacle of achievement is to be a man who shoots and never misses.

I turn back around and huff out a breath. It's hot, high summer.

My finger squeezes.

Bang .

Bang.

Bang.

All three tin cans flip off the fence railing. My father squints and takes his hat off to wipe his face with a bandana. Sweat etches down his neck, wetting his collar.

"Good. That's good," he says.

I drop the magazine out and hand it over. He watches me intently as I put the gun back in the holster at my belt. It's too big, and it hits my knee as we start down the hill. We don't talk much, me and my father, but that's alright. I don't expect a lot of words from him.

My mother stands in the doorway of the ranch house. She's much younger than my father, but neither of them will tell me how old they are.

My father has lines around his eyes and silvery hair while my mother is beautiful with long auburn hair and always smells like cinnamon. She doesn't have a single wrinkle on her skin.

She hugs me, taking the gun off my belt. I hear her say something to my father, their voices low. I'm thirsty, though, so I don't stick around.

I hang my hat and put my boots away. In the kitchen sits a tray with two glasses of lemonade. My father doesn't drink anything but lemonade and water. I grab one and empty it.

My mother will be inside in a moment, and she'll want me to clean up, so I duck into the bathroom off the kitchen. One step ahead.

Their footsteps sound as I scrub lye soap up to my elbows, the way my mother showed me. She likes everything clean and neat. Their voices rumble, unintelligible. I finish up and turn the water off so I can hear what they're saying.

"I don't know," my father says. "He kinda fucking scares me."

I freeze, my stomach twisting.

"He's a good boy," my mother says, her voice soft. "He's just…older for his age."

"He shoots like a grown man. I've never seen anything like it," my father says. "It's unsettling. But I'd be a fool not to make sure he uses a skill like that. "

Unsettling—it feels like I've been punched in the stomach.

"He's a little young to be shooting with you," my mother says tentatively.

"Don't start on that," my father says. "He acts like a grown up and he's fucking seven. He can handle his shit."

My mother gives a sigh of defeat. "Of course."

I stay in the bathroom for a while after. Finally, the dinner bell rings, and I eat in silence. All the ranch hands are lined up, and I sit with them instead of next to my father. I always do—he says that's where children should sit. He eats at the far end of the room, my saint of a mother at his side.

He has a big presence: confident, belligerent, and aggressive to the world, but lenient towards anyone who obeys him.

The next day, my father takes me out to the field behind the barn. It's hot, the air filled with the whine of cicadas. In the distance, lined up in the plowed field, sits a row of tin cans.

They're a lot further out than they were yesterday.

My father flips his wrist and looks at his silver watch with its worn leather band. It belonged to his grandfather. It's eight in the morning. I haven't had breakfast yet.

"I've been giving it some thought," he says. "Let's see what you can do."

He gives me his gun. I check the chamber, spin it, and click it into place.

"You want me to shoot them all, sir?" I ask.

He nods. "You got fifteen seconds."

My brows shoot up to my hairline. "I don't know if I can."

He taps his watch. "Ready….and go."

The tin cans waver in my eyeline. My breath goes still…and then I let it out in a soft puff. The cans come into focus. My finger squeezes, and I account for the kick.

I account for everything without noticing.

The breeze.

The distance.

The sun in my eyes .

My heart knows where each bullet needs to land. The cans flip off the railing, one after the other, leaving nothing but a whisp of dust.

The cicadas are silent.

"Good," my father says. "Let's go again."

We go again and again until my mother rings the bell for breakfast and we head inside to wash up. This time, my father tells me to sit with him at the big table. For the first time, I see the clear connection between pleasing him and his affection.

I don't have to work to please my mother. She loves me so hard.

My father slows down as I enter my teens. In high school, I meet my closest friend, Gerard Sovereign. I don't notice it for a while, but he's just as hardheaded and willful as my father, just less cold.

I want to resent my father, but instead, I become everything he wanted me to be without realizing it. When I'm old enough to strike out on my own, he gives me and Sovereign a piece of land. I have a steady aim and a willingness to do anything to succeed while Sovereign has the drive and the business sense to run an empire.

We build Sovereign Mountain Ranch.

Sovereign takes the helm, and I stick to what I do best—spinning a chamber and making sure no one stops him.

Ranch work is rewarding, but lonely. I find my comfort in the usual places—bars, the beds of women I won't see again—until my loneliness is numbed enough that I can go out and face another day. Until a year into working together, Sovereign makes a comment about it.

"What's the point of it?" he says one day while we're out in the field.

"Of what?" I ask.

"The women, the bars," he says. "You're just coming back to an empty bed anyway."

That hurts, but it snaps me out of it. In that way, he and my father are one and the same.

As he gets older, my father sells the rest of the farm to us and moves to South Platte with my mother. I bought the house for them so my mother would have somewhere to live when he was gone. For her, not for him.

My father and I sit at the table together, one day in my early twenties. He's gray, his eyes weak now, but he's still as stubborn as a mule. I'm a grown man, taller than him. Steam rises from my coffee, spiraling in the morning sun. My mother goes outside to gather strawberries from her boxes on the back porch and leaves us alone.

"When are you giving me a grandson?" my father says abruptly.

I freeze but recover quickly. "I'm not with anyone."

"So get a woman," he says, his voice flat, like it's that easy. "I got your mother, and I've kept her this long."

I rise under the pretext of warming my already-hot coffee. Through the window, my mother stands in the backyard. She looks so young compared to him, so free and hopeful. My mother is a caged bird, the door soon to be opened.

I find I'm happy for her.

"You're old enough," my father says.

"I'm working on it," I murmur.

That was a lie. My father died without grandchildren. The older I got, the less I idolized him. He taught me to be a man, to shoot and fight and push my will onto others, but he forgot to teach me to be more than that.

Oddly enough, it's Sovereign who shows me I'm worth more. He's the first man who doesn't ask me to prove myself. He's got a no bullshit approach to the world. In his mind, we're brothers, and that's that. My skills have nothing to do with it, and it's my choice to use them for the good of the ranch.

We take care of the land, and the land takes care of us. The world turns, and suddenly, I'm thirty-six years old. I did my best not to become my father, but in the end, I found myself with nothing at all to show for it.

No wife. No family.

All I have is my resolve to do better. It's kept me single and buried in my work for decades, right up until I made the foolish choice to go to Carter Farms to barter for some extra grain .

NOW

My eyes fall on her first while she's setting the table. Avery Garrison, public enemy number one in my eyes, is harassing her. I scare him off, and she leaves before I can get a good look at her face.

I catch sight of her through the window. She's sitting on the steps, facing away. My mind goes right back to being a boy and watching my mother cook for hours, only to eat leftovers after everyone was done.

I put food on a plate and shut it in the microwave.

Then, I eat with the men in the dining room. She comes in after everyone has cleaned their plates and walked out with the table in disarray.

I stay in the hall, transfixed.

She's in a yellow sundress with a tight bodice and loose skirt, the straps barely clinging to her shoulders. When she turns, a thrill like electricity goes down my spine.

Goddamn, she's pretty.

Her mouth is full but pursed, like she's pissed. Her big, dark eyes have a droop to them, and her lashes are heavy. Her face is oval, her chin pointed, her lightly freckled cheeks rounded. There's a fresh, girl-next-door look to her, but it's dulled by annoyance.

She slams cupboards, clearly angry about the mess.

I can't help but smile. I like her fire.

She pulls out a stool and reaches for the breadbox. I step out of the hall.

"There's a plate in the microwave," I say.

She jumps, whipping around as her lips part.

"What?"

"I put a plate for you in the microwave."

She stares at me like I'm speaking another language. "Why?"

No one has ever cared if she ate or not, that much is obvious. We start talking, but I barely remember anything because I can't stop looking at her mouth, the way it moves when she talks. Her white teeth flash, her pink tongue flicking out to wet her lips.

God, she's gorgeous.

My heart does a somersault. I think love feels a bit like this—but then again, what the fuck do I know about that?

It all comes crashing down when I ask her how old she is, and she says, "Twenty. I'll be twenty-one at midnight."

Fuck that; she can't even have a drink at a bar. Right away, my mind goes to my mother standing in the back garden. My stomach is uneasy as we speak. I have an urge to stay, but a tingle of shame holds it back.

I go home, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel of my truck.

That night, it's hot, and I can't sleep. Even with the fan on and the window open, I'm tossing and turning. When I finally fall into oblivion, I dream about her face.

Head back, golden hair like a waterfall.

She straddles my hips. I'm not inside her, but her pussy is bare against my cock, rubbing back and forth up the sensitive underside, all wet and hot.

"Fuck me," she begs.

I've always been restrained, but this time, I'm not. I need this woman. In my dream, I reach between us and guide my cock into her pussy. Pleasure rises, I gasp, and my eyes fly open.

I'm in bed, propped against the headboard, and I pull the sheets aside.

Goddamn it.

I'm late for chores because I have to shower and strip the bed, but it gives me time to get my head on straight. When I get to the barn, I'm pulled together.

Sovereign and I head out to check fences. The early morning is clear with the promise of heat later on. All I can think about is her face when she told me today is her birthday.

I said I'd go back .

But all I can think about is my mother in that fucking garden, so close to the door of her cage.

So I don't go.

We move through the day, and I find myself alone once again, sitting with my back against the headboard, staring out at the moon rising through the trees.