Chapter Thirty-Seven - Westin

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

WESTIN

Sovereign and I stand at the top of the hill overlooking the charred foundation of the Garrison home. The police came and went. Animal control showed up with trailers and took the horses and cattle away. Now, the ranch is cold and quiet, still stained with ash.

"How's your girl?" Sovereign says.

He glances at me, pale eyes narrowed. Now that the snow is cleared, we've been busy cleaning up our mess. Sovereign has a bandage on the side of his head where Thomas shot at him, but otherwise, he's unharmed. I've seen Keira up at the house once or twice. She's pretty well adjusted for someone who took a life for the first time.

But then, it's hard to know what goes on behind closed doors. I barely know what goes on in Diane's head, and I sleep in her bed.

"She's…alright." I shrug.

His jaw works. When we were up in the mountains, he apologized to me for airing my shit out to everyone. I forgave him, because now that I have Diane, everything else seems unimportant. Maybe we'll talk about it more. More likely, we'll crack open a bottle and forget the whole thing. That's how we've operated for years .

I clear my throat. Killing the Garrison brothers was something we had planned for years; I just didn't expect the world to feel so ordinary now that it's done.

Everyone talks about justice. No one says what to do the day after.

"You told me up in the mountains that you and Diane weren't reconciled," he says.

My mind goes back to that conversation and how quickly I shut it down after he apologized. I'm happy to tell others that I'm sorry, but I'm not good at receiving it.

"Honestly, I didn't know. I thought she was going to be fighting mad when she woke up. I did lie to her about us killing the Garrisons, but she forgave me for a lot, and truthfully, I wasn't expecting it," I say.

His throat bobs. I know he's thinking that Keira did the same for him.

"So what's really going on with Diane?" he says gruffly. "Turns out, I don't know shit about what you've been doing."

"Early last summer, I went to David Carter's house and met Diane there," I say, shrugging. "I thought she was pretty young, so I went home. But the next day, I went back and…well, all the men were gone, so we went upstairs."

He stays as he is, both hands stacked on the saddle horn. "I remember you saying something about a girl last summer. I got confused, thinking she was someone else you used to run around with."

"You make me sound like more of a whore than I was," I say.

He shrugs. "Anyway, go on."

I narrow my eyes at the burnt ranch house. "I kept going back. One day, I asked her to run off with me. She was supposed to meet me that night, on the hill over Carter Farms…but she never showed."

His jaw twitches.

"The highway they're putting in west of us, they need an access road through Carter Farms. The Garrisons agreed to stop it, but only if Thomas could have Diane. So, the night I was waiting for her, they picked her up and took her away. "

My chest hurts with regret at the memory.

A crease appears on Sovereign's forehead. "I always wondered why she ended up with him. She didn't seem happy when I saw her that day we went to Garrison Ranch."

I clear my throat.

"She hasn't said a word about what happened during that time," I say. "I haven't pushed her, but she's different than she was before she married him."

Sovereign's eyes are unreadable. I know what he's thinking. When he brought Keira here, she was timid from being with Clint. All I know is that she wasn't physically abused.

"What does she do?" he asks.

"She fights," I say. "She's safe, but she still fights."

"It's possible it was just from living with Thomas," he says, "but…it's likely someone did something to her."

It's not what I want to hear, but I know he's right. We stare out over the white fields for a while longer.

"I wish I could kill them again," I say.

Sovereign nods. "I'd dig Clint up and shoot him every day if I could."

He shifts his weight, and his horse starts moving up the hill along the property line. Rocky and I fall into step beside him. The wind whips through the mountain pass in the distance, shrieking and dying away, only to cry out again.

"I need to get her farm back and keep the access road from being built," I say.

"They won't build shit until spring," he says. "I just put in an offer on Garrison Ranch. If they don't accept, it'll be auctioned, and I'll buy it then. But they'll accept."

That doesn't surprise me. It has been our plan all along to get ahold of the Garrison land once the family was gone.

"I'd like to make Kiera a shared partner on my portion of the ranch," he says. "We need to talk about where that leaves you."

"I'm thinking of liquidating," I say. "Selling to you and putting my cash in the bank. Maybe using it for my own home. "

He blinks twice. For him, that's a lot of emotion. "What?"

I shrug. "I can't live in the gatehouse forever, Sovereign. I want a family, kids, same as you."

He gives me a slow stare, the gears in his head turning. "You're thinking of buying Carter Farms for Diane and living there?"

"The thought crossed my mind," I say. "It runs along Garrison Farms. I can liquidate the shares I have, buy some of the Garrison land to the west, and we'll be living on two ranches, side by side."

His mouth twitches in a short smile. He shakes his head once.

"Who would've thought," he says. "Just don't liquidate yet. I can't buy any shares for a while longer if I'm buying up that much Garrison land. I'm fresh out of free cash until we move through the season."

"I can hold out for a little while. I still have to figure out how to get David Carter off the land."

"We'll talk more."

We're both quiet for a while. The fence line is strong, and there's little to no storm damage. We ride back down to the barn, and by then, it's the middle of the afternoon. I stop inside the dining hall to bring some food for Diane and feel someone tapping my arm.

I turn. Keira stands behind me, twisting her hands. We've barely spoken since that night at the gatehouse. She looks the best she's ever been—whatever Sovereign is doing is working.

"I wanted to ask about Diane," she says, chewing her lip.

"She's fine," I say. "I think she's feeling a little overwhelmed. Me and her are on good terms, though. She's just resting."

"That's okay," Keira says. "I just hoped…maybe she'd like to help Maddie and I cook something later in the week. Maddie helped me come out of my shell; maybe she'd be good for Diane."

I smile, putting my hat back on. "I'll let her know."

Sovereign appears. He steals her attention with a hand around her waist, and I leave out the side exit via the porch.

The sun is already starting to sink. I'm halfway to the gatehouse when I hear a shot in the distance, down the south end of the farm. It sounds like a shotgun, perhaps a poacher or someone clearing wild hogs away.

Maybe it's the conversation I had with Diane about my past, but the walls that keep back all my least favorite memories are fragile. That gunshot stops me in my tracks. The discomfort of revealing the past is still fresh. It bursts out, hitting me like a rush of water.

I freeze, and suddenly, I'm a child again.

BEFORE

I'm twelve, standing on the curb outside the hardware store. My father said he would be back in a minute. He gave me two dollars and told me to get a pack of bubble gum. I got some from the gas station. It's crushed between my back teeth, the sweet taste sickly in the summer heat.

There's a faint screech at the end of the road. I squint, but the sun burns my eyes. From behind me, I hear my father leave the general store a few blocks down. The bell rings, and I hear his heavy tread. I know he's got a bag full of cigarettes, some flour and butter, and a little gift for my mother.

Usually lemon candy from the cash register.

The screech gets closer. I turn, and a car peels around the corner. It comes to a quick halt before the door flies open, and a man with pale blue eyes and a bandana pulled over his nose appears. He's screaming something, but it makes no sense.

I stumble back. He pulls a gun out, yelling someone else's name.

I've practiced at the range for as long as I can remember, but I don't have a gun. My heart feels like it's laying on my tongue. My vision is blurred.

"Get back!" my father yells, stepping in front of me.

My father has a gun on his belt. The man's eyes drop, and my father's hand moves to the pistol. A sharp crack rings out over the street. I see my strong, tall father collapse like a sack of bricks into the gutter. Blood trickles from his thigh.

Something flips in my brain .

Everything goes completely still, the way it does after a heavy snowfall. The man with the pale eyes backs up. Two other men jump from the back seat and round the car, their pistols up. I drop to my knees, pick up the gun, and shoot the way I was taught.

Intuitively, trusting that my heart knows where the bullet needs to go.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

They go down, one after the other. In the distance, police sirens wail. They pull around me in a circle, and an officer carries me off the scene. My father is on his back, blood soaking his jeans. His eyes are open, so I can tell he's alive.

I should be screaming. I'm twelve years old.

But, as my mother tells it, I don't make a sound. I don't say a word for a week until my father gets out of the hospital and comes home. In true fashion, my father never speaks about it after the police let us know what happened. It was a freak accident, a dispute over drugs. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A one in a million mistake. One that leaves me forever altered.

I learn something that day: my father is the biggest, strongest man I know, and he can't protect me. No one can. So, I practice, in the heat, in the cold. I learn to fight with a knife, a gun, and my bare hands.

Most of all, I learn to keep it all behind a mask. Because if those men had thought I was capable of killing them, they'd have shot me too.

NOW

Gunslinger.

The word moves like a whisper on the wind. It's still a mockery. The gunslinger can shoot a tin can with the sun in his eyes, off the back of a running horse.

But he can't keep his woman safe .

Rage at myself courses through my veins. I'm my father's son; I'm not an angry man. I don't raise my voice or leave broken things in my wake.

No, my rage is precise. It hits its mark.

I've fucked around long enough, and Diane was hurt because I can't accept who I am. It's time to start taking what I want, consequences be damned.