Page 44 of If You Loved Me

I winced. “Sorry for crushing your dream.”

Digging my hands deep into my coat pockets, I reached for any warmth I could find from the frigid air. We were quiet for a while. Only the wind whistling through the tree branches and the crackling of firewood sounded around us. My mind was loud and silent all at once. A stream of thoughts rushed in and then they were met with utter numbness. Like my nightmare had taken all the energy I had to give for the night.

“You never asked me what my nightmare was about.” Callie Rose was staring straight up at the stars, her words were gentle.

“I didn’t know you had one tonight,” I replied.

“It was about everyone in my life leaving me. In some form or another. Mom. Dad.You. It never feels like you three want to go, but something steals you all away and I’m left wondering why it had to be me.”

“I didn’t want to leave you, Cal.”

Her eyes were lined with red and I knew she was fightingback tears. “That’s not what I mean when I tell you it hurts, Ranger. This world…it’s brutal and unfair and humans are the worst of it. If people didn’t fight over their beliefs then our father wouldn’t have died in a war and our mom wouldn’t have left us stranded. If money didn’t corrupt, then my brother wouldn’t have spent ten years of his life locked behind bars for defending a young kid who was ganged up on and beaten in an unfair fight. And I hate it. I fucking hate that this world favors evil.”

She was breathless when she finished and I could feel the fury rolling off her in waves. There was so much emotion wrapped up in her tiny figure and it didn’t take me long to realize how much we were alike. The anger that led me to seek vengeance on those three guys was the same anger that had my little sister burning as bright as the fire before us. And that brightness only led to one thing—burning out.

I waited a minute or two until she’d calmed down enough that she could hear me through the rage. “I know it must feel like these things were done to you. Like you had no control over your own life or when people came and went. I know you must be scared that it will happen again.” I reached across the space between our chairs and placed my hand on her forearm. “But believe me when I say that living your life in fear is no place to stay. It’s lonely and only bitterness can come from it.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes.

I chuckled. “I get it. I don’t have much room to talk. I haven’t exactly been setting the best example since I got out.”

Her brows shot up as she said, “You hardly left the ranch for the first six months after you got out.”

“Okay. Yeah. So maybe I was an awful example of how to live your life without fear. But I’m sick and tired of people in this family running away from the fight of life. There’s so much good in this world and who better to fight for it than us?”

A smile split her face and then she laughed. “What on earth has Sarah Williams done to my brother? You sound like an infomercial for a self-help book.”

I wasn’t sure if I could attribute the change to Sarah since we’d only been out together twice. But my sister was right. There was a shift happening in me. I was trying. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done anything but simply get through life. For so many years, I took each day as it came and tried not to go crazy behind those silver bars. And maybe it was even before then, when I was just trying to help Callie Rose feel like a normal kid.

Now…now I wanted more for myself. I wasn’t sure if the feeling would last. If I was honest with myself, I was still terrified that it would go away and I’d be left being the same miserable asshole who could hardly do much else than be around cattle all day.

“I don’t know,” I responded. “But I hope it doesn’t go away.”

“I hope it doesn’t either,” she said quietly before patting the hand I’d placed on her arm.

A few silent minutes ticked by and then, “Thank you for tonight. I think I needed to get everything out of my head?—”

“And leave it to the wind,” we both said at once. It was the saying our mother told us anytime we were upset as kids. She would tell us to shake it off, or sometimes dance it off. Then she’d kneel to our level and press a kiss to each of our cheeks before telling us that the wind would always carry our worries away if we were willing to let go of them. There were even a few times when I saw her doing the same thing to our father when he was stressed about the ranch. And it worked. Every time.

“What do you think they’d say about us now?” Callie Rose’s words turned to fog in the cold air.

I took in a deep breath before I looked over at my sister. “I think they’d be proud of us.”

The warmth of her smile—so much like our mother’s—stayed with me for the rest of that bitterly cold night.

Chapter 19

Sarah

“Um, did you put an advertisement in the paper or something?” Stephanie asked, peeking her head through the cracked door.

I rubbed the sweat off my forehead with a tea towel. Every one of my ovens were on and I was still running behind and it wasn’t even noon yet.

“No. But it’s crazy, right? All the people out there?”

Her eyes grew wide as her head shook up and down.”I don’t think we’ve ever had this many people in the shop at once.”

I yiped as the top wire rack caught the edge of my wrist as I pulled out a sheet of cookies. “Damnit,” I hissed, sliding the baking pan onto the island countertop before I dashed for the sink and ran cold water over the burn.

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