Page 6 of Winter Memories

This is why I’ve never allowed myself to resent Limitless when it would have been so easy to do so. I chose this life; I might as well embrace it.

CHAPTER 3

EDEN

“Come on, Champ,” my dad holds his hand out to Macklin who is bouncing on the balls of his feet. I giggle at how excited he is. “We need to do man things and grab some feed.”

Macklin looks up at Dad with wide eyes, “Is that what we feed the cows?”

“Yup,” Dad responds and grins at my son.

This. This is why I came back here. My son deserves to have a man in his life, even if it’s his grandfather and not his father. He deserves to know love and to be in a place where his questions can be answered and his interests fostered.

Rhode Island was nice, don’t get me wrong, and I had a few friends there, but it wasn’t the support system I needed. I couldn’t give my son the kind of childhood I had growing up. It was killing me every day knowing I wasn’t doing the best for my son.

After being home for only a few days, it’s painfully clear that this is the right place for Mack. He comes alive under the attention and love of my parents. Even though it’s cold outside, he doesn’t seem to mind as long as he’s allowed to trail after Dad and learn about the ranch.

Dad doesn’t mind having a little shadow at all. They’re pretty damn adorable together too.

My heart lurches in my chest; this was the kind of love I wish Mack had in his life right from the start. David did try, at least at first. I was even able to convince myself that he was going to be a great father to our son whether we worked out in a relationship or not.

That’s not how it went down at all.

I’ve shown him a few pictures of David holding him when he was first born, but the thought of telling my son about his dad sticking around for a year and then bailing is painful as hell. My boy deserved so much more than that.

I’m going to make sure he gets it.

“I’ll grab everything on Mom’s list,” I tell Dad, and he grins.

“See, Mack? Your mom is going to take care of the food so we can focus on the ranch stuff,” Dad’s eyes are dancing with amusement, and his voice is filled with excitement.

Macklin picks up on it immediately, as if he needed any encouragement to be a big ball of energy. He turns his little face up to me with a huge smile that takes over his face. “Bye, Mama, we got man stuff to deal with.”

I giggle and give a wave, but he’s already grabbed Dad’s hand and is pulling him through the store without having a single clue if he’s going in the right direction. I watch them with a smile onmy face and a feeling of rightness settles over me. It’s impossible to deny what I know is true—I should have come home years ago.

But the important thing is that I’m here now.

As I look around Wintervale’s Country Store, it doesn’t look like much has changed. I wasn’t really expecting it to, but it’s nice to have that feeling of normalcy as I settle back into life here. There’s comfort in knowing the aisles in this store are still set up the way they were years ago.

I pull the list Mom gave me out of my pocket and take a quick look before starting to do the shopping. As good as it feels to be off the ranch and in town, part of me is constantly looking over my shoulder and waiting for someone from the past to pop up out of nowhere.

So far, I haven’t come across anyone. I’m sure the fact that I’ve been hiding out at my parent’s house and haven’t ventured into town before now helped. Until now.

Now that I’m in the heart of Wintervale, it feels like it’s just a matter of time before I come across someone I know from when my entire life existed here.

“Maybe I should have visited more often, or at all,” I mumble to myself as I check the last few things off the list I was given.

It was just too painful to come home, especially after Fletcher and I broke up. Before then, and after really, I was afraid that if I came home to visit then I’d never leave.

I owed it to Fletcher to do exactly what he told me to do and follow my dreams. He sacrificed so much, and we lost out on the love between us because he wanted to see me happy and living my dreams.

It was silly and naïve of me to think that life for Fletcher could involve leaving Wintervale. I really did believe it was possible though, especially my first year of school. There were so many nights when I would wake up from a dream filled with Fletcher showing up on campus with all his belongings. Dream Fletcher would tell me how much he couldn’t live without me and was moving to Rhode Island to be with me.

It’s not like I didn’t understand why he wasn’t going to magically appear in Rhode Island and change his whole future to follow me. His responsibilities laid with Limitless Ranch. I always knew it.

Sometimes I thought about leaving school and going back to Wintervale. As much as I loved it at school, and I did, there were times when I felt like I didn’t belong. Whenever I had those thoughts, I remembered how Fletcher put aside his own desires for me to stick around and encouraged me. It was enough for me to stay at school.

And then we broke up.

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