Page 62 of My Return to the Walter Boys
“Cole?” I said in a small voice. “Please stop talking.”
This time, thankfully, he did.
George spent the next five minutes outlining our punishment, but I tuned out since his speech basically boiled down to chores, house arrest, and more chores. It wasn’t until he warned that if anything like this were to happen again, drastic measures would be taken, that I snapped back in.
“What kind of drastic measures?” Cole asked warily.
Katherine massaged her temples. “Look, honey, it’s the last thing I want to do, but if you and Jackie need to be separated, your brother and Haley have more than enough room.”
The little amount of dinner I’d managed to eat rose in my throat at her words. If I wasn’t mistaken, it sounded like she was threatening to send Cole away, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Katherine, George,” I said, making direct eye contact with them when I spoke their names. Under the table, I wiped my clammy palms against my thighs. “I’m so sorry about what happened last night. Byignoring your rule, Cole and I stepped over a line that never should have been crossed. It was irresponsible and disrespectful, and I give you my word it will never happen again.”
“Thank you, Jackie,” George said with a tight smile. “We appreciate the apology and your promise.”
I nodded, knowing it was one I meant to keep.
***
I didn’t know which part of my task was worse.
The first thing that came to mind was the stench of manure. Along with permeating the air, the pungent smell always clung to my skin until I took a scalding shower where I could drench myself in soap.
That being said, drowning in my own sweat was a close second. I hated the way it trickled down my brow and back and soaked through my shirt.
Learning I wasn’t as fit as I thought was irritating too. While there were many benefits to running, upper body strength wasn’t one of them. As I lifted the final pitchfork of horse droppings and dumped it in a wheelbarrow, arms trembling with effort, I couldn’t help but feel humbled by exhaustion.
My punishment for being caught with Cole included multiple unpleasant aspects, but this—the daily mucking out of the horse stalls—was by far the most torturous.
After spreading a new layer of pine shavings across the floor, Icollapsed on the bench outside the tack room and closed my eyes. When I really thought about it, the worst part of this entire situation wasn’t the lingering odor, feeling sticky, or the burning in my arms. It wasn’t even being grounded and losing precious study time to chores. What bothered me the most was the pit that took up residence in my stomach Sunday night and hadn’t left since.
Katherine’s threat to send Cole away weighed heavily on me. What if she followed through? Imagining him being forced to pack up the art studio and leave the ranch because of my actions made me nauseous, and for the next few days, I could barely look in his direction, let alone spend time with him. It wasn’t the potential separation that upset me. Most people my age didn’t share a home with their significant other. As Savannah had so bluntly put it, our living situation was weird. What bothered me was that my presence had already exacerbated issues in his relationship with Alex, so the last thing I wanted was to be responsible for driving a wedge between Cole and his parents.
The barn door creaked open. It was probably Nathan escaping to the loft as usual, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. The wound his words inflicted was still too fresh, so I kept my eyes closed and tracked his progress across the room by listening to his footsteps. When they stopped directly in front of me, I sighed.
“I’d love to kiss you right now,” said a voice that was definitely not Nathan’s, “but you reek.”
Opening my eyes, I found Cole leaning against the opposite wall.His hands were tucked casually in his front pockets, and he was wearing a pair of red devil horns and a grin to match.
“Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning out the basement?” I asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be mucking out the stalls?” he retorted.
I gestured at the wheelbarrow that needed to be brought out to the compost. The pitchfork had to be put away as well, but all the grueling work was done. “I’m basically finished.”
“Me too,” he said, but I highly doubted that.
After he was arrested, Katherine tasked her nephew with sorting through thirty-plus years of possessions that had built up in the undercroft (as Isaac had taken to calling it) over the course of raising twelve kids. With the exception of George’s workroom, the Walters used the lowest level of their house like a giant storage unit. There were boxes upon boxes to go through. Everything not important enough to keep needed to be organized into different categories since it would all be donated to the community rummage sale. Cole was assigned to help Isaac when the two of us were grounded, but even with two pairs of hands, the boys had barely put a dent in what was turning out to be a massive project.
Since it wasn’t my job to police him and I was too drained for our usual back-and-forth, I pretended to believe his lie. “What’s up with the horns?”
Cole shrugged. “Found a box of old Halloween costumes. I think Alex was looking for something to wear to Chase’s party. Isaac’s got on the matching halo, but I know it’d look better on you,” he saidwith a flirty wink. “Come hang out with us after you shower. There’s a bunch of cool stuff down there. I’ve been going through my parents’ yearbooks, and Isaac came across a chest packed with a bunch of vintage clothes I think you’ll like. It must have been my grandma’s.”
“Didn’t you say you were done?”
“I lied.” He waggled his brows and pointed to his accessory. “Devil, remember?”
As if I could I forget. Although most people thought of him as the golden boy, Cole could be wicked when he wanted to. I was intimately familiar with his mean streak, and I suspected he got up to just as much trouble as his siblings. The difference was he knew how to get away with it. He also liked to push boundaries and bend rules, which was part of what drew me to him, but look where that got us this time.
