Page 31 of Due North
“I’ll always hurt. There is nothing that can soothe that kind of pain all the time.”
“Agreed,” he said with a nod. “But it can make it easier to deal with when you aren’t doing it alone. When you’re real with the people around you, they’ll always go the extra mile to be real back. Just look at the people you live with on that ranch. Do you think Heaven hides her pain all the time?” I shook my head and sat mutely rather than speak. “No, because she knows her family will apply the balm she needs until the pain lessens and she can breathe again.”
“Physical pain is a whole lot different than this kind of pain.”
“Agreed,” he said again, which just annoyed me more. “This is the worst kind of pain because it swells from within until you are sure your chest will break apart and everything inside you will fall out onto the ground in a heap of steaming, black demons. I get it. I’ve been there. The thing is, it’s better to let it fall out onto the ground than to hold it inside. At least once it’s out, you can’t shove it back inside and let it continue to poison you. Once it’s out, you can stitch your chest back up and find a new way forward.”
“Yeah, that’s what Cece said too.”
He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “She’s living through the same kind of pain right now, so maybe you should listen to her.”
I thought back to last night when I held her in my arms, danced to the music in the dark of the night, and stole kisses under the stars. I ached to touch her again. To see her. To be with her.
“Can I go now?” I asked, my bones weary with exhaustion. “I need to do chores and try to get myself together.”
“I’ll take you back to the ranch. Your truck was picked up by Beau this morning. I don’t think you should be driving until you get more sleep. Promise me if your leg keeps giving out like it just did, and like it did last night, that you’ll see a doctor. Could be a pinched nerve.”
My eyes widened at his statement, and I coughed once. “My leg? There’s nothing wrong with my leg.”
“Try again, son,” he said, laughing. “I’ve been a cop for a long time. You weren’t drunk last night, but you also weren’t walking anywhere under your own volition. I brought you back here because I wasn’t sure how you would get all the way home without collapsing. I didn’t want to wake anyone up at the ranch. Can you make it now?”
“Yes,” I said, standing to show it was steady under me. “I suppose I could have pinched a nerve. I’ll put some heat on it once I’m done with chores and see if I can cut it off at the pass.”
“Might be smart. Tobi said she noticed you almost fall several times while talking to you the other day. She thought you were drunk until she realized you didn’t smell like alcohol.”
I shook my head as I followed him out the door to the squad car. “She was the one who fell, not me.”
“She didn’t fall, though, because you caught her. My granddaddy and I appreciate that. Tobi has fallen enough in her life.”
His words were short and filled with an emotion I couldn’t quite decipher, but there was more to their relationship than met the eye. I could see that with my own, and I wasn’t even that smart.
Sheriff Nash held the car door open for me, and I climbed in, waiting for him to start the cruiser and fire up the heat. It was a cold morning, just like the one ten years ago, and the darkness invaded from every direction. My heart pounded in my chest at the memories filling my head, drawing the claustrophobia around me tightly. I was going to relive every minute of that morning the same way I always did, and this time, I wasn’t sure the ending would stay the same. This time, I might perish in the fire.
Eleven
I cracked open a bale of hay with the pitchfork and started forking it into the stall for my horse Sundance. “Hey, boy,” I said, my voice soft in the quiet barn. “Too cold out there for riding this morning, isn’t it?” I asked him, patting his nose after I gave him a fresh bed of hay. “We’ll have to go out and check the fences soon, though.”
I closed the door and leaned against it, willing my body to stop being a complete jerk and work with me. It wasn’t going to. Every movement was an effort that taxed my waning strength. I lowered myself to the bale of hay next to the stall to sit for a minute. I just needed a minute before I finished the chores. That was a lie I’d told myself for months now. I was always able to get up and finish the job, but I wasn’t sure I could today. Under normal circumstances, the ranch foreman didn’t do the chores, but I needed to stay busy today. Unfortunately, my mind was far more active than my body.
I forced myself to a standing position on sheer will then kicked the bale of hay with the heel of my boot. I cussed loudly, knowing Sundance wouldn’t care since it was nothing he hadn’t heard before. Standing took too much effort, and I collapsed to the hay again. I propped my elbow on my thigh and lowered my head to my hand. Why today, of all days, did my body have to stop cooperating completely? I would sit here until I could gather my strength, get on Sundance, and find a quiet place where I could rage against the emotions working their way through all the cracks in my defenses. The watering hole would be free of people this early in the morning, but I highly doubted I’d make it that far in the saddle.
She left a note.
She didn’t want to see her babies die.
Bile rose in my throat, and I hung my head, heaving nothing but water and acid onto the floor of the barn. I swiped my hand across my mouth in anger. You want to talk about a coward! She was the biggest one of all. First, by not accepting her disease!
“Ha!” I yelled aloud. “Like you have a damn thing to say about that, Caleb North.”
I was in trouble. I could feel it. I felt it last night and again this morning when I woke up in jail. The blue behind my eyes was undulating, and with every swirl, it added more grey to the blue. I would relish the moment it went completely grey. I would be dead, but I would enjoy not being encapsulated in blue for eternity. I was sick, but I deserved it. I deserved this disease and the suffering I would go through because of it.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” a voice said from the door of the barn.
I glanced up to see Beau, Blaze, and Ash walking through the door. I let out a heavy sigh. Great. Just what I needed this morning. Not. I was in trouble, but I couldn’t show weakness in front of these three.
“I bet you got the whistlebelly thumps and skull cramps, son,” Beau said as he handed me a travel mug that I could only assume was coffee.
“Sheriff Nash called us,” Blaze explained. “Heaven was more than surprised to hear about the situation. It’s not like you to get falling-down drunk and disorderly, Tex.”
