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She tugs at a lock of her hair. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
Harlan turns back to me and I explain. “She told me to tell you guys about her, about us, as a way to start a conversation. I asked her to come home with me for the weekend thinking that it might be better, but I’m regretting that shit now.”
I’m seconds away from walking out of this barn, grabbing Jem along the way, and starting the drive back to Felt tonight.
Fuck this. Stubborn pig-headed brothers.
“Thank you,” Harlan says to Jem, stunning the shit out of me.
“What?” It’s my turn to gape at my brother. I get called stupid, but she gets his thanks? What is that bullshit?
“I said thank you, asshat. Don’t know what that means?” he jeers.
“Why are you thanking her?” Where the hell is my thanks for having to deal with this shit on a Friday night?
“Because she brought you home. We haven’t—I haven’t—been able to reach you, so I can thank the person who has.”
“Really, it’s not that big of a deal,” Jem says.
Harlan shakes his head at her. “It is. Thanks for getting him to pull his head out of his ass.”
“Hey,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” Jem says.
Harlan turns back to me. “You hush. I can thank whoever I want for getting you to pull your head out of your rear end.”
Seconds pass, most of the tension bleeding from the air. A sniffle behind us breaks the silence. We both turn and Jem is wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve. “Shit. Sorry. Ignore me.” She waves her hand again, and Harlan and I turn to face each other.
I turn back to Harlan. “Look. I’m sorry. I’m trying to do better. I shouldn’t have shut you guys out. I’ll work on it.”
Harlan wraps an arm around my shoulders and hauls me in for a hug. “I’m still pissed. But it’s less. Don’t shut us out again.”
“I won’t.”
“Here.” I turn around and see Rhett handing Jem a hanky. All of my brothers—and Dad—are standing by her near the door.
“Enjoy the show?” I ask.
“Yeah. But we stayed outside for most of it to give you guys a little bit of privacy,” Jedd says.
“Too bad the walls are thin and we heard all of it,” Duke chimes in.
“I’m with Harlan; you’re an idiot,” Rhett offers unhelpfully.
I lock eyes with my dad, and the sadness in his gaze punches me right in the face.
“Dad…” I don’t know what to say to him.
He shrugs. “Losing your Mom…” he trails off to clear his throat. “It was hard…on all of us. But your brothers are right; we can’t help you if you don’t tell us. And you not telling us about how you were feeling was stupid. Using it as a reason to keep your distance, stupider.”
“I know.” I feel about two inches tall. All of this drama could have been avoided if I just fucking talked to them. But then I wouldn’t have Jem. I wouldn’t have stayed gone as long as I did and I wouldn’t have been there the night she knocked on my cabin door, half frozen from the storm. So I can’t regret all of it.
“What’s going on at the station?” I ask to change the subject to something that’s not so heavy.
My dad shrugs again. “I just can’t keep rangers. The budget for this area is smaller than some of the other stations that are near bigger towns, so hiring is already hard, but we’re fairly isolated, and the rangers that I do manage to snag tend to transfer within eighteen months. We’re busy as fuck in the summer and winter, but the other times we don’t have a lot going on, and I figure that some of the rangers get bored with the slowness.”
“What about community outreach?” Jackson’s dad, who was the managing ranger of our station before him, created a series of break programs for kids and adults.
