Page 12 of Wild Sanctuary

The barn door creaks open behind me, and I don’t have to turn to know it’s Tom.

Slowly and deliberately, he stomps the snow from his boots before walking down the row of stalls. When he reaches the one over from me, he leans against the wall and pulls a flask from his coat, passing it to me without a word.

I take it, mostly to have something to do with my goddamn hands.

“That dress threw you, didn’t it.”

The words alongside the fact that it’s a statement, not a question, make the whiskey burn my throat as I swallow.

“Didn’t notice.”

“Son.” Tom takes the flask back. “I’ve known you your entire life. I know your tells. Saw you go white as a sheet across the room just now.”

I don’t say anything. I can’t.

“Listen to me, Wyatt.”

I make myself look at him, guilt eating right through my guts.

“That’s not a girl you date. That’s a girl you marry. And she’s too young to know what that means yet.”

She’s only twenty, just starting out.

“And she’s got dreams, son. She’s been chasing them since she could talk. A journalist in a big city. She’ll do it, too.” Tom looks me dead in the eye, not a hint of anger in any part of him. “Don’t be the thing that stops her.”

I’d rather lose a hand.

But I don’t say the words. Instead, I just hold his gaze before nodding solemnly. He reaches across to pat my shoulder, brief and firm.

“You’re a good man.”

And then he’s gone.

The barn is quiet aside from the horses shifting in their stalls, and I’m left with a promise I’d rather die than break. He didn’t tell me to leave her be, he didn’t have to.

He reminded me of who she is and what she needs.

And that’s all she can ever be.

* * *

I stayed in the barn until I knew everyone had gone to bed, and I didn’t see her again before she left. Two days later, she was back in Denver, and I spent months telling myself it was for the best.

I might have kept telling myself that forever, except Tom died, and she came back for the funeral.

And when she stood at that graveside in a black suit that didn’t fit right, her face pale and lost, all I wanted was to pull her against my chest and hold her together. To promise her that everything would be okay, even though nothing was. Even though I was drowning in my own grief and could barely keep my head above water.

But I’d made a promise to both Tom and myself that Christmas. So I shook her hand for the space of half a heartbeat and mumbled something about condolences. And I watched the hope die in her eyes before she turned away. She thought I didn’t care.

That might’ve been easier.

I spent three years burying it after that. Three years of getting real damn good at pretending the feeling was gone.

Then she opened the cabin door, and I understood that six years hadn’t fixed a damn thing. I’d just gotten better at not looking.

I throw an arm over my eyes, blocking out the darkness that doesn’t help anyway.

One night. She’s been back one night, and already the walls are cracking.