But she’s not the villain I thought she was.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think she’s in over her head with managing this much land in Wyoming, and I still think she’ll need more help than she expects come winter, and I still want to find a way to get my troubled kids back out to the ranch to work off their frustrations.
But she’s not the bad guy. She’s done too much good around town to be the bad guy.
If anything, she’s the lost guy.
Girl.
Woman.
She’s a lady in need of being rescued.
No, she’s a lady trying to rescue herself.
I don’t know a single person who has never felt lost. Some recognize it. Some don’t. Some blame other people. Some try to get help. Some try to fix it themselves. Some try to fix the world around them. Some pretend there’s nothing broken and push through.
I’ve felt all that and more at one point or another.
All I know about Maisey and how she views her situation is that I haven’t once heard her say it’s someone else’s fault.
She gets a lot of credit from me for that.
“Tony would’ve been super pissed at me if I hurt you,” I say. “And if I didn’t help you where I could.”
She’s not getting any less suspicious.
I shove my fists in my pockets, trying not to let my frustration show. It’s my own fault she’s suspicious of me. So I need to own this the way she’s owning her problems too. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, nobody here will care what your mom did to land in prison. They care that you’re doing shit like showing up for your kid and dropping off baked goods all over town and hiring local contractors who are often hard up for work, while you’re also all over town helping anyone who needs your skills but can’t afford to pay for it. You might not be taking in strays, but you’re living up to what people expect of Tony’s family.”
“I ruined Junie’s favorite shirt in the wash and didn’t know it until she went to put it on this morning. My coffeepot broke. A raccoon somehow got into my garage and was eating Junie’s leftover lunch inside my car. Junie saw Dean on a morning talk show telling the host that he misses her so much, but he hasn’t called her once in the past ten days. I finally got all the mud cleaned out of all the crevices on my phone after that incident with Earl, and then I dropped it and cracked the screen when I got to the deli to take myself out for lunch, and the minute I walked into the deli, I saw a picture of Uncle Tony hanging on the wall, and I was in the photo, too, and I remember that day because it’s the day I fell off a horse and he thought he killed me, but really, it was the funniest thing ever, and he spent the rest of the day taking me all over town buying me anything I wanted, and I miss him.”
Her voice cracks, and a single tear slides down her cheek.
She swipes it away like she’s hoping I won’t notice, but the truth is, I miss the old bastard too.
“I don’t miss him because he bought me things,” she whispers. “I miss him because he paid attention and he took the time to do things with me and he treated me like I was his favorite guest ever when I was a kid, and now it’s too late to ever tell him how much it meant to me, and I took him for granted when I should’ve been a better niece and been here, and instead everything is crap, and I don’t know how to do all the things I’m trying to do.”
I don’t know who moves first.
Probably me, which I don’t want to think about or read into or analyze.
All that matters is I’m suddenly hugging her tightly with her head tucked under my chin and her ear pressed against my chest, the two of us tucked into the alcove where the staff hides from the kids at lunchtime when the weather’s nice, out of view of the fields where the soccer and football teams are practicing.
Shit.
Soccer practice.
I need to get back to it.
A shudder escapes her as she wraps her arms around my waist.
I am 100 percent on board with staying here, though.
“I miss him,” she whispers again. “I miss my mom. I miss feeling like I knew what I was doing. I miss Junie telling me everything, like she used to when she was seven. I miss not knowing everything that was wrong, and I miss the parts of life that used to be easy, even if they were wrong. I just want something to be easy. Just for a minute. So I can catch up and breathe.”
I stroke her hair and tell my dick she’s one of my students so it’ll get itself under control. Not the time. Really not the time. “You’re okay.”
“I am not okay.”
“Okay, yeah, you’re not, but you will be.”
She laughs, but it doesn’t sound amused.
It sounds desperate.
And that is not what I associate with Maisey Spencer.
She’s optimistic. She’s fearless. She’s capable. She’s determined.
She’s often a pain in my ass.
Definitely costing me sleep.
And right now, in this moment, I want to be the one holding her world together.
Chapter 16
Maisey
Oh God, this feels good.
I can’t remember the last time I was wrapped in such a solid, warm, comforting bear hug.
Which officially needs to be renamed something else so I don’t picture Earl trying to wrap his arms around me, because that’s actually terrifying.
Ah.
It’s a Flint hug.
And—oh, no.
No no no.
He’s stroking my hair.
I’m having a significant emotional event because I feel like I’m trying too hard to fit in and I’ve had a string of little annoyances—okay, and some big drama—and this man who’s supposed to be completely off-limits is stroking my hair and telling me I’ll be all right while his heart drums beneath my ear.
I can’t I’m not dating my way out of the reaction my body’s having to his tender care.
I can’t He hates you my way out of it either.
I don’t think he hates me.
I don’t think he hates me at all.
If he’s feeling anything like what I’ve felt since the first full day Junie and I were here, I imagine he wants to dislike me, because it’s easier than giving in to the temptation to like this man that I need to stay away from so as to not complicate my life or my daughter’s life.
But being hugged by someone in this world who clearly cared for my uncle, who cares about the land, who cares about his students and his players, but who understands that relationships are more complicated than You’re wrong because I say you are is more like finally having someone who gets it.
More—it’s like forgiveness.
It’s forgiveness for not making more of an effort to spend time with Uncle Tony.
Forgiveness for making his horse throw him. Forgiveness for me being such a pain about not wanting kids on the ranch. Forgiveness for having a mother who did bad things and for putting my husband’s dreams ahead of my child in an attempt to make my marriage better.
“Mom was arrested two days before Uncle Tony’s funeral,” I whisper.
His body goes stiff, and then a breath whooshes out over me.
“She was—she did bad things. I had to choose between Uncle Tony’s funeral, when she hadn’t talked to him in years and was frankly irritated with me that I still emailed him occasionally, or being there to help her find a lawyer and put together bail money and figure out what was going on.”