I was still staring at Jesse’s and Rowen’s entwined hands. The longer I studied their hands, the more I realized I never had and never would have that. Someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with and take on life one day at a time. Someone to know what I needed before I even said it. Someone who loved me without conditions. Hell, someone who loved me even with conditions. I’d been with a lot of women, so many women I couldn’t tell if it was closer to dozens or hundreds, and never once had I come close to loving a single one of them. They’d come about as close to loving me.
Whatever Jesse and Rowen had, what Neil and Rose had, whatever that was, I made sure to steer clear of it. Most of my life, I’d considered that a blessing. One or both parties falling in love just made things messy. Complicated the good thing going on. But standing at my father’s funeral, where a whiskey cap stood in his place, alone and with no one to take my hand before I even knew I wanted it held, felt like a curse.
“So this cap signifies freedom? Your father’s departure from this world has freed him from the clutches of addiction,” the chaplain said after a while.
“Sure, this cap signifies freedom. My freedom from him.”
The chaplain’s eyes widened—just barely but enough to tell me that I’d said something to shock him. I hadn’t been going for shock value; I’d been going for the truth. He was back to being tongue-tied, and the air around me was thick with dead silence, when Josie nudged closer to me. Her hand reached for mine, twisting against it until my fist released, letting her fingers weave through mine. Without realizing I’d been holding it, I could breathe again.
Without realizing exactly what I needed, I suddenly had it. A measure of comfort exactly when I needed it. A silent need picked up on and responded to. It was foreign in the best kind of way. Josie’s hand heated mine, its warmth traveling up my arm and spreading until no sign of a chill was left to be found. No sign of the winter I’d lived in my entire life was still around.
“Would anyone like to say any last words?”
The chaplain’s words startled me out of whatever hand-holding, dreamy world I’d lost myself in. Good thing because that was a world I couldn’t be a part of. Not because I wouldn’t accept it, but because it wouldn’t accept me. I gave my head a shake to clear my thoughts, but even if I wanted to with all my will—which I didn’t—I couldn’t free my hand from Josie’s. I’d have to make sure the next time she was close by, I didn’t let her hand get too close to mine. As good as it felt, it would hurt like hell later when her hand was holding Colt Mason’s and mine was running over the body of some woman whose name I wouldn’t remember in the morning. Holding her hand was short-lived and would do way more damage than good in the long run.
“I suppose I should send a sympathy card to Mr. Baker, the owner of the liquor store downtown, since his best customer won’t stumble through his front doors again. He’s probably going to go out of business. Now that’s a tragedy.” I capped my “last words” with a chuckle, but if I thought the silence had been thick before, I’d been wrong.
The fact that Jesse wasn’t shaking his head and muttering jackass or that Josie wasn’t sighing and elbowing me meant my attempt at humor had been timed badly. Too much, too soon. But how the hell was I supposed to deal with it? How the hell was I supposed to muster up some last words that weren’t depressing as all hell or, as I’d chosen, tongue-in-cheek? There was nothing heartfelt to be said. Nothing even moderately endearing.
For the second time in a few minutes, the chaplain looked tongue-tied, positively stumped as where to take the runaway train next. That was when Neil nudged between Jesse and me, making his way up to the chaplain. Like his son, Neil was sporting a suit. I’d never seen Neil in anything besides a pair of jeans.
Clasping his hands in front of him, he searched the sky for a moment. “I know Clay was a man who left a person feeling conflicted most of the time. A man like him is hard to know what to make of.” I wanted to mutter No shit, but the chaplain was watching me carefully. Probably knew the exact words I was biting back. “But I will never forget the first time Garth and Jesse rodeoed together. It was the summer they were eleven years old. Garth was out there on an ornery, old steer—stayed on the whole time, too—and took one hell of a score. Clay was standing beside me, and he nudged me, his eyes focused on Garth, and said, ‘That’s my boy.’” Neil paused long enough to make sure I was looking at him. He nodded, tipping his hat. “That’s how I’m going to choose to remember Clay Black. As a man who was proud of his son, as hard of a time as he had of showing it most of the time.” Dropping his attention to the whiskey cap, he tilted his hat once more before rejoining his family.
The chaplain took it from there, but if someone had asked me what he said, I couldn’t have told them. I didn’t hear another word after Neil’s speech. To say it felt like I’d been hit with the biggest sucker punch of my life would be an understatement. I remembered that day. I’d taken home my first championship belt buckle, and I’d been so sure Clay had been passed out drunk in his truck like I found him later that afternoon. I’d been so certain he missed one of the few times in my life I actually wanted him to be a part of so he could see what I was capable of and maybe, just maybe, feel a moment of pride. I’d believed he’d missed that moment, along with the few others that might have been worth an ounce of pride in Clay Black.