***Well, this is a long one. It was a decent, normal length but then I was proofing it before I posted and realized I didn't like the ending, and in the effort of rewriting I turned a 100-word paragraph into a 1,000-word ramble. Generally, I like when my characters do and say things I don't expect, because it makes them feel more real. But also it's a pain in the ass when you're trying to keep to a word count.
Anyway, Happy Monday to you all! I'm off to pick strawberries! Last time I used my haul to make strawberry shortcake cupcakes. What should I make this time? ***
Josh
He didn't think he'd ever been so tired in his entire godforsaken life. Not just physically, although that was certainly part of it. He was tired from the inside out. His soul ached. His body hurt. He was tired of the noise and the cold and that feeling of dangling over the edge of a cliff by his fingertips. He was tired of fighting everything at every turn, and he was tired of losing.
He was losing. He could feel that just as well as he could feel the bite of the cold and the lancing pain in his shoulder. He'd been fighting for his old man's sanity and the welfare of a ranch that would never be his, and both were slipping through his fingertips. He'd been fighting for Amelia's love, and he'd won that only to realize that the second he stopped fighting it began to ebb away. How was he supposed to hang onto it when Brent was laid up in his bed with his wife playing nurse?
The horses seemed keen on his sullen mood, or perhaps they were as tired as he was, because even restless, fidgety Copper stood quietly while he pulled off the saddles and set about grooming them. The stuffy warmth of the barn didn't begin to penetrate the chill that had settled in his bones, and his hands shook on the brush as he worked out the blood matted in Copper's hide. Melissa and his father's horses stood waiting, placid and patient, munching on buckets of oats.
The smell of blood was overpowering, and he fought to breathe through his mouth as he cleaned the mess. Not that tidying Copper up would help. The stuff still matted his own shirt and caked the space between his fingers. He'd grown up around blood. Horse blood, cow blood, chicken blood, pig blood, and even human blood on the rare disastrous occasion. They didn't bother him at all, normally, but the latter had a special smell that was worse than the others-- somehow sweeter and more cloying. It hit his nose deeper, and tonight he was already tired and dizzy and a little sick to his stomach.
Shoving away from Copper, he stumbled toward the door, shoved it open, and stepped out into the wind. He made it three steps along the wall before his stomach finally fought its way loose and hurled his guts up into the snow. He clung to the wall to stay upright while he heaved, cold sweat breaking loose on his face while his body shook with the cold.
When his stomach finally settled, he straightened cautiously and kicked snow over the mess. Then he stepped away and scooped up a handful of fresh powder, scrubbing his face in the hopes it would bring him back to life. All it did was deepen the chill. Tripping over his own feet, he made his way back to the open door and slipped inside the barn. Where before it had been warm, now it was stifling. He could hardly draw a breath of the soupy air. The ground swayed beneath him and he reached for the wall, but he misjudged the distance and his hand met air. Then he was falling, and he had to admit that at least it felt better than fighting.
* * *
"Josh!" Cold fingers smacked against his cheek and he groaned, reaching up to shove them away. "Oh thank God. Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?"
Groggily, he peeled back his eyelids and found himself staring at the vaulted ceiling of the barn. What in the hell? Then Amelia's face, eyes round and cheeks pink, swam into focus in the foreground. "Josh, can you hear me?"
"'Course I can hear you," he grumbled, his tongue thick and clumsy in his mouth. He shoved up onto his elbows, but her hands pushed on his shoulders, halting his progress.
"You should lay still. I need to go get Melissa. Are you hurt?"
"Don't get Melissa," he groaned, pushing her hands away and sitting up straight. "I'm fine."
Amelia sat back on her heels and crossed her arms over her chest, scowling. "Oh you are, are you? Just taking a nap on the barn floor, then?"
"What are you doing here, Ames?"
"I came to help you with the horses," she huffed, hovering anxiously as he shoved to his feet and stumbled to the bench he'd built along the wall. He'd have liked to have strode back to the horses and demonstrated his fitness, but his stomach was churning again and he didn't really want to repeat that vile performance in front of his wife. Better to sit a minute and let things settle.
"I don't need help with the horses."
"Oh, I can see that." He liked that familiar, challenging spark in her eye as she glared down at him, but if he was being honest he wouldn't have minded a little bit of the sweet kindness she'd been lavishing on Brent earlier. He must've gone down harder than he thought, because his head was throbbing. Leaning forward, he pressed his face into his hand.
"Sweetheart, could you talk a little quieter?"
"Oh..." Her voice immediately dropped to a laughable near-whisper. "Yeah... yeah, sure. Of course. You need to tell me what's wrong, though. Are you hurt?"
There was no more reason anymore to lie, but the truth was still hard to spit out. He couldn't meet her eye when he said it.
"A little."
"A little? What does that mean? God, you frustrate the hell out of me sometimes, do you know that?" She coughed out a frustrated sound and braced her hands on her hips. He leaned back against the wall and let his head rest against the slatted wood, closing his eyes. If he passed out again and made a show of moaning and trembling would she quiet down and stroke his hair and maybe say something nice?
"Was it the bear? What happened, Josh? I can't help you if you don't tell me what's the matter."
With a heavy sigh and a wince, he lifted his left shoulder and let it drop. It really wasn't worth the fuss. The damned bear had gotten in a swipe at him after his gunshots had drawn her away from Brent. It wasn't anything like the nasty gouges that had torn his brother apart. Just a couple slices across his shoulder blade that had probably stopped bleeding hours ago. At least he hoped they had, otherwise he probably should talk to Melissa about it.
"Maybe you should get Melissa," he said, forcing himself to look at her. The suggestion seemed to hurt her, and she crossed her arms over her chest, stepping back.
"Okay," she said. She nodded and straightened her shoulders even while her face crumpled. "I understand. I'll... I'll go get her."
"Ames..."
"I'll go. I'll get Melissa," she said, backing away. "Just don't move okay? Rest here and I'll send her right out."
"Amelia, come here." She frowned at him, hesitating, and he jerked his head toward the bench at his side. "Please, sweetheart."
"If you need help I should go get your sister."
"We'll get her in a minute. Come sit down." Reluctantly, she sank onto the bench beside him, and he reached out and wrapped her fingers in his. "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry about anything," she mumbled, staring down at their joined hands. "I just want you to come inside and let Melissa fix you up."
"I was short with you."
"You have every reason to be. I shouldn't... I didn't mean..." Her shoulders sagged and she shook her had sadly. "I know what you saw and what you thought, but it isn't like that at all. This is just a bad situation we're in, Josh."
"You're a compassionate person, Ames," he muttered, wishing these words came easier and more earnestly. "I love that about you, so I can hardly be an ass when you act with compassion, can I?"
She laughed lightly, squeezing his hand. "You're allowed to be an ass," she argued. "I'm sorry that Brent is hurt, and I don't want him to suffer or... or to die. But being hurt doesn't make him less of an ass, and worrying about him doesn't make me love you any less. I know you love me, but I wouldn't enjoy watching you... I don't know, watching you teach some other woman how to ride a horse or shoot a gun, least of all a woman you had been with. I couldn't begrudge you helping someone, but it'd light a fire in me to be sure to see you with your hands on her hips or wrapped around her showing how to aim..." she trailed off, her face flushing red with anger over his make-believe violations.
She had a way of making him smile when he least expected it. Letting his head drop back against the wall, he released a sigh of relief. "I hate this, Ames," he murmured, and that was plenty earnest.
"I know," she said, leaning her shoulder against his. "I do too."
"I don't know how much longer I can do it. Brent's one thing, but the old man is..." he blinked at the ceiling, trying to find the words.
"He's edging in on lunacy," Amelia said succinctly. "He made me angry when I first came here, but now... he's beginning to frighten me, Josh."
He lingered in that admission for a few long moments. He knew what came next, but now that it was real he was terrified. He'd made a thousand plans to leave this place, but he'd never actually meant any of them. This ranch was his home. It was all he'd ever known. He had a place here-- a family among the men he'd hired and a job that he was damned good at. He had this house. This land, that he knew like the back of his hand. People thought the territories were vast and wild, but the ranch had never felt that way. It had only ever been home.
"I think we should leave the ranch," he said, clinging to her hand. When she didn't answer, a lump of fear rose in his throat and he hurried on. "I don't want to drag you and Reb from your home, but I don't think it'll be safe if we stay here and stay together. If you were with Brent there'd be no issue, but if you... if we... if you really do want to stay with me I think we have to go somewhere else and start fresh. It won't be easy but it'll be better than living under his thumb. I don't think he'd hurt you or Reb, but at some point he'll start throwing more than punches and I don't want you two caught in the crossfire. You don't have to decide now. We have to stay for a while, at least, until Brent heals up and can move back to the main house. And I've got to make sure Paul's ready to take over the books and some of the long-term projects. So you... you have time to think on it. And if you decide you don't want to come, I... well I won't be happy but I'll understand. But I can't stay here, Ames. I thought it'd get better once the grief faded, but it's only gotten worse and I--"
"Josh," she cut him off, pulling her hand loose from his and resting it on his arm. "You're rambling, love."
He forced himself to breathe around the fear and the... no, it was just fear. Fear of leaving. Fear of losing Amelia. Fear of losing Rebecca. Fear of striking out alone. Fear of returning home someday after the old man passed and finding his brother and his wife living in that gaudy imaginary palace, running a thriving business and raising a daughter who wouldn't even recognize him for how long it had been. Fear that he'd return and the whole thing would come crashing down and the old man would be vindicated from beyond the grave.
"Now you're rambling inside your head," Amelia said, squeezing his arm and pushing to her feet. "Stop running away with your ideas, Josh. If you leave, we're coming with you. That's all there is to it."
"What if there's truth to it?" he blurted before he could stop himself. Amelia sighed and sank back onto the bench, sitting sideways so her knees pressed against his leg.
"Truth to what?"
"The stuff he says. The God stuff."
"Josh, you can't be serious."
He glanced at her and saw her frowning severely, one eyebrow cocked in disbelief. He felt stupid for even saying it, but he also felt that old fear. It had always battled with reason inside his head, and reason usually came out on top. Usually.
"I know," he sighed. "It's just that I've ridden that stretch of woods a thousand times, Ames. I've never seen a bear out there. And this winter's already the worst one we've had in a decade. Bad things follow me. First ma, then the drought, the fires... The only time the world is good is when I'm not."
"You haven't been happy these last three years?" she challenged.
"Of course I have," he sighed, feeling like an idiot. "But maybe that's part of it. Maybe I had to be happy and see what I could have had, you know? And now I'm fighting to keep you and to stay happy, and we're being punished because I'm not supposed to be happy."
"So what? I'm just some tool to teach you a divine lesson?"
"What? No! I just mean--"
"Honestly, Josh... we have got to stop going to church. That old fart is getting to you, isn't he?"
"No, I just--"
"Stop!" Her voice was firm, but there was that gentleness he'd been craving, glowing in her summer-blue eyes as she raised a hand and pressed her palm to his cheek. It felt nice-- warm and soft-- and he fought the urge to lean into it. "I know you're tired and hurt and that your father is relentless, but that's no excuse to be making so little sense. I'm not going to hear any more of this nonsense. Let's go inside. Can you walk?"
He rolled his eyes, but it did take a tiny bit more effort to stay upright than he'd anticipated. "The horses," he mumbled, grateful that his feet stayed under him as he went to Copper and picked the brush back up.
"The horses are fine," Amelia snapped, taking the brush and tossing it onto the table. "They'll hold for one night without head-to-toe grooming. Let's go."
They left the horses in their stalls, with fresh grain and plenty of water and promises to return first thing in the morning. Then he followed Amelia back to the house. The snow was coming down hard, now. He'd have to go down tomorrow and take care of the bear carcass. If the wolves didn't get to it tonight, that was good meat. No reason to waste it.
The warmth of the cabin made him dizzy and he sat heavily on the bench in the bedroom, tugging off his boots while Amelia did the same. He bit back a grunt of pain as he shrugged out of his coat, but his efforts not to alarm his wife were wasted when she gasped.
"Josh, your back!" her hand came to rest just below the blazing, throbbing pain, and he craned his neck to see. Sure enough, blood had soaked through the extra shirt he'd slipped on and stained the faded blue flannel with a splotch of dark reddish brown. Damn.
"It's fine," he grumbled, although it felt considerably less than fine. Fortunately, he was saved from further obfuscation by the arrival of his daughter. She tottered up to the mudroom with her arms outstretched, Melissa trailing behind, and he reached down and plucked her into his arms. The pain faded into the background as her little arms went around his neck and she buried her face in his chest.
"Scary," she mumbled, muffled by his shirt.
"I know, honey," he said, rubbing a hand up and down her back while Amelia prodded him out of the mudroom and into the kitchen. The room was stiflingly warm and the smell of cooking meat made his stomach churn. He didn't protest when Amelia pulled out a chair and pointed at it. His knees practically buckled and the chair creaked as he dropped onto it, still holding Rebecca.
"Josh," Amelia said quietly, touching his shoulder. "Let me take Rebecca so Melissa can have a look at you."
"After bed," he said pointedly. The last thing he wanted to do was cause Rebecca more upset. She'd been confined to her room all day and clearly wasn't tired. It'd do no good to banish her again just so he could have a little scrape tended to.
With an annoyed huff, Amelia disappeared to the sitting room and came back with Elsie Dinsmore. Dropping the book on the table, she pulled Rebecca away from him just long enough to spin her around and seat her on his lap, facing away from him.
"Read," she commanded, pointing at the book while Rebecca squealed and clapped.
Sighing, he scooted his chair a little closer to the table and shifted Rebecca farther forward on his lap. Melissa set a mug of coffee by his hand as he opened the book. Last he knew, they'd been on chapter three, but the folded paper they used as a mark was stuck at chapter five.
"Have you been reading without me, wild one?" he asked Rebecca, poking her in the side. She giggled and lifted her face, grinning up at him.
"Papa, read!" she exclaimed, slapping her hand repeatedly on the book, and he pulled it closer on the table with one hand. Amelia was tugging at his shirt, working behind Rebecca's back to undo the buttons and pull it off his shoulders. He squinted at the book and began reading as Melissa joined his wife and they both set to huffing and grumbling over his shoulder.
"'One afternoon,'" he read, fighting to keep the pain from his voice, "'the next week after the Carringtons had left, the younger members of the family, Arthur, Elsie, Walter and Enna, were setting out to take a walk, when Elsie, seeing a gold chain depending from the pocket of Arthur's jacket, exclaimed:' what the... OW!" He turned, glaring at Melissa over his shoulder. She'd sliced through his undershirt and he could tell by the tugging that she was trying to pull the material away from the claw marks.
"Sorry," she whispered, but before he could tell her where to shove her apology Rebecca started twisting in her lap to see why he had stopped reading. Leaning forward, he unsubtly used his hand to push her face forward and continued reading.
He wouldn't have been able to recount, later, what had happened in the world of Elsie Dinsmore that evening. His own world was fairly preoccupied with the sensations of ripping and tearing and burning going on behind him and Melissa and Amelia muttering and murmuring and whispering exclamations. It wasn't that bad, was it? It was all he could do to keep his voice calm and steady as he read.
"'Then Jim came to the door,'" he read, clenching his fist to keep from screaming as Melissa sloshed alcohol over the wounds, "'asking to see Miss Elsie, and poured out his thanks amid many sobs and tears; for the poor fellow had been terribly frightenedâindeed, so astounded by the unexpected charge, that he had not had a word to say in his own defence, beyond an earnest and reiterated assertion of his entire innocence; to which, however, his angry master had paid no attention.'"
A clearing throat tore Josh's attention from the book to the doorway. His father stood there, looking weary and unkempt. Josh braced himself, waiting for chastisement and insult, but the old man just narrowed his eyes at Melissa, who from the feel of it was busy practicing her damned cross-stitching on his shoulder.
"Hey, pa," Melissa said with feigned nonchalance, as if she wasn't part of this absurd tableau-- herself there with a needle stabbed into his flesh; Amelia standing beside her with a messy rag, sopping up the blood; Josh with his shirt half off, reading a children's book over a cup of coffee; Rebecca, perched on his lap, completely oblivious to the bloody show ensuing behind her.
"What..." the old man frowned, shaking his head.
"We're reading Ellie Dinsmore, pa," Josh said, gesturing with the book.
"Ellie Dinsmore," he echoed, nodding dazedly as his eyes flicked over the scene before him. "I--"
"Gampa!" Reb exclaimed, wiggling on Josh's lap and reaching out her arms. "We're reading!"
"I see that, pumpkin," he replied, his eyes softening as he took a few steps into the room. Would he love her so much if Josh was really her father? Could sin and punishment be passed down with a man's seed? God, he hoped it couldn't. Not that the fear hadn't kept him rigidly focused on Amelia's cycle and reluctant to go to bed with her when there was a chance their coupling could get her pregnant.
Josh wasn't sure what he expected from his father in that moment. Perhaps he'd come to fetch something for Brent, or to tell Melissa there was some kind of change in his condition? Or maybe he'd come to revisit their argument from earlier. The last thing Josh expected was for him to pull out a chair and sit beside him at the table. Reaching forward, he pulled the book from Josh's hands and drew it toward himself.
"'But at length,'" he began reading, "'Phoebe remembered that she had some baking to do, and calling on Jim to come right along and split up some dry wood to heat her oven, she went down to the kitchen followed by her son, and Elsie was left alone with her nurse.'"
Relieved of his reading duties, Josh leaned back in his chair, one hand still clasped around his daughter's waist while she strained forward in his lap, enraptured by her grandfather's voice. The old man didn't look up from the book except to engage with Rebecca. Didn't meet Josh's eye once. He'd expected subtle glares and silent threats but as the minutes ticked by and his father continued on steadily reading in that gentle, deep voice, a cautious hope crept into him. In spite of himself, he sank into a contented fog. The coffee at his hand was heavily sugared and thick with cream, and every time it dwindled Amelia was there, topping it off while the old man kept on reading. Melissa finished abusing him, Amelia brought him a clean shirt, and the old man kept reading. Food appeared and he forced himself to eat, a small measure of strength returning to his trembling muscles, and the old man kept reading.
Melissa left to check on Brent. Amelia cleaned the dishes and went to the sitting room to clean the mess there. Rebecca slumped back into him, her eyes sleepy and half-lidded. Still, the old man kept reading. Josh shifted his daughter so she leaned against his arm, turned partially sideways with her feet dangling off his lap and her face tipped against his shoulder. He watched her eyes droop and then jerk open as she struggled to stay awake and follow the wild adventures of the imaginary Ellie Dinsmore.
He was half asleep himself when he heard the book close with a quiet thud. Shaking himself awake, he glanced down at Rebecca. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted as she breathed deep and slow. He hoped Amelia wasn't lying. It would hurt like hell to leave his wife behind, but leaving Reb? That might actually kill him.
"Melissa used to fight like that when we read to her." The gruff voice startled him, and he jerked his gaze up to see his father studying Rebecca with a small, nostalgic smile curving his lips. He shook his head, the smile growing as he drifted further into the memory. "She'd shake her whole body to get herself to wake up, only to collapse right back into sleep." He chuckled, leaning back in his chair. "Brent was the opposite. That kid dove headfirst into slumber, and he could stay that way through any kind of raucous. Thunderstorms, yelling... he'd just keep on sleeping. He was always the easy one as a kid. I'd never have guessed he'd grow up so willful."
Josh wasn't sure where he had fallen in that spectrum, and he didn't bother to ask. Either the old man had forgotten or he refused to remember. Either way, the effect was the same. It was wrong to feel bitter, in this rare moment of peace, so he kept his mouth closed and they settled into silence. He heard scrubbing from the adjacent room and knew he ought to help Amelia with the bloody mess, but his body felt three times heavier than usual, his arms aching with the strain of holding Rebecca's slight form.
"What happened out there, Joshua?"
He looked up, and his father finally met his eye. His eyes weren't angry. It was inquiry, not accusation. He shook his head, watching the old man warily for sign of deceit.
"We were riding the fences and a bear attacked us."
"Why did she attack? Did she have cubs with her? I taught you boys-- stand your ground and back away slowly..." His voice was sharpening slightly at the edge, and Josh forced himself to meet his eye.
"I know that, sir."
"Did you run?"
Josh lowered his face and studied Rebecca's peaceful expression. Silence, heavy and meaningful.
"Brent ran?"
Shocked, Josh looked up. "I think you oughta talk to him about this."
"Brent is asleep. You're awake. I'm talking to you."
Accusing Brent of any misdeed was a dangerous game, so he chose his words carefully. "Maybe his horse spooked."
His father snorted. "Our horses don't spook, Joshua. You know that better than anyone."
Yeah, he knew. He knew because he was the one who'd broken them. Each and every one. It was his favorite job on the ranch. His family's saddle horses-- animals who would never know life outside the peace of the ranch-- were broken for war, purely because he enjoyed the pursuit. The thought sparked something inside him. Maybe that was what he'd do when he left. Surely there were horse farms out east that could use his skills? Ranch hands were a dime a dozen, but decent wranglers were harder to come by...
"I'll talk to Brent when he wakes," his father said, snapping him back to reality. "But I... I..." speech seemed to be fighting him, and he lowered his gaze, his hands wrapped around Rebecca's book with white knuckles. Josh had half a mind to interrupt whatever diatribe he was formulating when he went on in a rush of choked words. "Thank you for bringing him home," he said, glancing up for just a moment before lowering his eyes back to the book. "You saved my son's life, at the risk of your own. I'm... I'm grateful."
For some reason, this rare moment of... could he call it kindness? This rare moment of kindness hurt more than the cruelty.
"He's my brother," he murmured, holding Rebecca a little tighter to him. They'd leave. He'd take his family and they'd head back east. He'd find a living, they'd build a life, and they'd be so far from this ranch it wouldn't even matter that his father had a daughter who fought sleep to hear a story and a son who dreamed his way through thunder and a bastard whose only value was measured in work hours.
"Cain was Abel's brother," the old man said thoughtfully, setting the book on the table with a quiet thump. "Isaac was Abraham's son. Family ties aren't faultless, Joshua. Sometimes God's will is stronger."
Josh's heart sank as he realized they were veering back into divine lunacy. "And what is God's will here, pa?" he asked, unable to mask the bitterness in his voice as he raised his face and caught his father's eye. The old man pushed to his feet, holding his gaze as he pushed his chair back beneath the table with a slow shake of his head and a thoughtful frown.
"I'm not sure I know," he admitted, and before Josh could wrap his head around the words he was gone.