“You never tried to find her?”

“I did,” he tells me. “I found her in some apartment in San Francisco.”

He falls silent for a moment as he pulls on his gloves. “She wouldn’t even let me through the door,” he says. “Couldn’t look me in the eye. Said she couldn’t see me anymore and didn’t want me to call.”

He cuts open the hay bales, and I take a rake and start to spread it around the stall.

“When did you find out what they really did to her?” I ask him.

He remains quiet for a moment, and when he finally speaks, his voice is almost a whisper. “About a week after I left her apartment and her sister called to tell me she’d died.”

Died?

I stop. “Suicide?”

He nods and continues working.

“Oh, my God.”

“And six hours after that, I packed a bag and never looked back,” he tells me, giving me a tight smile. “Got on the road, planned to head to Florida, but I got here and…never wanted to leave.” His eyes soften, and things I thought I knew start to melt away as the pieces of the puzzle come together.

“I moved onto this land with a run-down trailer and no indoor plumbing. Now I have a house, a shop, a business, and my sons. Things turned out far better for me than I deserved.”

Why would he think he didn’t deserve what he had? It wasn’t his fault. He tried to find her. If they wanted to get to her, they were going to get to her.

My parents. Would they have intervened like that if I’d fallen in love with someone who didn’t fit the image?

“I’m sorry,” I rush out. “I’m sorry they did that—”

“Your parents, Tiernan,” he says, cutting me off and looking me in the eye. “Not your fault.”

It’s hard to make sense of, though. My mother wasn’t so different than Flora. Just as poor, but at least Flora had a family. My mother had been a foster kid with no one. How could she not be on the girl’s side?

I drop my eyes to Jake’s waist, the tattoo he sports on the side covered by his T-shirt now, but I remember the words. My Mexico. He said Flora was an immigrant, so is the tattoo for her? Or how cowboys escaped across the border back in the day, Colorado became his escape? His Mexico.

“We need to have some fun,” he chirps, lightening the mood with a smile. “Let’s all go up to the lake tomorrow.”

The lake? Not the pond?

“Get some music and beer in us,” he goes on. “Some cliff diving.”

“Cliff diving?”

His eyes fall briefly down my body. “You have a swimsuit, right?”

But the question sounds more like a warning, because he doesn’t damn well want me swimming in my clothes like yesterday.

Or in my underwear like Flora.

Yes, I have a…bikini. Dread coils through my stomach. I usually wear whatever our personal shopper buys without a care, but I think I’m going to care with them tomorrow.

Why don’t I have a one piece? Or a rash guard? Ugh…

Over the next couple of hours, I’m a demon, rushing from one task to the next, and glad for the distraction. Jake, Noah, and I finish morning chores, I cook breakfast and Noah cleans up, and then I assist them in the shop, typing out responses to emails that my uncle dictates concerning the business while he works.

Jake and I load two bikes onto the flatbed, roping them down, before he slips his T-shirt back on and pulls his keys out of his pocket. I know he needs to take them to town to deliver them to the transport, shipping them off to wherever they’re going, but suddenly he stops and looks over my shoulder.

I follow his gaze.

Kaleb is at the other end of the barn, jeans hanging loosely from his hips, no shirt, and the sun shining across his bare chest, which is damp with sweat, as he brings the ax down and chops a log in two.

He rubs his jaw across his shoulder, blood from his open wounds spreading across his cheek.

“Go grab the First Aid kit,” Jake tells me as he starts to walk for the driver’s side. “Kaleb needs help.”

“Yeah, professional help,” I grumble. “He…”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him about the other night in the shop.

And about the barn yesterday.

But…I can’t put all the blame on Kaleb, I guess. It’s best not to bring it up.

“He threatened that guy with a gun yesterday,” I say, instead.

Kaleb scares me.

But Jake turns around and charges right back to me. “That guy,” he tells me, “has a clubhouse in town for gangbangs with a scoreboard on the wall, rating each girl on a scale of one to ten. There are no less than three-hundred names of all the tail he and his friends have bagged in their short lives.” And then he points in my face, and I rear back a little, scowling. “You’re fucking lucky Kaleb found you and not me, because I wouldn’t have waited before you left before I fucking killed him.”

I cock an eyebrow but don’t protest further.

“Now move your tush,” he orders.

He turns around and climbs in the truck, and I drag my feet for another minute after he drives off before walking into the barn and yanking the damn First Aid kit out of the cabinet.

He doesn’t want help from me. Not any more than I care to help him.

And I still don’t believe for one second he or Noah were trying to keep me safe. Even though, assuming what Jake said is true, it’s good they did show up, actually.

But, no. I think Terrance might have been correct on that assessment. They’re territorial. It could’ve been any guy with their baby cousin up there, and they would’ve been angry and started a fight.

Trudging over to where Kaleb is working, I stop, not wanting to make eye contact.

I hold up the kit to him. “You’re bleeding.”

He stares at me for a moment and then uses his shoulder to wipe the blood again before picking up another log, ignoring me.

Opening the box, I take out the Neosporin. “The ointment will keep it from tearing,” I say, calming my voice and trying. “Put the ointment on it.”

He stops, his hesitant eyes going from me to the tube in my hand.

I ease my shoulders, forcing myself to relax. I don’t want to fight today.

“Sit down,” I tell him softly. “Please.”

His eyes narrow, and he doesn’t move.

I gesture to the tree stump, softening my voice to almost a whisper. “Please sit down.”

He waits a few seconds, staring at me, but then…he sits.

Setting the box down, I take out an anti-bacterial wipe and move over to him, avoiding his eyes as I stand over him.

I clean off the blood on his face, gently wiping the scratches, as well, but I feel his eyes watching every move I make. They follow me as I lean down and pick at the dried blood and then rise up again to uncap the ointment. It doesn’t feel like the other night when he wanted me. Now, it’s like he’s scared of me. He’s watching for a wrong move.

I swallow. “Keeping it moist will keep it from scabbing, and it’ll heal quicker,” I tell him, dabbing ointment on his jaw. “Keep reapplying this, okay?”

I generously cover the entire length of the wound, blinking when the smell of soil, wood, and wet air hits me. He always seems to smell like that.