Depths of Lake (18 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It’s hard.

Long days.
 
Hot sun.
 
Humidity.
 
Chaotic running between lessons and training and figuring out the office stuff.
 
I’ve never had to be the face of the ranch before.
 
And now it’s all on me.

But over the next month, we flourish.

Lake and I are so busy keeping everything running that we don’t have a spare second to analyze feelings.
 
We just work.

Constantly.

By the time we get to the end of July, we’ve made enough that I can hire a bookkeeper.
 
Numbers are not my strong point, and if I continue to handle the financials, we won’t make it.
 
That takes one responsibility off my shoulders.

Surprisingly, Lake takes on a huge amount of accountability for the ranch on as well.
 
He carries the phone around with him everywhere and answers it when it does ring.
 
He gets new clients.
 
He schedules my lessons.
 
When people want to host events here, he handles it.
 
He talks to people while I’m out working.

He also takes over Mom’s vegetable garden.
 
Good thing, because under my care, it would have died.

If I were to lose Lake as an employee, there’s no way I’d be able to continue working the ranch.
 
We would go under without him.

I’ve just sat down on the couch for two seconds at the end of the day on a Thursday in August, when the phone rings.
 
Thankfully for my exhausted feet, the phone is within reach and I grab it off the end table.

“Hello,” I say when I recognize Jesse’s number.

“She hasn’t disappeared into horse land oblivion,” he says with a chuckle.
 
“I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get you on the phone again.”

“Yeah,” I say with a chuckle.
 
“Things have been pretty busy around here.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jesse says.
 
“Hey, I wondered if you’d do me a favor.
 
My cousin is getting married on Saturday, and he’s kind of a jackass, so if I don’t show up with a date I will never, ever hear the end of it.
 
Would you like, pretend to be my date?
 
Think you could stand to be around me for an entire evening?”

“Wow, I didn’t know it was that much of a problem,” I say with a laugh.
 
“I was pretty sure I
could
stand to be around you, all the time.”

“Sorry,” he says, his voice sounding uncomfortable.
 
“I nearly psyched myself out of asking.
 
I guess this is why I’m still single.
 
Smooth isn’t exactly my middle name.”

I laugh with him, even though I’m exhausted and tired.
 
“Uh, yeah, why not?
 
For the first time in weeks, I don’t have anything pressing on my schedule Saturday.
 
What time?”

“I’ll pick you up at four?” he says.
 
It’s easy to hear the appreciation in his voice.

“See you then.”

The air is hot Friday night.
 
The temperature reached ninety-seven, with eighty percent humidity.
 
Since it doesn’t normally get this hot in the summer, we don’t have an air conditioning unit.
 
The windows are all open in the house, fans blowing, just trying to stir the air up.

So, at two-sixteen a.m., when someone yells out in the night, I hear it.

I’m familiar enough with his voice that I know
it’s
Lake.

And he sounds like he’s in pain.

I scramble from the bed, darting down the stairs, through the back door.
 
I sprint across the gravel with bare feet.
 
My feet pound his wooden stairs as I dart up and into his apartment.

I hear him swear in the darkness and I switch a light on.
 
Faintly, I can see his figure sitting at the edge of his bed, cradling his hand.

“What happened?” I ask as he looks over at me.

His brows are drawn together as I walk toward him.
 
He seems slightly confused, still half asleep, half in agony.
 
‘Cause when I look down at his hand, it’s covered in blood.

The ceramic lamp that normally sits next to his bed is shattered, pieces on the table and across the floor.

“What happened?” I ask again as I duck into the bathroom, looking for anything to bandage his hand.
 
Thankfully, under the sink, I find a first aid kit.
 
Grabbing a rag and wetting it, I walk back into the bedroom.

“There was…” he pants.
 
I then notice the sweat that covers his brown.
 
“An explosion.
 
Shrapnel—everywhere.”

I squat in front of him and gently take his hand.
 
He flinches back from me, his eyes still wild and not fully awake.

“Lake,” I
say,
my voice firm but even.
 
“It was a dream.
 
You’re not in Iraq anymore.
 
You’re here.
 
With me.
 
At home.”

His eyes lock on mine, and slowly, slowly, they start to focus.

As I take his hand once more and start dabbing at the blood, he looks around.
 
“I’m…I’m sorry about the lamp.
 
I’ll get a new one.”

“Don’t worry about the lamp,” I say, shaking my head.
 
“Are you okay?
 
That must have been a pretty intense flashback you were having.”

His head drops and with his uninjured hand, he rubs at his eyes.
 
“Yeah.”

The excess blood wiped away, I take a bandage and put it over one of the cuts.
 
I then cover the other.
 
It isn’t too bad.
 
Not bad enough for stitches.

“Was it about Cal?” I ask.
 
I’m still holding his hand, even though I’m done cleaning it up.
 
It takes me a moment, but I’m finally brave enough to look up at him.

His eyes are on the broken pieces of lamp on the bedside table.
 
They’re unfocused, like he’s seeing it all again.

I swallow hard and think of the urn of Cal’s ashes that sits on his parent’s mantle, just under his framed flag.

“Here,” I say.
 
“Lay back down.
 
Get some sleep.”

He does
lay
down, and I pull the sheet up over him.

Just as I start to walk away, he grabs my wrist.

“Will you stay?” he asks.
 
His hold on my wrist is firm enough I won’t get away, but gentle enough to tell me he’d never hurt me.

I hesitate.
 
Everything in me tenses, pulling tight and itchy.
 
But
that look
in his eyes, like Lake’s two millimeters from the edge of something dark and sharp—I can’t walk away.

So I climb into bed with him.
 
I pull him into my chest, barely able to wrap my own arms around his giant shoulders.
 
I rest my cheek on the top of his head.
 
Feel him breathe.

Softly, I hum him the lullaby Dad used to sing to me when I was little.
 
I can’t remember more than a few words, but the tune is soothing and calm.

Lake clings to me, hard.
 
And I hold him as he drifts back to sleep.

“Lake, have you seen Riley?”

My eyes flash open and I sit up, just as Kyle walks into the apartment.

Lake jerks into a sitting position, his hands reaching for a sidearm that isn’t there.

With wide eyes, I look back at Kyle.

“Ho!
 
Sorry,” he says, turning away from the two of us.
 
“I, uh.
 
I was just looking for you, Riley.
 
I brought by that stuff.
 
It’s down in the garage.”

I swear under my breath and climb out of the bed.
 
I glance over my shoulder to see Lake pulling a shirt on.

“I thought you were going to call before you came over,” I say, standing in the middle of the kitchen awkwardly.

“I did call,” he says, eying Lake with an indecisive look.
 
“You didn’t answer, so I figured you were out working.
 
I walked around for a minute and couldn’t find anyone inside or out.
 
Are you sleeping with him now?”
 
Just like that,
he
whiplashes back to the awkward situation at hand.

“It’s none of your damn business,” I snap, my voice quiet.
 
I look back and see Lake watching us with caution in his eyes.
 
“Thanks for bringing it by.
 
I’ll see you later.”

“No problem,” Kyle says, never taking his eyes off Lake.
 
To my complete surprise, he leans forward, and presses a quick kiss to my cheek.
 
“See ya later.”

My eyes grow wide, and I stiffen up, taking a half a step back as I watch Kyle leave.

That was weird.
 
And so out of place.

It takes a full minute before I can turn and look back at Lake with guilty eyes.

He looks at me, long and hard.
 
It’s hard to tell what’s there.

But I don’t have to wait long to find out.

“So I guess that’s the real reason why,” he says, his voice low, but with a sharp edge to it.
 

“That was—”

“You know what, I don’t want to hear it,” he says, shaking his head as his eyes narrow.
 
“I keep hanging on to one little shred of hope, thinking maybe someday, if I’m patient enough, that you’ll see that there
is
something between us, and that it’s
real
.
 
But I can see now that I’ve been an idiot.”

“Who do you think you are, acting like you’ve got some kind of claim over me?” I spit, taking four aggressive steps toward him.

“I don’t have any claim over you,” he says, his voice rising as well.
 
“Hell, every man on the planet wants you, but you just keep your head down and pretend that you don’t have a heart.
 
That you don’t ever have the right to love anyone ever again, because Cal died.”

“It’s not just Cal, Lake!” I yell.
 
Moisture pricks at the back of my eyes and my throat grows tight.
 
“Every relationship I’ve ever had has ended in disaster.
 
There’s
only been two of them, okay.
 
But they’ve wrecked me, and I won’t survive another capsize.”

“You know how many times I got knocked down in combat?” he says, taking a step toward me.
 
“How many times I was
literally
blown off my feet?
 
Hell, I’m lucky to still have feet, but I still got back up.
 
Get.
 
Back.
 
Up.
 
Riley.”

My eyes are burning, but I refuse to let a single tear fall.

“I can’t.
 
Because my feet were blown off to start with, and for a while I learned to walk on stumps.
 
But not again.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks with his brows furrowed and his eyes sharp.

I take a sharp sniff, turning away from him for a moment.
 
My blood boils hot and quick.

“Kyle is not just my boyfriend from high school,” I nearly yell.
 
I turn back around to face Lake.
 
“We were married.
 
He’s my damn ex-husband!”

“What?” Lake asks, confusion taking over his face.
 
He actually takes half a step back.
 
“When?”

“In high school, damn it,” I say, my shoulders falling.
 
I shake my head as I sink into a chair at the table.
 
My hair cascades around me, hiding my face from Lake’s view.
 
“We’d been together for the last half of our junior year.
 
It has hot and quick and way too heavy for only being seventeen.
 
The last day of school, he asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”

I don’t look up at him.
 
Lake keeps his distance, standing in the doorway of his bedroom.
 
He’s absolutely silent and totally still.

“Mom and Dad weren’t too happy about it.
 
They knew how stupid it was and how hard it was going to be.
 
But I insisted it was going to work.
 
I loved Kyle and Kyle loved me, and that was all that mattered.”
 
My voice grows quiet and I stare out the window.
 
A soft breeze blows over the pasture, swaying the tall weeds back and forth.