She laughs, the sound a feminine, deep, husky rumble, her normal voice hoarse like she's got a cold. It's the kind of voice that would make a 1-900 operator millions. "Well," she starts, breaking me out of my thoughts again, "I drove, which you should have seen, being that I forgot I had my brights on and the damn things were shooting right in your face before I realized you were sitting here in the dark. If that wasn't a big enough clue, I had been calling your name since I jumped out of the truck again--something you should have heard."
"Oh," I mumble sheepishly.
"Yeah, oh."
She knocks my knees as she pushes past me to sit in the chair next to mine. I close my eyes when I realize my mistake, her gasp echoing through the still night air around us. She's standing in front of the rocker paired with mine, the dirty-laundry-filled basket sitting on the table between us, but that's not what causes her reaction.
It's the lone hat sitting on the chair that has caught her attention.
"What is that doin' here?"
"What is what doin' here?" I hedge, looking up to see her staring at the hat like it's a snake about to strike.
"Don't play dumb with me, Leighton Elizabeth James. I'd know that hat anywhere. Especially since it's the only hat that has ever, in almost fifteen years, sat on top of my brother's head."
My heart jumps and I jerk my head toward the hat in question. Seeing it in a whole new light now. I knew it looked familiar.
No way.
There's no way that this hat is the hat. Maverick's hat from when he was a teenager.
"You're reading too much into it, Q. It's just a black hat. You just think that because all he ever wears, regardless of the time of year, is a solid black Stetson." My voice is just as weak as my argument.
And she knows it, judging by the smirk on her beautiful face. "Then turn it over, why don't ya?"
"No."
"Turn it over, Leigh."
"Leave it, Quinn."
"If you're so sure it's just a black hat, then what's the big deal? Prove me wrong."
"I don't need to prove you wrong, but while you're here, why don't you take it home with you and give it to your brother. He left it at the PieHole earlier when he came by for some coffee. Like I said, reading too much into nothing, Q."
"Fine," she snaps. "If you won't check, then I will."
I have to will myself not to react, but it's so damn hard. Especially when I feel the overwhelming need to slap her hand away when her fingertips are just a breath away from the felt.
Do not react, Leighton.
Don't you dare.
"Mav would kick your ass if he knew that you put it down like this. Don't you know the old superstition that if you place the hat opening down, all the good luck that has been collected will fall out?"
"That doesn't even make sense, Q."
"Doesn't have to make sense, it's just the cowboy way. Never, ever, rest a cowboy's hat with the opening down. You place it with the opening facing the sky so that it can continue to 'catch luck' . . . and while I'm at it, don't ever put it on your bed."
I frown at her, for a second forgetting what she was even doing. "You've been spending too much time with your ranch hands."
"Seriously, Leighton, you would think that you weren't even born and raised in Texas. Everyone knows this stuff."
"If you say so."
She lifts the hat, her gentle hold easing some of my anxiety over her just touching it, which is absolutely ludicrous. I hold my breath, looking away from her face and out into the dark front pasture between my house and the road down the long drive. The moon hides behind the clouds, casting nothing but different shades of darkness, and not allowing me anything to focus on.
Quinn makes a noise but doesn't speak. I refuse to look at her, but I feel her walk farther down the porch to where I have another table. I hear the soft connection of the hat against the wood, inwardly cringing and fighting the urge to put a towel under it.
"You never really thought that whole infinity symbol thing through, did you?" Her voice rings out in the darkness.
My eyes shut.
My throat closes.
Her meaning clear.
"I mean it's an honest mistake for a fourteen-year-old girl to make. Never thought instructions on its directional flow would be important, did you?"
She stops talking.
My heart continues to pound.
Her meaning crystal clear.
"I guess it all worked out, since he thought you meant to stitch the number eight into the liner. You were always the one that cheered him on the loudest. I still remember the day you begged your daddy to take us to the rodeo over in Clareview. I almost thought you would jump down the bleachers when he didn't get bucked off. Of course, we joked that it was his new hat with the lucky eight that made that ride possible."
My throat burns.
My eyes water.
Her words a hushed reminder of a stupid girl's dreams.
"When I saw him five years ago out in California, we went out for drinks at a bar near the arena," Quinn continues, a little softer now. "Rowdy as all get out, it was. Some drunk cowboy itchin' for a fight knocked Mav's hat off and the first thing he did was jump up from his stool and grab his hat off the dirty ground. You should have seen the care he took in making sure it wasn't damaged. He placed it--opening up, mind you--on the table before laying the jerk out with one punch to the jaw. I saw the same faded stitching before he placed the hat back on his head. I would have known those jagged stitches anywhere. The same ones made by the solid red thread you rode your bike almost twenty miles outside of Pine Oak to get at the neighboring town's Walmart. The same ones that you spent three days perfecting inside the hat you spent two whole years' worth of allowance on. The same ones that you spent another two days cryin' over when you realized you put that infinity on there vertically and it just looked like a crooked eight. All of that inside the same hat he's worn since the day you gave it to him, Leighton."
My chest hurts.
My throat hurts.
The pain from my sobbing burning through them both.
Quinn doesn't speak until I can get myself under control, her hand reaching over from her seat and holding mine the whole time. It isn't until I had just lifted my shirt up to wipe my eyes that she says another word.
"Go look in the hat, Leighton. Don't argue with me. You go on and do it while you feel like you do right now. It's important that you do this now, while I'm here."
I look over, my eyes fuzzy with tears, and nod my head. Finally, one of the emotions I felt warring inside of me since he left the PieHole earlier comes to the forefront: sadness. The last thing I want to do is go look at that stupid crooked number, but she's right--it's better that I do it while she is here because once I see those stupid red lines, it's going to remind me of every painful memory I've worked so hard to forget.
"I'm right here, Leighton," she reminds me softly.
I stand from the rocking chair, my body stiff from too many hours in one position, and walk over to the hat. I hear her move, the sound of my screen door creaking as she opens it.
The second the porch lights turn on, the one directly above the table Maverick's hat is resting on acts like a spotlight inside of the opening. It wasn't the faded red stitching that she promised would be there that catches my attention, though. It couldn't be ignored, but it also didn't bring the pain I thought it would.
No, it wasn't the crooked stitching of that faded failed attempt at a romantic declaration that broke me into a million pieces. Had it been that alone, I wouldn't feel like someone had just punched me in the gut.
"That was the last picture I ever sent him, you know," Quinn whispers from behind me, telling me something I already know to be true, thanks to Maverick's own admissions earlier. She reaches down into the hat and pulls the well-worn picture from where it had been shoved behind the sweatband. You could tell that even though someone had taken the time to protect the photograph with a layer of lamination,
it had been handled--often judging by the worn edges--many times over the years.
When Maverick spoke of this picture earlier, I had assumed that he'd gotten rid of it. He spoke so strongly about how it affected him that I never imagined he would have held on to it, let alone placed it somewhere meant to be close to him. It was because of that alone that I broke into a million painful pieces. I would gladly take the anger back if it meant I didn't feel like I had lost everything I ever wanted all over again.
Quinn doesn't speak again, but she doesn't need to. Her point was made, and after she moves to pull me into her arms, she does what she's done my whole life: picks up the broken pieces of my soul and helps me find a way to get them together again.
14
LEIGHTON
"Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss
Denial was the first thing that happened after discovering the significance behind Maverick's stupid hat. I spent a solid day--my day off work--going over all of the things that it didn't really mean. Cowboys are a superstitious bunch; everyone knows that, so I had convinced myself that it was nothing more than that. I came up with every excuse I could, but in the end, I knew deep down that I was casting lies to protect myself from pain.
By the time my Sunday had come to a close, though, that denial had quickly turned to anger. That anger was a powerful thing, and even Jana gave me a wide berth that day. I kept thinking about his stupid hat, that ridiculous crooked eight, and that damn picture. Every single time one of those would enter my thoughts, I ended up with a plate thrown against the kitchen wall. I was sure we would lose customers that day, but it seemed like everyone was itching for a show because we were packed all day--which, of course, just pissed me off even more. He did this. He made us the focus of this town's rumors. Just by being back he had cast a spotlight on us while the townsfolk waited for more things to whisper about behind our backs.
I skipped the third stage completely. Realization that I seemed to be on the grief train dawned when I docked at the depression station. By the time I realized what was going on, I was begging for the anger to return. At least with that, I could still breathe without pain.
The pain of what could have been.
But what wasn't.
And what now might never be.
So far, the deep depression that had settled over me hadn't left for one aching second. Not even when I was asleep. I would wake up with tears streaking my face, gasping for air. It had been two days since that heaviness had settled over me.
I worked through it yesterday, keeping to myself and avoiding everyone. I could tell Jana knew something was wrong, but she didn't call me on it. For once, she left me to my thoughts, coming back into the kitchen only when she needed to restock something we were out of. She allowed me my solitude in the kitchen while she worked the floor and dealt with customers, something I was grateful for.
But today I just don't have it in me. I can't fake my way through the day again, and to be honest, I just can't find the will to get up from the bed. For the first time on a weekday since the PieHole opened, the closed sign would stay hanging over the purple door. It didn't escape my notice that even when Buford passed away, the sign was flipped and the door opened, but all his son has to do is come riding back into town and everything had been overturned on its ass.
I sniff, rolling my body so that the sheets let my arm free, and grab one of the tear-soaked tissues balled next to my body, wiping my nose before reaching out and grabbing my cell off the table next to my bed. Earl starts purring from his spot above my head, laying one large paw on my nose when I turn again, thinking that it was finally time for his mama to give him some attention.
"Stop, baby," I thickly say through the lump in my throat, swatting away his paw.
He gives a hiss of irritation that I've had the nerve to scold him before moving to the end of the bed. He gives me a look, his yellow-green eyes blinking once before he curls, lifts his leg, and licks himself.
My eyes water when I think that even Earl, the only faithful man that I have left in my life, has turned on me. It takes me a solid minute to calm down before I pick up the phone and call Jana.
"Good mornin', beautiful girl," she hums into the phone, her voice clear and cheerful despite it being only six in the morning.
I open my mouth, take a deep breath, and proceed to give a fake cough performance of a lifetime.
"Oh, good heavens, honey!"
I give a few good throat-clearing noises before I take the coward's way out and lie through my teeth. "Hey, Jana. I was hoping I caught you before you headed in. We're going to stay closed today. I've got something nasty and since I started feeling bad last night, I don't want to chance that this could be supercontagious. Which means all the pies I prepped yesterday are being tossed. I don't feel well enough to make more." I pause and give a few deep coughs. "We're just going to close for the day."
"Honey, I can take care of things at the PieHole. All it needs is a good scrub and I can make up some new goodies before we even open the door. Don't you worry about a thing. You get yourself all rested up and I'll handle it all."
I clear my throat again, this time more to ease the claw of emotional guilt that's taken a choke hold on me. "Jana, let's just take the day and keep things closed. You're always after me to take a vacation, so looks like I'll finally take one."
"A vacation isn't when you're home sick, Leighton, baby."
"And I'm not leaving you to run things all day by yourself, so if you insist on going in, I'll just have to leave my bed to come too."
"Nonsense. You get yourself better and don't you even worry about a thing. I'll take care of it all. If you don't start feeling better, you call Doctor Baker, you hear?"
My mouth had just opened to argue when I hear the click of her disconnecting our call. The guilt taking a life of its own and only amplifying the fog that has been hanging over me for the past two days.
Blinking away the tears, I look over at the hat that is still sitting on my dresser--opening side up, stupid Quinn.
How could he do this?
How could he admit that everything I've ever thought, all the pain that has followed me around, has been a lie? Because of him I've been unable to move on, judging every man before giving them a chance, always finding them lacking of the high standards in which Maverick had me measuring them to. He ran off, leaving to live the high life, without a thought to the lives he was leaving behind.
He escaped.
And I stayed.
If he truly did feel for me--still does feel for me--like he says, how was that even possible?
I never had the urge to leave Pine Oak like he did, but I would have for him. For me, I would have given anything to have him be mine. For him, he would have given everything to get out. I thought we were destined to be together, but he wanted only to run.
And I still don't understand why.
I knew he had dreams of being in the rodeo. Hell, almost every little boy in Texas does, but I always thought that deep down he would join his brother on the ranch and that his rodeo career was just something he did for fun.
I roll over in bed and look out my bedroom window, the sun starting its climb high in the sky. Earl comes back up and curls his big body into mine before he starts to purr loudly. Without looking away from my window, I reach down and start to pet him, wishing that the pain of my confused heart would ease.
"This has to stop, Leigh," Quinn exasperatingly huffs. "You look like--"
I glance up from the wrench I had been twirling around my hands, waiting for her to stop eating and get back to work, knowing this will be the first thing she forgets to pull under the truck with her. I lift a brow at her. "Finish that sentence and I'm going to beat your head in with this." She holds her hands up and sticks her tongue out before taking another bite of the strawberry rhubarb pie she had just grabbed off the counter I placed it on when I got here--the second one since she just finished eating one straight from the tin rolling back un
derneath the truck she's been working on since I walked into her shop an hour ago. "Shouldn't you be workin' instead of eatin' another pie? I swear, if you ever paid for the crap you keep beggin' me to come over here and bring you in the middle of the day, I would be a millionaire."
"And I would be living out of a cardboard box behind the building."
"At least you wouldn't go hungry," I joke, a small smile lifting my lips.
"Ah, I've missed that," she says through the full bite of pie she just shoved in her mouth.
"Missed the pie? You just ate a whole one not even ten minutes ago."
"Smart-ass," she says with a pout, taking another bite. "I meant your smile. I haven't seen that much this week."
I stop my movements, looking up from the wrench in my hands and into her emerald eyes.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks when my silence persists.
"Not really, Quinn."
"I think you need to."
I give up on my avoidance and place the wrench down on her tool bench. I let the silence continue before leaning against the counter in front of where Quinn is sitting and meeting her knowing gaze.
"I'm not really sure what you want to hear, Quinn. I was sad. Then I got confused. Which turned into anger really quick, and now I'm back to sad. I'm all over the place and half of the time I don't even know what to do with myself. It's almost as if I'm stuck in some weird purgatory that just won't let me escape."
She swallows her bite, looking just as sad as I feel before speaking. "You know, I think that's the same thing that Maverick told Clay and me a year or two before he left."
My brow furrows. "What?"
"That he was in a purgatory that wouldn't let him escape. A pain-filled world that wouldn't stop striking him down."
"Quinn--"
She jumps off the counter she had been resting on and walks over to where I'm leaning. "I hate seeing you hurting, Leigh. It cuts me so deep I feel like I'm the one bleeding right along with you. No matter how painful it was helping you heal after Maverick hurt you, that didn't even hold a candle to how I felt when I would climb into his bed as a kid and hold him tight as he cried in his sleep. I never told you this because I knew how much you hurt back then, but I was glad he left. He needed to, because honest to God, Leighton, being here was killing him."