Chapter Fifteen
Bridger
The walk of shame in the movies was nothing compared to what I was about to endure. With West’s loud and proud announcement, I would now have to face my entire family, red-faced and humiliated beyond reprieve.
“Where is he?” I demanded with a growl, entering the kitchen.
“We have comp’ny, Bridger.” Stockton drawled.
“Didn’t a good hanging used to serve as entertainment around here? It’s gonna be dinner and a show tonight because I’m gonna hang him up by his…”
“Kill your brother after dinner please. At least have the decency to wait until the preacher is gone.” Cami giggled.
Preacher grumbled from his seat at the table. “If he makes it through the meal.” That earned him an arm pinch by his wife who smiled graciously throughout all the family drama. Cami bustled in the kitchen humming to herself, so proud of whatever noxious concoction she’d prepared.
We needed a chef in the family.
“Wash up you two.” Willa pulled something from the oven and motioned toward me and someone behind me. I knew the touch as soon as I felt it. Tate’s lissome fingers danced along the inside of my palm for an instant, clueing me into her presence behind me. At the kitchen sink, she bumped my hip more than once trying to get me to loosen up. For her sake, I did.
We all took seats at the table when Stockton called out, “Come on West. I took Bridger’s knife. He’s gonna let you have one last supper.”
West crept out slowly from the broom closet and made Willa move over so he could sit as far away from me as possible. That wouldn’t help him one bit because as soon as he sat down I pictured myself vaulting over the table and taking him down with my hands around his throat. Then I’d feed him to the pigs.
Not really. I loved my brother.
Mostly.
Anyway, I wouldn’t kill him until the preacher was gone.
Stockton cleared his throat and filled the silence. “Preacher, won’t you bless the meal?”
We all stifled a chuckle at Preacher’s uncharacteristic shudder. Of course, as a minister, he’d never shied away from praying, but he looked particularly wary of praying over the dishes that Cami was placing on the table.
“Lord in heaven. We pray that the talk around the table be a blessing to our souls and the meal—um—sit well in our stomachs. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” We all resounded a unified Amen.
Poor Cami. She doled out the food with such pride. Her main dish looked like it was supposed to be chicken pot pie, but the crust was tougher than road pavement and the middle was cold.
“Enjoy everybody!” She cheerfully clapped her hands and dug in.
I watched Stockton’s face as he was the second to take a bite, but soon realized I couldn’t trust him when it came to Cami’s cooking. I didn’t know if he looked over the flaw to keep the peace or because he was in so deep that he didn’t see it at all.
We all managed to pull off fake eating by shoving the food around the plate, making a hole in the middle so that it looked like we’d eaten a dent in it.
I’d only taken two bites and it was green beans.
But Cami’s cooking wasn’t the only reason I was having trouble eating. I could easily blame it on Tate’s proximity—easy. She was sitting right next to me and not so accidentally bumping my leg with hers every five seconds.
West was to blame and Willa was now his accomplice. They were both making kissy lips every time I looked up and once West, when no one else was looking, began to make motions with his tongue so crude that I was sure Preacher Wife would fall victim to a stroke if she looked up.
West Wright was going straight to hell.
Sooner than normal, everyone was done. West and Willa were made to do the dishes, on order from Stockton. Maybe I wasn’t the only witness to their shenanigans.
“We should get going. Thank you for the meal, Cami.”
Everyone hugged and Preacher Wife insisted they come over for dinner the next week. West, Tate, and I would be back to school by then.
“You wanna stay a little longer? I’ll bring you home.” I whispered to Tate.
I heard West whisper. “Mmmhmm, he’ll bring you all the way home.”
Pervert.
“I think you need your rest, don’t you dear?” I’d never seen Preacher Wife so micro-managy. Usually she was a bit of a live and let live kind of person.
Cami paled at her grandmother’s suggestion.
“I’ll be fine, Grammy. Bridger won’t bring me home too late.”
“Before midnight, I promise.”
Midnight was protocol, right?
“That will be fine.” Preacher patted his wife on the shoulder giving her a private signal. As soon as they left, I grabbed Tate’s hand and tugged her out the back door. I thought about sitting under the lights, but I knew that spot was now Stockton and Cami’s spot and no one wants to make-out in the same spot where their brother had.
“Where are you taking me?” She sounded a little out of breath and I realized that maybe I was walking a bit fast for her.
“Out to my spot.”
She giggled and I smiled in response. “Your spot where you take all the girls?”
As much as I hated to admit it, the twang of jealousy in her voice kind of pumped me up. She didn’t want me anywhere with other girls as much as I didn’t want that Austin kid to touch her with a twenty foot pole.
I knew that the Bible said love wasn’t jealous, but I liked Tate a little jealous.
Sue me.
“There haven’t been other girls in a long time, Tate. Actually, I’m not sure there ever was any other girl.”
A jerk of my hand stopped me to find Tate with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Really? I seem to recall a girl named Jesse occupying a lot of your time.”
Looking out at the mountains in the distance, I knew she was right. Jesse had been a big part of my life. But it wasn’t until Tate came along that I realized that it was nothing more than just that—an occupation of my time and a decent outlet for my very teen, very male hormones. Then again, I wasn’t the only outlet Jesse plugged into.
Not being able to stop myself, I drew Tate to me. I didn’t expect her to react right away, but she did, looping her arms around my neck and stepping in willingly. “There’s a big difference in between spending time with someone and really caring about them.”
She tilted her head upward and looked back and forth from one eye to the other. “Bridger, are you saying you care about me? Don’t get sappy on me now.”
“Tate, you make me wanna be sappy.”
I couldn’t believe I just said that.
“No, what I mean is, you can’t get sappy on me when you haven’t taken me far enough out for me to kiss you. I can still hear your brother and his nonsense. Don’t tell me that right here in the middle of your backyard is your spot.”
“Come on. I don’t even think Stockton knows about this. Well, he has to, but he doesn’t go there.”
I led her North, into the woods that we basically left to themselves. When we were kids, it was always assumed that Stockton would inherit the house, whether he wanted it or not. One day when I was a kid, I asked my dad why Stockton got to live on the family land and I didn’t. I thought that I really offended him. It sounded ungrateful and demanding. I was completely ashamed of myself afterwards. But my dad, never missing a beat, told me to pick a spot and it would be mine for building a house when I got older. I knew it by heart. It was the spot of the property, the only place on the property, where black walnut trees grew. Even as a child, I knew that black walnuts and their oil would be money in the bank.
“This is it.” I pointed to the expanse of land that I’d chosen.
“It’s just trees, babe.”
That did things to me.
“It’s a lot more than that. Come step right here in the middle.” My hands on her hips, I made her stand in the center of where I’d always imagined my h
ome. I didn’t know why I was showing her this now, but I trusted her with this part of me. She was breathing heavily still and I was too. The weight of what I was about to share pushed down on my chest.
And I hadn’t trusted anyone in a long, long time.
“This part of the property is in Stockton’s name until I get married. After that, it becomes mine.”
Tate turned around in a circle, taking her very own tour of the place. Her hand was over her mouth and I couldn’t tell whether I’d given away too much.
Oh well, I was about to give it all away.
“There’s some things buried on this land.”
She squealed a little and jumped up to balance on her tip toes.
“No, not bodies. Jeez. Like, I buried some stuff here.”
Reaching her hand out to me, her posture changed like she needed something to hold onto. “What is it?”
I barely heard her. My heart was pounding so loudly in my chest that I could feel it in my earlobes. This was why it never felt right with Jesse. I could blame it on the cheating or the mistrust. But really, she just wasn’t for me. I knew it. I’d known it since I was a bratty kid that this wild, breathtaking woman in front of me was the only one who would ever fit.
“My mom used to keep old, empty wine bottles. She was a bit of a hoarder. Anyway, I used to take those bottles, write notes and put them in the bottles, and then bury them here, under my piece of land.”
Tate’s entire face brightened with a smile I’d never seen. The apples of her cheeks blushed pink as if she already knew what secret I was about to reveal.
“What did they say?”
Lord, please, let her not be freaked out.
I should’ve brought a shovel.
“Here. I’ll let you read it.” The first one was buried under a tree and I’d marked it with my initials. Feeling like a complete idiot, I dug into the earth with my bare hands. I’d only been ten the first time I wrote one, so the hole was shallow and a few seconds into moving dirt, I’d found the bottle.
After shaking the bottle, the note came to the top and I finagled it out.
I unraveled it before handing it to her, making sure of what I already knew. Ten-year-old Bridger was already very much in love with Tate. He was just unsure and too caught up in being a boy to know what to do with such a huge honor.
That’s what it would be to love Tate Halloway. It would be an honor and a privilege. A girl—now a woman with that much life to share and that much will to keep me on my toes.
Younger Bridger was a fool.
Older Bridger wasn’t that much smarter.
Thank God there was time to change my ways.
I handed it over and then quickly took it back.
“Come on Bridger. How bad can it be?”
It could be Tate running away from me like I was an axe murderer, bad.
She snatched it from my hand and I couldn’t even look at her face while she read it. That note was the bold, raw truth that only a child could deliver. Thrusting my hands into my pockets to keep myself from grabbing the note and burning it, I paced around the place. I finally stopped a ways out where she would feel safe in the event that she realized what a freak I was.
I hung my head. In all my efforts, I’d fallen again.
It was too much too soon.
We’d just kissed for the first time the day before.
Just when I’d given up hope, her arms wrapped around my middle and she pressed against my back. I could feel her breaths between my shoulder blades. Her hands were trembling, one fisted in my shirt and the other clinging to the letter for dear life.
“Are there more?” She asked, her voice muffled in my shirt.
I hesitated, but then realized the feeling of freedom that came with vulnerability of telling Tate everything.
“There has to be hundreds.” I pulled her shaking hand up to my mouth and kissed her palm and then pulled her arms around me tighter, not quite ready to face her. My hands still had dirt on them, but I didn’t care.
“Why did you bury them here?”
Her questions were so pointed, it was like she knew the answers beforehand.
“Because even stupid little Bridger knew that one day our house would be built here.”
Gathering my courage, I finally faced her. In the distance, I could see that someone had turned off the twinkly lights behind the house. Tears rivered down her face. My hands were dirty, so I pulled off my shirt and dried them. Tate moved her hands to splay over my stomach and we both gasped at the feeling. Walking her fingers upward, I lost my breath.
Feeling absolutely foolish but unabashedly brazen at the same time, I wrapped my t-shirt around her back, not wanting to get dirt on her, and used the edges to close the distance between us.
“You don’t know what tomorrow will hold, Bridger. Don’t plan your life around me.”
“I know what the future holds for me. But right now, all I’m worried about is holding you.”
I didn’t let her protest any longer. Dirt be damned, I framed her face with my hands and leaned down to show her. Our mouths moved with a built up fury. I couldn’t get close enough to her. My hands flattened against her back making sure that air couldn’t even flow between her body and mine. Her lips were colder than I’d expected but soon enough were in balance with mine, warm and needy. She pulled away a lot faster than I’d hoped.
“What’s wrong?”
Something had to be wrong for her to want to stop that heaven.
Her knees buckled and I caught her just before she faltered. “I’m just tired all of a sudden.”
Though it was cold outside, Tate’s brow was laced with sweat and she looked like she might pass out at any time.
“Let’s get you back to the house.”
I hunched over and picked her up. She let me and as much as I enjoyed carrying her around, it worried me that she hadn’t rebelled against it. Tate Halloway felt light in my arms and while I should’ve been grateful, the fact distressed me. Someone her height shouldn’t be this light. On the way back to the house, she closed her eyes and grew limp in my arms. I took a shortcut through the woods. Something inside fueled me on, making me walk faster than I ever had.
Something was wrong with my girl. I had to fix it.
“Stock!” I called, arriving at the house. Cami came out instead and immediately ripped me a new one for getting my handprints on the back of Tate’s shirt.
“You can’t leave evidence like this, Bridger. What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. She said she was really sleepy and then just passed out on my way here.”
Tate moaned while we moved into the house.
“Get her on the couch. We’ll call Preacher.”