My stomach lurched ever so slightly when I said that. I considered myself a smart woman. I’d found a good man, despite the way he spoke to me. I wanted to hold on to him. But there was no way for a woman like me to even find a grip.
Tanner chuckled, but the sound was forced, his eyes faraway. “Ah, good men are much easier to stay with, I think. Or they don’t let good women get away. Either way, I don’t think I’m a good man, since I let a good woman get away.”
I waited for more, interested in the sadness and loss in his voice. We rode in silence for a few beats.
“You can’t just leave me hanging like that,” I snapped. “I’m an actress. I need an ending.”
He glanced at me. “Ah, if there’s an ending you want, I’ve got that. Although I don’t think it’s all as exciting as what you’re used to. Wish it was, if I was honest. But life isn’t all that exciting.” He paused for a long moment, looking out ahead of him. We were coming up on the ranch and I wanted to slow down so we could continue talking. “She was my high school sweetheart, cliché I know, but when you know, you know.” He shrugged. “I knew. And I’m not like my brother. I don’t have that yearning for different places, for a different life.”
I didn’t miss the resentment, anger there.
“I’m happy to be born on this land, work it, and die on it,” he continued. “It’s in my blood. I don’t want to know anything else. The plan was to move here, build on land our parents set aside and…I don’t know, do the cliché thing—kids. Family. Life.”
I pulled back the reins ever so slightly, and Tanner matched my stride. Even though there was pain in his voice, he seemed to want to continue as well.
“But it was hard for her to get pregnant,” he said. “We had problems. Went to all kinds of doctors, were told all kinds of shit. It took us two years to conceive, and less than two months to lose our first. Then just a month for the second. It killed me. Losing them, sure. But losing Maggie too, I didn’t understand.”
He scrubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Fuck, I’m just a rancher. Just a man. I don’t know what it’s like to go through that. I’m ashamed to say it all got too hard for me so I just…checked out. Didn’t give her the support she deserved. Worked too much. Then one day, came home, she was gone. I wasn’t surprised. The only thing that surprised me? That she didn’t do it sooner.”
There was pain in his voice. Real, visceral pain. It cut through even my shields. I thought I wasn’t capable of true sympathy.
We’d ridden to the barn, and various fenced-in areas that were for cattle, and a circular area for training horses.
The main business of the ranch was cattle. And it was a big business. Tanner told me they also specialized in breaking in horses and selling them off at a huge profit, as well as growing their own feed, which meant they cultivated and harvested that too.
The morning itself was enough to show me how hard this life was. I was envious, though. Of the simplicity of it, working with nature. There was an honesty in the work that I didn’t think could be replicated in many other places in the world. Especially not in my industry.
I had no idea what urged Duke away from this place, especially when he looked so damn good in the hat, leaning against the fences, watching us approach. I ached to know. To find out who he was. But that wasn’t part of the deal here.
Hence the sarcastic greeting after we’d all dismounted. Andrew had ridden ahead of us to meet with a vet. He emerged from the barn just as we tied off our horses. Tanner and Duke’s father had fallen in step with me as I approached Duke.
“I’m not a cowboy anymore,” he said in response to my greeting. His voice was tight. Clipped. He took the hat off and placed it on a pole on the fence, making a point, no doubt.
Andrew stepped forward, a sad smile on his face, hand outstretched. “Ah, son, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Some things we don’t want to be, we can change. With work. With distance. Violence.” His eyes flickered to me for a second. “Love.”
My stomach dipped. Not in a good way. Like I was going to be sick all over my borrowed cowboy boots.
He looked back to his son. “But other things, you can’t change no matter how much you want. Some things are in your blood. Sorry to tell you, son, but no matter how long you’re away from the ranch, from a horse, from the dirt, it doesn’t matter. You’re always a cowboy.” He didn’t wait for Duke to take the hat. He put it right on Duke’s head, clapped his cheek, and walked away with the saddest grin I’d ever seen.