It was a horseshoe.
A silver horseshoe.
I stopped dead it my tracks. I recognized that necklace.
My mind froze, eyes pinned to that little piece of silver resting on the dip of her collarbone.
I couldn’t think.
No, I didn’t want to think.
I knew who that shoe belonged to. I looked up, hoping I was wrong. It couldn’t be her. Never her.
I was stunned. Staring at the face I recognized, the face that mirrored my stunned recognition.
It was her.
“Ronnie?”
She staggered as our eyes met, the sound of her boots shuffling back and her dark green eyes becoming ringed with pure white surprise. “Jackson?”
She said that name on a breath of what could only have been a mix of relief and surprise. I almost hadn’t recognized the voice. Didn’t recognize her.
She changed. The new curves, boobs, and the extra inches of leg had thrown me, and it had thrown me hard. The understated way she was dressed, in well-cared for jeans and the plaid shirt newly tucked into her waist band despite the heat. The material that clung to her chest pronounced the handful breasts I’d taken notice of earlier. But it was her face that had changed the most. The soft curved edges that had once defined her youth were now lost to a sharper, defined structure.
Her red-flushed cheeks carrying her familiar green eyes studied every inch of me; she was taking me in too.
I must have changed a lot in her eyes since the last time we met.
But my opinion of her hadn’t.
“Leave.”
The word was filled with rage. It rode on a wave of pure hot lava up my throat, as if the volcano of emotions that had been dormant for eight long years was now alive again, and thundered destruction in its wake. “Get back in your truck and get the fuck off of my compound and out of my town.”
Ronnie stuttered. I wanted her eyes to turn to stone, for her to pluck up her stubbornness and leave. But it was hurt in her green eyes, the glint of the sunlight rimming on the water swelling across them. It only fueled the burn inside.
Does she really think she can come back to me after all this time and expect me to play nice? After what she did?
“But—”
“Get out.”
“Jackson, I—”
“I don’t care,” I hissed, shaking my head, lips snarling. “Whatever the fuck it is that you’ve come here for, I don’t care. Now go.”
Ronnie’s pained eyes searched for any indication that I was lying. Like she didn’t expect me to be this harsh to her. The longer she looked at me, the quicker I saw her getting the picture; I meant my words.
Then her eyes dropped from mine, her dark hair casting a shadow over her eyes, and a shaking breath left her lips. There was a moment of silence, enough for me to hear the faint rustle of the club behind me, realizing they were still there. I had all but forgotten about them while facing the human representative of the past I never wanted to remember, all the memories hitting me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
I heard the scrape of her boot against the ground and looked up, ready to see her get into her truck and go straight back to the hellhole I had long since left behind. I saw her shoulders square and her face turn to mine. My stomach dropped.
I knew that look.
“No.”
My chest rumbled. It was a dark, guttural sound, and I could taste the ugliness of it at the back of my throat.
How dare she argue with me?
“If you don’t leave now, you’ll make me do something I can assure you I won’t regret.” I growled, taking a long, threatening step toward her.
My shadow cut across her face, and the glint of her eyes widened as she took in my huge form. She retreated a slow, safe step back into the sunlight. Her expression didn’t falter.
“I can’t leave.” Ronnie shook her head, brown hair clinging to the sweat trickling down the sides of her cheeks. “Not yet.”
“I have nothing to give you,” I yelled, the noise loud and startling as my arms swung out beside me, exposing all of me to her. “I have nothing left for you, Ronnie. Not for you.”
She flinched and just for a moment, for a split second, her bravado faltered. The emotion bubbled forth, but she caught it before it manifested. Whether it was hurt, pain, or anger, I didn’t care and would never know as a carefully constructed mask hardened her features. “I’m not here for me,” she whispered, so slight I almost missed it. But what I didn’t miss, what I couldn’t miss, was her hand reaching up and flattening her palm against the hot metal towed behind the back of her truck.
It was the second time it had caught my attention. I didn’t just give it a passing glance this time, however. I really and truly looked at it.
That’s why.
The gesture was small, but I knew what it meant. I knew what she was truly asking of me. Knew it, because it was the same question I had spent half of my lifetime answering no matter who had called. And the same question I had spent the last eight years of my life trying to forget. It was a part of the past that I left behind, and one of the many things I had long since accepted I would never do again.
I felt my muscles tighten over my chest, my ribs suffocating under the strain, and my heart throbbing hard on the other side. It was as if my body were building a wall, trying desperately to stop the feelings welling up from the sight of that big metal box.
I turned my back on this, and I never wanted to face anything like this again. I couldn’t go back to that life. Not after everything I had sacrificed for the happiness I have now.
“No,” I breathed, voice tight and graveled. “I don’t do that. Not anymore.”
“Please,” Ronnie pleaded. Her desperate and genuine emotion was like a gushing wave, slamming into me with a force that I was sure would knock me off my feet. She stepped forward, her hands tugging on the collar of her shirt. The material strained underneath, as if it were the only thing stopping her hands from reaching out to me. “Please, Jackson. I need your help.”
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“No.” I retreated a step back. I knew the rage and betrayal still sat inside of me, but knowing what she was asking, knowing what she wanted was like adding fuel to the fire as memories of the past began to burn up inside of me. “Go somewhere else.”
“There is nowhere else!” Ronnie cried, the tears that had once brimmed her eyes were now falling, one after another down her olive skin. “I’ve been everywhere else. Do you think I wanted to come here to you? Do you think I wanted to travel all the way to find you? Do you think I would want to, when I know I’m the last person you want to see in the world?” Ronnie’s head dropped, her hair, dark and flowing, fell like a grieving veil over her face. “I know you hate me, Jackson...,” she whispered, voice soft and tired. “I’m not blind, nor have I forgotten what happened between us.”
She turned to the trailer, her hand reaching up and flattening against the sun-warmed metal, eyes gentle as if she could see inside. “Please help her.”
I stared at her, the long-limbed woman who was the core representation of my past, and to the trailer that used to define everything I was. I could feel the old urges surfacing, telling me exactly what I wanted to do. But I couldn’t listen to them. I knew exactly what kind of rabbit hole I was standing on the edge of. It would only take one step to fall.
“No.”
“Jackson!” Ronnie cried, voice breaking. “They’ll put her down if you do nothing!”
“Ronnie—” I growled, my stubbornness trying to hold firm.
“Just a look,” Ronnie pleaded. “If you say she can’t be helped, then I’ll accept it. If you say it’s over, then it’s over. And if you do say it’s over then….” I saw her bottom lip tremble as she looked to the ground, the words left hanging in the air like a sucker-punch to the stomach. Her other hand tightened on her collar until her knuckles went white, but it couldn’t hide the shaking rippling over her shirt. “If it’s over…,” she whispered, “…then I’ll do what needs to be done myself.”
I looked down at her, this woman I no longer recognized, and for a moment, I was taken back. Back to when I could see the girl I used to know standing in front of me, the same stubborn tears filling those prideful and compassionate green eyes. And for just a second, I saw the same eyes staring back at me in the present.