Page 40 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

C ash sat down the road from the gated community where his family lived. He’d moved there at the age of twelve, and his father had texted him the code for that week.

He could get in. He knew his way to the house easily. He also knew everyone would be waiting for him, and he really couldn’t sit out here for much longer.

“Come on, boy,” he said to himself, the words stern and yet quiet. “He’s your daddy, and you know he’s gonna have the red carpet rolled out.”

Cash knew it intellectually, and he also didn’t want it. He was okay being corrected. He’d spent the last ten years of his life on the rodeo circuit being constantly corrected, sometimes in a harsh voice and with a lot of swear words.

He couldn’t believe he wanted his father to be angry with him, because Cash had lived his whole life to avoid exactly that. Somehow, if his father would just be angry, Cash could defend himself and move on.

He finally couldn’t stall any longer, and he put the truck in drive and eased onto the road.

A loud honk filled the air, and Cash slammed on the brakes.

A blue sedan jerked to the left around him.

He looked over just in time to see the angry face of the woman he’d almost cut off, and then she was gone.

“Sorry,” he said, raising his hand though there was no way for her to hear him. No, he hadn’t looked before pulling out. His mind barely seemed to be working right now.

Cash felt like he’d been transported back in time thirteen years when he’d first come to this place. He’d only ever visited once or twice to see his mother’s parents before he’d been dropped off by the only parent he’d ever known, to live with a father who’d been a stranger.

He’d been angry then and riddled with anxiety that only manifested itself in bad behavior.

He didn’t know any other way, and hour by hour, day by day, and experience by experience, he and his father had figured out how to live together.

How to survive, then how to grow, how to thrive, and how to become best friends.

Cash indeed loved his daddy, his emotions already causing tears to fill his eyes.

He had not spent much time crying, even as a child and definitely not as a teenager.

Emotions like these usually manifested themselves in fists and silence for Cash, who’d then work through his anger to the real feelings below in therapy.

Thankfully, one thing his daddy was very good at was teaching him how to take care of himself and Cash had already called and gotten a therapy appointment for Monday morning with someone who specialized in grief counseling and helping those with high stress jobs.

Cash needed both, as he’d just learned yesterday morning that Tyson Greene would have to have another surgery that fall.

His hearing had not returned, and in fact, his doctor was telling him that he’d probably be completely deaf on his left side sooner rather than later.

He’d already started some sign language classes at a Deaf Academy in Three Rivers, Texas, where he was from.

Cash wasn’t sure why this man’s injury that didn’t impact him all that much had troubled him so.

He pulled up to the house, and the only reason his father didn’t come out on the porch to greet him was because Cash had specifically asked him not to. He put the truck in park, and reached for his wallet and his phone, then unbuckled his seat belt.

Someone had definitely been watching the cameras or peering through the window for his arrival, because in that ten second span of time the front door opened. He couldn’t see who did it, as no one emerged, and then finally out toddled Tyrone, the cutest four-year-old on the planet.

Joy and relief like Cash had never known filled him, and he thought of part of a scripture that he had never quite understood until that moment: become as a little child.

God really had been yelling at Cash lately, and this was just the latest message. By allowing Ty to be the first person Cash saw at his childhood home, God was telling him to be humble. Be calm. Become as a little child.

Ty yelled something to Cash, but he drove an extremely expensive truck that had noise canceling features, so he couldn’t tell what. It didn’t matter. It made Cash smile and then laugh, and he suddenly couldn’t get the door open fast enough.

He dropped to the ground, barely took time to close the door behind him, and jogged up the front walk. “Hey-ya, buddy,” he said, zooming up the wide front steps and scooping Ty into his arms.

The little boy squealed and said something as Cash settled him in his arms. But Ty had two older sisters, and he never really had to talk much to get what he wanted. Therefore, only Momma could understand him, though he was four years old and should be further along in his speech.

Cash simply said, “Yeah, buddy,” and faced the gaping entrance into the house. “Where is everyone?” Ty pointed inside and babbled something that sounded like it had the word deck or lake in it.

Cash wasn’t sure which, but his parents had a big deck off the back of their house that overlooked the lake, and he figured if he headed in that direction, he’d run into someone.

Taking the first step had always been so hard for Cash, and he imagined the ground shattering and a great big black abyss opening up beneath him. He’d never make it into the house, because he’d said too many hurtful things and didn’t belong here.

But his cowboy boot landed solidly on the porch, and so did the next step, and the next, and then he’d crossed into the house. Ty continued to babble, but Cash didn’t even try to understand what he might be saying. He swung the big, heavy door closed behind him and called, “I’m here.”

Voices echoed back to him from further in the house, and Cash had passed through the foyer and gone beyond his father’s office when he heard the footsteps of the girls.

“You’re here, you’re here, you’re here,” Grace yelled with Celeste already saying, “Cash, come look at all the fish we caught this morning.”

Cash let his half-sisters barrel into him and hug him, the oldest, Grace, on the right and Celeste on the left. They were only eighteen months apart, and Grace would be nine soon. He looked up and found Momma in the kitchen holding a ten-month-old Harmony on her hip.

She smiled as warmly and as gloriously as she ever had. “Girls, give him room to breathe.” They stepped back, and she moved into their space and grabbed onto Cash with her free arm.

She may as well have been made of metal and been holding him in a vise grip for how solid and real and strongly she held him. She said nothing and everything all at the same time, and Cash tucked his head into the soft space between her shoulder and her cheek and said, “I’m so sorry.”

“Yes,” she said, and they parted. He looked at this good woman who had raised him during a very difficult time of his life, and pure love washed over him. “I know you are. I’m just so glad that you’re home.”

Cash swallowed, trying to box up all of his emotions. Ty squirmed, and he leaned down to set the boy on his feet.

“Do you think he’ll forgive me?” he asked.

Faith scoffed and turned toward the back wall of windows that also showed the lake and the back deck.

“Your father is as stubborn as a mule.” She shook her head and looked at him, softening all over again.

“But there hasn’t been a day gone by since you went to dinner in Jackson that he hasn’t knelt down morning and night and begged God to bring you home. ”

She leaned over and said, “Grace, take Harmony into the living room.” She passed over the chunky baby, and Grace barely seemed to be able to hold her. She wobbled for a couple of steps, and then she managed to make it into the living room.

Faith linked her arm through Cash’s. “I know he can be hard to approach, so I’ll go with you.” She reached up with her free hand and wiped at her eyes.

Cash nodded, already crying himself.

“Another thing he’s done every day,” she said as they went toward the back door. “Is tell me that there’s nothing to forgive, and he just wants you to text him. Lord, all the hours he spent looking at his phone.”

That only doubled and then tripled Cash’s guilt, and he couldn’t contain the sob that wrenched its way out of his throat.

He expected to find his dad on the deck, but he wasn’t there.

Faith led him past the patio furniture and the fishing poles, the paddle boards and the kayaks and the pile of life jackets, all a testimony that children lived here, enjoying the lake in the summertime.

Faith went down the steps with him to a narrow path that ran right along the edge of the lake. She stopped and nodded forward. “He’s just right there.”

Cash looked but didn’t see his father, and then suddenly, like a shadow rising out of the earth, he appeared on the path from where he had been sitting on a bench. And just like every time Cash climbed on the back of a bull, everything inside of him told him to flee.

Get down. Go.

That happened now too.

Cash had stayed on plenty of bulls, while others helped him tie his hand to it, and he got his feet in the right place, and the gate opened. And he rode.

He had to do the same thing here.

He took the first step down the path toward his dad.

He moved slowly at first, and then picked up the pace, desperate for this eight-second horror to be over.

He ran the last ten yards to his father, who opened his arms and received him as if this were a happy reunion, instead of the other way around.

Cash grabbed onto his father’s shoulders and gripped him tightly as he sobbed into his neck. Daddy simply held him for a couple of long minutes, and then he said, “Hello, boy,” and Cash knew that he was loved beyond measure.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away. He wiped his face, everything hot and filled with liquid. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean any of that stuff.”

It took him an extra moment to finally look his father in the eyes, and all that he did was nod.

“I know,” he said. He reached up and cupped his hand behind Cash’s head and pulled him closer.

He touched his forehead to his, and Cash let his eyes drift close.

“I know,” Daddy said again. “Even if you did mean it, it’s okay. I’m willing to do better.”

“There’s nothing to do better,” Cash said.

Daddy pulled away with that dangerous, disbelieving look on his face. He looked over Cash’s shoulder to the house and then back to him. “Will you please forgive me?” He swallowed hard and Cash recognized the signs of his father’s emotions as he’d been dealing with them for weeks.

Cash simply looked at him, wanting—and needing —to believe that the power of forgiveness could cleanse his soul of the bitterness and resentment and anger that he had been carrying. No, he hadn’t meant to say anything about feeling neglected and abandoned, because what good would it have done?

Daddy couldn’t change the past.

“Yes,” Cash said, letting the beauty of forgiveness wash through him. He wanted God to forgive him, and therefore he could not withhold it from another person. “Like you said, there’s nothing you could have done better.”

Daddy nodded just one time. His smile still safely tucked out of sight. “Come on then,” he said. “Let’s sit down and talk.”

He turned and went back to the bench, and Cash followed him, ready to tell him everything and seek his advice, because Daddy had always been an exceptional listener and extremely helpful in prodding Cash in the right direction. He had no doubt that Daddy would do so again today.