Page 7

He wonders how many people have even seen that smile before.

He finds unfathomable, inexplicable, ridiculous pleasure in being one of them.

The first time my parents split up, I wasn’t even born yet.

I don’t know when they got back together.

I don’t know why. I just know that two-and-half-ish years later, Grace and I arrived.

If the photos in our lone family album are anything to go by, our dad didn’t stick around much longer than our first birthday.

I don’t think he made it any farther for Eliza—by the time she learned to walk, the last time she saw him had come and gone.

The last time we saw him. Me and my sisters, at least. Jackson is another story—the sacred bond between father and son granted him at least half a dozen more meetings than the rest of us got combined.

I look like him, apparently. I have his hazel eyes and his lean, long build and I look more white than I do Japanese, more like him than I do Mom, but I can’t even conjure up a clear image of the man.

I look like someone I don’t even know. I look like someone who got his parents to squirrel me and my siblings away like five dirty little secrets on the land they own in the middle of nowhere— owned , I should say, considering Jackson bought it from our grandparents a few years ago, the last time we ever saw them.

The land our mom abandoned us on. The land our grandparents used as a hiding place for their son’s illegitimate brood—actual words I heard from my grandmother’s mouth once.

The land we crossed onto a few minutes ago, much to the disdain of my rolling stomach.

Serenity.

Horse rescue. Dude ranch. Home .

All of those things and so much more.

By the time a handful of achingly familiar structures come into view, I’m sweating. Breathing heavy. On the verge of suffering one of the panic attacks my twin has struggled with our entire lives.

I don’t want to do this. I can’t even remember why I’m doing it.

I consider it a small miracle when, instead of pulling up outside the main house, Finn parks in front of the older of the two red barns I used to spend a whole lot of my time in.

Before the engine even turns off, I slip out of the truck and dart through the ajar sliding door, breathing a ragged sigh of relief when no one follows me.

Putting off the inevitable is probably a shitty idea, but I’ve always been rolling in those. No point turning a new leaf now.

The old barn looks the same as it always has.

Old and airy and sectioned into a dozen stalls.

As the familiar earthy scent fills my nostrils, the sound of soft whickering reaches my ears.

Trepidation tightening my stomach, I limp towards the stall I frequented the most, my eyes all but closed as I half-expect to find it empty.

When I don’t, the relief is nothing short of immense. This, I can freely muster up a smile for—for the roan Appaloosa mare tossing her mane and nickering lowly, I always could.

“Daphne,” I croon, unlatching the stall door and tutting at her dramatics. “C’mon. I know you missed me.”

An indignant huff may disagree, but when I reach out a palm, a wet muzzle lands in it almost instantly.

My smile grows, wide and uninhibited. “Knew it. You’re not really mad at me, are you, girl?”

Giving up her act entirely, Daphne nuzzles my neck.

As the heavy weight of my horse’s head drops to my shoulder, something in my chest settles.

The girl who grew up surrounded by horses, loving them more than she loved her damn self, sparks to life and sighs contentedly, like she always has whenever in the presence of one of Serenity’s equine inhabitants.

For a long time—for as long as I can remember, really—I’ve preferred horses to people. There was a time when horses were all I could stand, when people made me mad and sad and confused and a hundred other shitty things that horses never did.

I get horses. Horses get me. Daphne gets me—she has since I was eight.

Resting my forehead against hers, I close my eyes as I run my fingers through her mane. “Sorry I’ve been gone so long. Next time, I’ll take you with me, yeah?”

“Don’t think horses do too well in the city.”

Straightening with a surprised jerk, my head whips towards the man sauntering into the barn. I don’t scowl, exactly, but I’m not sure the look on my face is particularly friendly either.

Finn, on the other hand, is still fucking smiling. He winks at me as he lets himself into the stall housing an impatiently whinnying Palomino—the aforementioned hot blonde , I realize with a snort.

I don’t make the conscious decision to watch him, but that’s what I do. My eyes have a mind of their own—my eyes have always been partial to a hot guy handling a horse, murmuring that she’s a good girl.

It’s right then, as Finn gazes at his date , that I clock the difference between the expression he wears now and the one he wears whenever he looks at me. Abruptly, I realize that he hasn’t actually been smiling at me.

He pretends to smile. He forces it. He… well, I come to that conclusion aloud. “You don’t like me.”

Finn doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t even look up. He just says, “I like your family.”

“Ah. And they don’t like me.”

That, he doesn’t deny either. But he does do me the honor of gracing me with his dark gaze, briefly pinning me in place with it as he says, “They love you.”

Right. But they don’t like me. And that’s always been the problem.

“You should go easy on them.”

My eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

“Go easy on them,” Finn repeats quietly. “It’s been a rough month around here.”

My month, on the other hand, was just fucking peachy .

And exactly what I needed, the cherry on top, was some random man I don’t even know, who sure as fuck doesn’t know me, spouting orders like he has any kind of a say in what I do. “Who even are you?”

“Someone who cares a lot about your family,” he says, and I wonder if he means it to sound quite so cutting when he adds, “Someone who’s been here for the past two years.”

I flinch, but he doesn’t see it. He’s back to loving on the mare, completely oblivious to the blow he just dealt—or just completely uncaring. Whatever the case, I snap, “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I think I know enough.”

A lump lodges in my throat as I imagine what he might know.

What he’s been told. Who might’ve told him, and in what circumstances.

Fuck, he just picked me up from rehab . Of course, he knows all the dirty details.

Was he invited ‘round for dinner and regaled with tales of my shitty behavior?

Is there a manual on what not to do, filled with each of my mistakes?

Is there a poster of my face marked with a big red X and signed with a list of grievances? All of the fucking above?

I always imagined they didn’t talk about me at all. That they just pretended I didn’t exist, like we pretend Mom didn’t, our dad doesn’t, our grandparents don’t. But I guess I was wrong.

Suddenly, the warm embrace of the barn becomes a cold throttle.

As I slip out of Daphne’s stall, I’m not sure where I’m going—I just know somewhere else is the goal.

My mind works as I stomp towards the exit, trying to come up with something creatively scathing to toss at Finn.

Glancing over my shoulder, I hope something suitable will fall on out of my mouth of its own accord, but it doesn’t.

Instead, a surprised huff escapes me when I smack into something.

Someone.

The worst possible someone.

Well, the second worst.

I’m unprepared. I’m in a mood. So when I right myself and realize it’s not just my brother that I ran into, but my brother and the dozing toddler he’s lovingly cradling, I come to a pretty quick, pretty gutting conclusion. And I make another bad decision. I do the wrong thing, like I always do.

I open my mouth, and a bitter laugh comes out. “Wow. You really wasted no time trapping Luna here, huh?”

Jackson kisses his teeth, his every feature harshening at the mention of his girlfriend—the mother of his fucking child, he confirms with a handful of words. “My son isn’t a trap.”

His son .

I knew it already—for fuck’s sake, I can only see half the kid’s face where it lolls on his father’s shoulder, but I can already tell they’re damn near identical.

But hearing it slices through my already fragile state.

Makes me realize I’ve missed something else, something big.

Makes me say more shit I know I shouldn't, shit I don’t mean.

“Just an accident then. Like father, like son, I guess.”

I wince as the words leave me, as they taint the air around us, but Jackson doesn't. He doesn’t react at all. He remains carefully stoic—he even smiles, just a little, acerbic and unsurprised. “You really haven’t changed a bit, huh?”

“Guess not.”

Get out of here , the lonely shred of common sense I still possess screeches. Go before you make things worse .

My brother’s voice follows me outside. “You’re going the wrong way.”

Halting my hurried strides towards the only house I’ve ever really considered home, I glance back at Jackson and arch a questioning brow.

“Ranch hands stay in the bunkhouse.”

“The bunkhouse,” I repeat, frowning. Since when do we have one of those?

With the hand not cradling his son— my nephew , I think with a jerk, my nephew who’s name I don’t even know —Jackson jerks a thumb in what I guess must be the direction of my mysterious new home. “Finn’ll take you over there.”

So I can stew in some more judgemental silence? “No, thanks.”

Thinking quickly, thinking recklessly , I haul ass towards the truck still parked outside the barn, slipping behind the wheel and cranking the engine before anyone can stop me.

“I’ll find it myself.”

It takes longer than I care to admit to find the so-called bunkhouse.

In my defense, though, Serenity is a whole lot of land.