His voice is soft… filled with dread. I know something bad is going on, and my insides start to cramp with worry over Zoey. I step around Tenn and rest a hand lightly on his stomach to let him know I’m here if he needs me, which I think he does.
The muscles in his abdomen bunch in reflex, but then he relaxes as he shoots an apprehensive look at me while he listens.
I don’t know who is on the other line but whatever they’re saying produces an effect on Tenn. The foreboding leaves his eyes and is immediately replaced with a hot flash of shock. That quickly melts away and his skin pales, then I’m staring at full-blown grief within those blue irises. His lips draw down, a soft rush of breath blows through his lips, and then everything drains out of his eyes until they’re devoid of anything.
Flat.
Dead.
Just… nothing.
My fingers curl into the soft material of his t-shirt, and I bunch it hard with anxiety.
“I’ll get the quickest flight out I can,” Tenn says, his voice thick and hoarse. “I’ll text you the details.”
He listens a minute more and then he pulls the phone away from his ear, not having bothered to say goodbye to whoever was on the other end. His gaze shifts away from me, staring blankly at the house next door.
“What’s happened?” I ask, my own voice scratchy with distress.
Tenn’s shoulders sag as if fifty-pound weights are on each side, and then his head slowly turns back my way. “It’s my dad… he’s dead.”
“What?” I exclaim as my entire body receives a sizzle of shock and my fingers tighten harder into his shirt.
“He got thrown from a horse, and then um… trampled. Took a hoof right to his chest. Ruptured something in his heart apparently.”
His words are flat and monotone. I launch myself at him, burying my face in his chest and bringing my arms around his back to hug him as tight as I can. His arms immediately come around me, clinging hard, and I feel his lips press against the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry, Tenn,” I murmur as I turn my face to rest my cheek against him, my arms clutching at him in a desperate attempt to convey my feelings. “So, so sorry.”
He hugs me back, silently accepting my sympathy. My brain tries to process everything I know about Tenn’s father. He’s been notoriously tight lipped about him, and I assume it’s because they weren’t overly close. Tenn has told me that his father has pestered him repetitively to come into the family business of ranching, and Tenn has told me that he has no intention of doing that. I know he’s just been waiting for his younger brother, Woolf, to sort of step up to the plate and fill his shoes, and now I have to imagine that in addition to the grief of losing their father, the two brothers will need to come to some sort of understanding.
And shit… it hits me all at once. Maybe this is really Tenn’s destiny. Maybe he has to take over the ranch now that both his parents are gone. And that means he’ll be living thousands of miles away, and even as this fills me with a weird feeling of abandonment, I also feel tremendous guilt for even worrying about this because it’s a selfish thought to have at this point.
“I need to get back to your house and get packed… make some plane reservations,” he says absently, looking utterly lost and vulnerable.
“Of course,” I say suddenly, pulling away and springing in to action. “I’m going to go grab my purse.”
“Apologize to your family,” he says softly.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I say quickly, and then fly back into the house.
I give a quick explanation of what’s happened, and my mom immediately jumps up wanting to assist. She offers to pack food and get online for plane reservations, making a move toward the front door to step out onto the porch and console Tenn.
With a gentle hand on her shoulder, I say, “I’ve got this, Mom.”
She nods and smiles sadly, sitting back down at the table.
“I’ll call you and let you know what’s going on,” I say as I turn away from my family.
“Call us if you need us, honey,” my dad says to my retreating back.
“I’ll cover you at The Last Call if you need to go with him,” Brody also says, and I have to smile at his offer. He hates bartending, so this gesture really touches my heart.
And I’m going to take him up on that because there’s no way in hell that Tenn is going without me.
He needs me but more importantly… I really need to be there for him. It’s something I feel compelled to do, not out of obligation, but out of a sense of connection I have with him. His hurt has become my hurt.
I manage to get Tenn loaded into my Jeep, and I know by the fact he doesn’t insist on driving that he’s out of it. Probably consumed with grief and even guilt, he does nothing but stare silently out the passenger window as I make the drive back to Nags Head. I rest my hand on his thigh and he places his hand on top of mine, then clutches my fingers gently.
By the time we walk into my house, I have a game plan in effect.
“Why don’t you start getting packed,” I tell Tenn firmly, giving him a push on his lower back. “I’m going to jump online and start checking out flight options. Do you want to fly out quickest or go through Raleigh and pick up Zoey?”
More pain flashes through Tenn’s face. “Fuck… I need to call Zoey.”
He looks lost as his eyes flutter around the living room, almost as if he can’t even decide how to pick up the phone to dial his daughter.
“She was really close to my dad,” Tenn mutters.
I know it’s a stupid offer but I go ahead and make it anyway, knowing there is no way in hell that Tenn would ever take me up on it. He’s not the type of man that would ever shirk away from his fatherly duty.
“Do you want me to call her?” I ask tentatively.
His eyes slide to mine, and I see the real Tenn underneath the grief. His lips quirk a tiny bit as he shakes his head. “Nice offer, Goldie… but you know I need to do this. Let me go ahead and do that now, and then we can figure out plane reservations.”
I walk up to him, press my body in close, and stand up on tiptoes, grazing a soft, gentle kiss on the side of his neck. “Okay. I’m actually going to go get you packed up and give you some privacy. Then I’ll make our reservations once you figure Zoey out.”
“Our reservations?” he asks with surprise.
“I’m going with you,” I tell him firmly, leveling him a look that almost dares him to fight me on it.
But he doesn’t, which is good, because there’s no way in hell I’m staying here. Not after I found out he loves me. Granted, he said it to my dad and not me, but I heard the words.
He knows I heard the words.
He knows I didn’t run, and it should tell him something that not only am I not running, but I’m pinning myself to his side in his time of need.
So, he might not have said the words directly to me yet, and I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to say them to him any time soon, but I suspect that we both know what’s going on here. It’s just right now… with this tragedy unfolding for Tenn, there are more important things to do than worry about mere words.
I need to show him how I feel.
Reaching out, I lay my hand in the middle of his chest and rub my thumb over his breastbone. Then I give a soft pat and turn to head back into the bedroom to get his meager supply of clothing together, and get me packed as well.
It doesn’t take long for me to get organized. I can hear Tenn’s soft voice in the other room as he speaks to Zoey, but I can’t hear the details of that conversation. I’m thinking this is good, because I honestly don’t know if I could handle listening to Tenn console a grief-stricken Zoey right now. I know what it’s like to experience loss at a tender age and it’s not pretty. Brody may not have died, and I may have been a few years older than Zoey, but it was a terrible loss all the same. It was as if Brody had died, and I felt my world had been turned upside down.