River's End (River's End Series, #1)(72)

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Jack sat down on a chair, looking out over the land, now lit in pretty, soft hues beneath the setting summer sun. It seemed to linger this time of year for hours. He grabbed a case of beer and now drank it liberally in place of dinner. Joey eventually came out, leaning against the porch railing.

“It’s not about you. I don’t want to be a rebel or anything. I just need to do something more, something that I can’t do here. I don’t have the grades for college, and that’s not for me either. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been drifting for three years. I’ll keep drifting if I don’t leave, and suddenly, I’ll be forty years old, and living with you still, and working the ranch. I need to find my own way.”

“And if you die?”

Joey scoffed. “Jesus, Jack. That’s what has you so upset? Not me leaving… but you think I’ll die? Kind of getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you, Jack? I haven’t even taken the training yet. Come on, Jack; it’s not that likely.”

“Yeah, well there’s a definite possibility in that job description, now isn’t there?”

“I accept that risk.”

“You know shit about death. You know shit about what it’s like to bury someone you love.”

“I won’t die.”

“You don’t know that, Joe.”

“Look, I guess it’s harder for you because of Lily and all, but I’m not Lily. I’m just, making my own way in life.”

Jack looked past Joey, towards the strange orange light now glowing over the black line of mountains. He closed his eyes as the familiar pain shot into his gut. Lily. God, how it hurt to think about her still. Even after several years to get used to it, he wasn’t.

“You’re not just my brother, Joey,” he finally said quietly. “You’re more like my son. I took over being your parent when you were five-god-damned-years old. You don’t know what that’s like.”

“I know it. I do. But I can’t live your life, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out who I am. Shane is the mechanic. Ian knows the horses and farming; and you’re the goddamn horse whisperer. I’m just the pretty, younger brother, right? Even you think that. You made that pretty clear when Erin showed up. It’s exactly why you thought she let me screw her. You think that about me, Jack, and you can’t deny it. The thing is: I can’t deny that it’s who I am right now. But I need more than that.”

“Is it because of Erin?”

Joey glanced at him and Jack focused on the horses grazing out in the pastures to the right of him. “No. It has nothing to do with her. If it did, what would you do, Jack? Kick her out?”

“I would choose you,” he said simply. “You know that, Joey.”

Joey nodded. “It’s never been, Erin. She’s your problem, not mine.”

Jack raised the beer and let the cool liquid slide down his throat. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you talk to me first?”

“Because you would have talked me out of it. You’d have used my previous bad judgment, like with Chance and Erin, to convince me I didn’t know what I wanted, or what I was doing.”

Jack was about to argue, but he realized Joey was right. That’s exactly what he would have done. “I guess there’s nothing else to say about it, is there?”

“No, Jack, there really isn’t.”

“It won’t be the same around here without you.”

“I’ll be back. This will always be my home.”

Jack stretched his legs out. “Yeah, we’ll always be here. When do you leave then?”

“Two weeks.”

“Do you need anything?”

Joey smiled. “No. Just… thanks, Jack, for asking. For accepting my decision. For, hell, for, you know, everything.”

Jack nodded at the brother he raised as his son. The gut-wrenching pain of watching Joey leave, and thinking about Joey getting in harm’s way filled him. But Joey was a grown man, and he had to find his own way. He was right; he’d been floundering and drifting for a while now. This life, this ranch, fit Jack, and not all the brothers quite as well as it did him.

Jack watched Joey go inside, and stared back out at the land. The anchor that tied him, the albatross that hung around his neck.

He never had the chance or choice to find his own way in life. He was twenty years old, with a wife and baby, when his parents died. That quickly, five-year-old Joey became his other kid, along with Shane and Ian, older, true, but now totally his responsibility. He had no skills beyond working with horses. There was never any question about what he intended to do with his life. He would naturally take over for his dad. He and Lily moved into the house his parents built, and that was where he planned to stay for the rest of his life. It was where he and Lily planned to raise their family.

He sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have any kind of freedom or choice in the matter. But… he still would have ended up right there. Doing what he already did. He was a rancher, and the only place he had any real skills or knowledge was with his horses.

Darkness settled around him and he kept drinking the beer. The empty bottles grew to nearly seven, lined up at his feet.

“Jack?”

He turned when he heard her voice. Erin was standing to his left, and the yard light shimmered on her dark as night hair. Her face was in shadows. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, she looked about as young as Ben standing there. Only she wasn’t. As he now well knew, she was a grown up woman, with grown up female responses to him. His hand gripped the glass bottle tighter at the images of her that had taken up residence in his head. And the ugly images of her doing that with his brother.