Letting Go (Mitchell Family #1)(4)
Author: Jennifer Foor

“Women. Plural.” I said with my hands over my face. This person across from me knew me and I should have been okay with letting him see me like this, but I was so ashamed.

“I don’t blame him. I can see how he would be all messed up over you.” He blurted out.

I removed my hands and looked right at him. One of his eyebrows was cocked. “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked angrily.

He held up his beer to motion to our waitress that he needed a refill, then he leaned in closer to me. “All I am sayin’ is that I can see how the breakup would hurt him. You both have been together for a long time. He was just tryin’ to forget ya that’s all.”

I hated him. I hated his words, even though I knew he was just being honest. I wanted to get up and leave. He had to know how awful he was making me feel.

“So, what happened that night? You catch him with his pants down?” He asked.

“Yeah, I did.” I swallowed back the tears and tried so hard not to picture the last time I spoke to Tyler. I could smell the liquor from the time I opened that bedroom door. His little blonde conquest was sprawled out on all fours on the bed and he was on top of her, riding her into tomorrow. I shook my head. “His pants were off actually and he was very drunk. He tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t stand there watching them together. I just needed to leave, to get as far away from Tyler as I could.”

When I stopped talking, Colt started. “Let me guess. He got in that car and went lookin’ for ya. Ya see, alcohol is a funny thing. It makes you do things you wouldn’t never do, but it always makes you tell the truth. It heightens your emotions.”

“I get it, really I do. I know it was my fault. If I would have just stayed….”

He cut me off. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong Van. He messed up. Sure, you broke his heart, probably tore it into pieces, but he made his bed that night.”

I looked up at him. I was shocked. “You believe me?”

“Look Van, it is easy for my aunt and uncle to blame someone. They see their son and have no answers. You can’t blame them.” He explained.

“I miss them though. I miss them so much Colt. They were a big part of my life. I feel so empty without all of them. I feel like I don’t want to live anymore.” I confessed.

He reached over and pulled my hand away from my face. “Don’t ever say you don’t want to live.”

He was serious. His face was stern, almost like a parent to a child.

I quickly changed the subject. “So what are you here for Colt? Are you just visiting Ty?”

“Na, I am here to help with the summer crops and some of the livestock. Uncle Bo can’t do it himself. Dad has plenty of help at home, so I offered to stay through the harvest.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He stared at me for a second and took another sip of his new beer. “Shoot!”

“Do you think you can help me see Daisy? I am not really welcome at the farm right now and I miss her something fierce. I don’t want to sneak around, but I think it would be better if I visit when they are not there.” I admitted.

He waited a minute. “I reckon I can do that. Just give me your number and I will text ya.”

I had to laugh. “A country boy like you knows how to text?”

He gave me another cocked eyebrow. “Look here Van. I may be from the country but it aint the ice age Darlin’. We have indoor plumbing at home as well.” He added with a wink.

We didn’t say much more when our food came and as soon as we were done, we both paid and went our separate ways, once he dropped me back off of course.

I watched him pull away before getting into my own car and calling it a night.

Chapter 3

Colt

I never knew what my cousin saw in Savanna Tate, but that was before she became a woman. The girl had acquired never-ending curves. Her grey eyes that used to be so big, now fit her face perfectly. Even her lips and cheekbones had changed. When she was younger, she had her haircut like a boy and never even dressed like a girl. Now, if I hadn’t seen the pictures on my parent’s fridge, I would have never believed it was the same person. She had become quite beautiful. It’s no wonder that Tyler assumed there was someone else. It would have been my first assumption as well. With the way she looked, she could probably get any guy she wanted.

For some reason I believed she was telling the truth, not that it even mattered anyway. The past couldn’t be changed.

Tyler was far from perfect, in fact, when he came to visit me just last year we went to a bar, where he hooked up with one of the local girls. He claimed that being in a different zip codes gave him the right to ‘sample the land’. I could only assume that he never came clean about that to Van.

My cousin looked like shit. I imagine that was from being in a bed for months. I hadn’t believed my aunt when she said that Van spent all of her time there. How could they doubt her love for Tyler? I had never known someone to be so devoted. It was sad. She had to know that he may never wake up. Was she going to sit there day after day until she got so old she couldn’t anymore?

I was the last person to question her intentions. My dang girl had up and left me. I reckon it had to do with my drinkin’ and the fact that I couldn’t be bothered with entertaining someone that I had nothin’ in common with. If I had extra time, I was going to spend it fishing or hunting. I did miss the hot meals at night, but I could just head to my parents for dinner.

It was just me and Sam now. Sam being my lab of course. When I offered to come work on the farm that had been my only stipulation. I couldn’t leave my dog back in Kentucky.

I didn’t always want to be a farmer, but the truth was that it was in my blood. For four generations my family had lived off the land and provided for their families. My father had never been too keen on me getting my college degree, but like my cousin Tyler, I was pretty damn good at football and got a scholarship. Had I not torn my ACL junior year, I may have been drafted. My major was business, but jobs in my small town of Kentucky were hard to come by, and even though my parent’s farm had enough workers to manage itself without me, my father wanted me to be around to do the books. My father’s ranch was well known and he and my mother never had to worry about money. They had the best cattle in the state.

I didn’t want to be a part of my father’s money, even though I knew eventually it would all go to me, if the old hard ass didn’t live to be older than me. Knowin’ him, he would. I swallowed my pride and built a small cabin on the edge of my parent’s farmland. It probably wasn’t small to some, I mean eventually I wanted a family of my own. It gave me enough space to have my own life, but enabled me to be close enough to my family in case anything happened. There had been many nights where the cattle got out, we had to go out, and round them all back up. Even the high tech chicken houses that we had, managed to break down every now and again.