“They both left us…he left us all alone. He never came back. ”
Oh God. Who is he talking about? His parents?
“Shh…it’s okay. I’m here, Layton. I promise I’ll never leave you. I promise. ”
He held me tighter in his arms. I brought my hand up and started to caress the back of his head.
“Mike did the best he could. He went into the fucking military, so I could go to college, and it cost him his life. ”
He began to cry harder, and my heart had never hurt so much in my life.
“He left me…alone. Everyone leaves me. ”
After a few minutes, he pulled away and began to walk toward the house. I saw a sign that said outhouse with an arrow pointing out into a field. I got a sick feeling in my chest.
He walked up and sat down on the porch. “I’ve never brought anyone here, not even Olivia. ”
I walked up and sat next to him. For a few minutes, we stayed like that, sitting in silence.
“My father started building this house for my mom. Then, she got cancer and died. He had to get out of the house where he’d lived with her, so he moved us out here after she’d passed away. I guess he thought this would be better, but all it did was remind him of her. We reminded him of her. He told us he was going out of town to look at a racehorse. ” He smiled as he looked at me.
“Besides the cattle, that was his thing—racehorses. It was Mike’s thing, too. My dad was damn good at it, and he had the eye for a winning horse. Our dad would send money every year for the property taxes, but we never got anything extra. One day, we got a letter in the mail. My dad had signed the ranch over to us. Mike used it as motivation. He got a few jobs, and we bought cattle and slowly started saving up our money. Then, a lawyer pulled up one day when we were standing right here on these steps, trying to decide what to do with the house. Mike’s high school friend Mitch, the foreman who had been working for my dad since he was practically in high school, had told him where to find us. All the lawyer did was walk up to us and hand Mike an envelope. That was it. ”
My heart started pounding.
“Mike opened it, and there was a check in it for half a million dollars. Turns out our dad was better at racehorse pickin’ than we thought. ” He let out a gruff laugh.
“In the note, my dad said he wanted us to start building the best cattle ranch in Llano. He sent us the money for that, yet he’d let his two sons live in a house with no running water or heat or air conditioning, leaving us to totally fend for ourselves. I was already in my freshman year at A&M, and Mike was a few years into the Marine Corps when we received the money. ”
I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Layton, I’m so sorry. ”
He turned and looked at me. “Please don’t feel sorry for me, Whit. I have more money now than I know what to do with. Mike took the money, and he invested it well. Then, he made even more money with our horses. My side of the business has always been the cattle. The horses were always Mike’s thing. Before he left for the Marines, he made me promise him that if anything ever happened to him, I would keep up with the racehorses and keep his dream alive. ”
“I’m sorry you lost your brother, but do you know how proud he would be of you?”
He stared out into the pasture and smiled. “I hope so. ”
I could see how being here was tearing him apart. I stood and reached my hand out for him. “Ready to let go?”
He looked at me funny. “Let go?”
“Yep, I think it’s time you let go of the anger and the hurt. It’s time to let it go, Layton. ”
He stood and took my hand as he smiled at me.
We walked back to the Jeep, and he didn’t say a word. He started rubbing his thumb up and down my index finger again, and I felt like I was going to combust. He held my hand up and helped me into the Jeep. He started to walk around the Jeep, and then he stopped and slowly turned around. He stared at the house. He stood there for a good three minutes before he finally turned and got into the driver’s side of the Jeep.
“Thank you, Whitley. ” He gave me that drop-dead gorgeous smile of his.
I smiled. “Always. ”
“Let’s have some fun, shall we?” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
I had a strange feeling that his idea of fun was going to be very different from mine.
Chapter Twelve: Layton
I turned up the radio, and Whitley started singing along to the songs.