Crank (The Gibson Boys 1)

“Yeah.”

“But I want you to take a breather. Don’t make any decisions until you’re more steady on your feet, okay?”

“The way I feel . . .” My voice cracks before drifting off. I pace a circle, trying to rein in the lump at the bottom of my throat. “The way I feel, it might take a while to be steady on my feet. I can’t wait that long to move on.”

“You know I’m behind you one hundred percent. But can I give you some advice?”

“That’s what I call you for, isn’t it?” I laugh, sniffling.

“Don’t bring him here. Lincoln got Ford all wound up and you know how that ends.”

“Oh great.”

Graham laughs. “Okay. I’ll have my secretary secure you a plane ticket for morning. The Farm will be waiting.”

“Thanks, G. Love you.”

“Love you too. See you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

THE LAST TIME A woman left me, I almost drank myself to death. It wasn’t because she left. Her actual leaving was symbolic; she was out the door months before that. It was because I wanted to forget everything that had happened. I didn’t want to remember our farce of a wedding, deal with the house she wanted to buy that I hated from the start, see her things lying around that only reminded me of a woman who betrayed me over and over again. Being drunk delivered the sweet peace I couldn’t find elsewhere.

This time? I want to remember it all.

The tractor seat beneath me bites into my ass. The engine is now cold, the sun just starting to fall behind the trees. I should get up and go inside, get a shower, probably a sandwich, but I can’t make myself move. If I get up, there’s a better-than-average chance I’ll find myself in my truck headed to Sienna’s, and that’ll just make things worse.

She needs time. That’s what Blaire told me, it’s what Lance suggested, it’s what my gut says. Give her time. But I don’t want to give her time. I want to hold her in my arms and kiss her until she remembers what we are together.

Everything.

We’re everything together.

My palm slams off the steering wheel, the crunch of the bone against the hard plastic twisting under my skin. It registers, but I don’t really feel the pain. It pales in comparison to the ache everywhere else.

They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. That’s not true. I knew what I had long before she left. What I didn’t know for absolute certain until Tabby came back and I looked in to her eyes and felt absolutely nothing was that I absolutely, without the shadow of a doubt, love Sienna Landry.

A pair of headlights sweeps through the field before Peck’s pickup truck comes into view. He shuts it off a few yards away, climbing out and heading my way.

He tosses me a little wave, testing the waters, and I can’t deny I’m happy to see him.

“How are ya?” he asks when he gets close enough for me to hear.

I shrug.

“Decided to mow the back forty, huh? Been a long time since this has been cut.”

“Seemed like a good, productive way to not get a restraining order,” I laugh.

He chuckles, leaning against a tire. “Well, what do we do now?”

“About what?”

“Losing our girl.”

“Our girl?” I ask, eyes wide. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I mean, she’s your girl,” he scoffs. “But I like her too. She’s fun. She makes you a decent guy. She just . . . fit in, all right?”

Scratching my head, I sink into the seat. “I can’t just go get her. I want to. I want to throw her over my shoulder and handcuff her to the bed and make her listen to me until she loves me back.”

Something flickers in Peck’s eye, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he nods his head.

“You know, her brother offered her a job in Savannah and she never said she would or wouldn’t take it,” I note.

“Maybe she won’t.”

I look at him. “Maybe she needs to.”

“What are you saying, Walk?”

“I didn’t realize how unhappy I was until she came around. I’d forgotten what it feels like to want to get out of bed, to not loathe the idea of going to work.”

“You mean you don’t skip out the door every day to see me? Fucker,” he teases.

“Sorry,” I laugh. “I’d fallen into this slump and nothing sort of mattered anymore. I didn’t think there was anything out there for me. Now I know that’s not true.”

“So you’re going to let her walk away?”

Gazing into the sunset, the final rays of light shining through the trees, the emptiness of not having Sienna settles into my soul. It claws at me, pierces me, makes me uncomfortable in the worst way. “I have to,” I whisper.

“I don’t understand.”

“I could go get her like I want to and tell her all the things I know are true. That I love her. That she loves me. That we belong together. But she needs to realize that on her own.”