Wright Kind of Love, page 18
Nine long months later, I was finally officially divorced and moving home. Rivers Ranch, here I come!
I slammed the passenger door shut and ignored Grayson as he trailed me around to the driver’s side. It had been torture to the nth degree to live in the same house with him over the last couple months, but I’d had too much debt to rent my own place. Denver was rapidly growing out of everyone’s price point.
“What happens if you have an episode when you’re on the road?” Grayson asked.
“Gray, if you gave a single fuck about me, you wouldn’t have pushed me away while I was in the hospital and then spent my dad’s money on gambling and hookers in Vegas.” I wrenched the door open, nailing him in the side. He grunted and stepped back. “I don’t know why you think I give a flying fuck what you think.”
“I’m worried about you, Arden.” He reached forward as if to tuck a loose strange of my blonde hair behind my ear. I veered out of his way.
“Don’t care. I didn’t care when I divorced you. I certainly don’t care now.”
“Baby…”
“Don’t call me that. Don’t call me anything. Better yet, don’t call. Forget I existed, because that’s my plan, Gray. I’m hoping to forget any of this ever happened.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t know how to get this into your head. I’m leaving. I’m not your baby. I’m not anything to you anymore. Just someone that you used to know.”
His face hardened at those words. I always knew when I struck home because it was right before he got mean. And I wasn’t having that today.
I cut him off before he could say anything else, “It’s a ten hour drive home and I don’t have any time for you or your bullshit.”
I sank into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. Grayson was yelling something through the glass, but I just turned the truck on and blasted the stereo system, drowning out his pathetic tirade.
Good riddance, Grayson Harris.
Pulling away from the house we’d been renting for the last couple years brought tears to my eyes. Not because I was sad, but because it was finally over. It had felt like it would never end. Everything kept piling up more and more. Like I would never be able to breathe again.
It has started with three years of hospital visits to the point where everyone including Gray had nearly convinced me I was crazy.
To the final diagnosis—multiple sclerosis.
Not a death sentence. But a lifelong autoimmune disorder that explained every one of the problems I’d been having along the way. Then I’d spent the last year working to get it under control.
Just in time daddy to die, Gray to steal the money, and the divorce.
Now I could start over.
I inhaled deeply and left without looking back.
By the time I got home, I was all cried out. No more tears for the life I left behind with my high school sweetheart. Only looking forward to the new one I was determined to live on the ranch I’d always called home.
My heart clenched at the site before me—Rivers’ Ranch. I’d missed the flat land, the oil rigs, the wide, wide open spaces. Midland-Odessa was a small piece of hell on earth, but it was home. My West Texas blood sang with remembrance. This was where I belonged.
My best friend’s BMW was parked in the driveway when I pulled my truck and U-Haul up to the house. I shook my head as Tempi came into view, leaning back against the black car with her arms across her chest. The West Texas dust kicked up all around her and she just strode forward like the pageant queen she was.
I kicked the driver’s side door open and dropped down unsteadily. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Had to show up for your big day back!”
Tempi threw her arms around me, squeezing me as tight as humanly possible. I gasped and patted her back.
“Thanks, Temp. But how did you know I’d be here?”
“You shared your location with me like four years ago when we went on that trip to Cabo, remember?”
I guffawed. “And you’ve kept it on ever since?”
“Obviously. A girl has to be safe.”
“I love you.” I shook my head and squeezed her harder.
“Of course you do. I’m easy to love.”
She was. I’d known Temperance Baldwin since I was six years old. We’d been in the same dance class, which I’d promptly flunked out of, if it was possible to fail ballet. She’d gone on to be good enough to dance on pointe for all the pageants that paid for all four years of college. Her long hair so dark it was nearly black and eyes so dark, they shined like onyx. She was tall and lithe with a Crest commercial smile and flawless make-up. She was also the complete opposite of her namesake. She had never done a single thing in moderation.
We couldn’t have been more disparate and yet, we’d worked. Both loners who had found each other. The pageant queen and the cowgirl. And it had stuck.
“So why are you stalking me?” I asked as I followed her toward the ranch house.
We climbed the few stairs and I unlocked the door. The screen door clattered behind us as we stepped into my daddy’s house. I breathed in the scent of my childhood home. It was a one story that had been in the family for generations. It had been added on sometimes haphazardly until it had sprawled beyond its scope with winding rooms and strange quirks. I loved all of them.
“When your best friend moves home, you celebrate.” She reached into her giant purse and removed a bottle of whiskey.
I laughed. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“Yeah, so I thought we could pregame,” she said, following me into the living room where I set down my own tiny purse and pocketed my phone.
“Pregame…for what?” I asked cautiously.
It was always something with Tempi. I’d had a very long day and all I wanted to do was take a nap. I couldn’t even think about unloading the truck. Shawn, who ran the ranch in my father’s stead, said he would help once he was off for the day. So I had planned to leave it in the drive and pass out in my old bedroom in the meantime.
“So, there’s a charity ball.”
“No.” I stepped around her. “You know that I’m so out of place at those things.”
“You are not. It’ll be fun.”
I shot her a disbelieving look. “You always say that and it’s never fun.”
“This one is different.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re single!”
I shuddered at that word. I was divorced, but I hadn’t said the word single out loud yet. As terrible as my relationship with Grayson had ended, it had been perfect before that point. At fourteen years old, I’d stepped into my advanced geometry class and found the boy of my dreams. We’d dated for seven years where neither of us once looked at anyone else. We were engaged my senior year and married the weekend after graduation. Three weeks later we were in an apartment in Denver as he started his own marketing firm and I wrangled horses at a nearby park. I’d hated leaving home, but life was too good.
Until it wasn’t.
And I was not ready to face the fact that my marriage had fallen apart so thoroughly when I was the only person in my friend group who had always had it together.
“Let’s not.”
Tempi sighed. “I knew you’d be like this. So don’t worry. I brought back up supplies.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
Tempi disappeared back through the front door and was back a minute later with a long black bag.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
“I brought something for you to wear.”
“Temp…”
“You’ll be my plus one.”
“It’s day one,” I groaned.
Tempi wasn’t having any of it. After she helped me bring in my suitcase and unpack a singular box, she had me in the primary bedroom, fixing my hair and make-up. Something I’d learned long ago was to never underestimate Tempi. She might look like prom queen Cordelia Chase, but she had Willow’s brains and Buffy’s determination.
At least there was whiskey.
“So, who are you dating now?” I asked.
She shrugged. “No one.”
“Is that code for there are too many and you forgot their names?”
“Maybe,” she teased.
I arched an eyebrow.
“Okay, Dane might be going to the event tonight, and I’m very interested in leaving with him.”
“There it is,” I said with a laugh.
“I hate you,” Tempi said as she finished up my hair.
“You love me.”
“So fucking hard, bitch. Now let’s get you into this gown and heels.”
I grimaced. I couldn’t walk in heels on a good day. With my added balance issues from my illness, I wasn’t sure I would ever want to be back in them.
“You know I walk like a baby giraffe in those things.”
Tempi saw my look and softened. “They’re chunky heel and I added these inserts to them so they’ll be easier to manage.”
I removed the slinky silky dress, pulling it over my frame. The material was like water poured over my skin. And thanks to the fact that Tempi had stayed in pageant shape and I’d been in and out of the hospital a lot, we were no longer exactly the same size. My hips strained against the material and my boobs…holy fuck, my boobs. They practically sprung out of the sage green dress.
I slipped my feet into the heels. To her credit they were more comfortable, but I was still unsteady as I came back into view.
“Fuck me,” Tempi said, fanning herself. “You’re going to get every guy in the place looking at you.”
“You know I’m not interested, right?”
“Look you’ve had the same dick since you were fourteen, it’s time to branch out.” Tempi poured another knuckles worth of whiskey and passed it to me.
“I’d rather not.”
She held her glass up to mine and we clinked as she declared, “Sample platter!”
I laughed and tipped the drink back. I probably shouldn’t get drunk on my meds, but Tempi was fucking contagious.
“We’re going to have the best time,” Tempi said. “Forget all about what’s-his-name and let’s find you someone to go home with.”
I shook my head at my best friend. I had no intention of going home with anyone. But it was nice to do something other than wallow in my grief over the loss of my father, husband, and autonomy for once.
Today, I was just a woman in a killer dress.
Time to live a little.
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Acknowledgments
Ahhh! This isn’t just the conclusion to Chase & Harley’s story, but the conclusion to the Wrights. I never ever in a million years thought this series would become as long as it did. I actually wasn’t sure I’d even write a second book. Now I’m here at book FIFTEEN!
I couldn’t have done any of this without the support of all of my readers. Anyone who picked up any of my books. The millions of people who have read the Wrights in all their various iterations. Thank you so much. And who knows…maybe this isn’t a forever closing of the door!
The soundtrack to this book was: 1989 vault tracks from Taylor Swift especially Is It Over Now?, also Daylight (because they’re golden!), What Do You Make of Me by Beth Crowley, What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish, The Nest by Sody, and Sweet Creature by Harry Styles.
About the Author
K.A. Linde is the USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels. She has a Masters degree in political science from the University of Georgia and served as the head coach of the Duke University dance team. She loves reading fantasy novels, binge-watching Buffy, traveling to far off destinations, baking insane desserts, and dancing in her spare time.
She currently lives in Lubbock, Texas, with her husband, son, and super adorable puppy.
Visit her online:
www.kalinde.com
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K.A. Linde, Wright Kind of Love
