Finding Us Read online

  That was another thing! The day before, when we were riding up here and Jules’ mom had buckled her into Caleb’s truck, saying goodbye, the only thing I could think of was Ryan’s body in such close proximity to hers, and it made me a real dick the entire way to Saskatoon.

  When we went out that night and they were dancing together, I was going ape shit crazy, and I couldn’t let it go.

  It took more fucking guts to get up and break up that dance than it did getting on an angry bull, because I knew what I was doing. I was flirting with crossing that line I had drawn between her and me; the line that dictated how far I pushed our relationship.

  I’d been a real bastard to her since the wedding and I knew it, but I was stuck. Livie had confessed to me that Jules was crazy about me. Me! I was shell shocked. I’d been in love with Julia North unequivocally for almost two years, and what the hell could I ever do about it? Nothing, that’s what! I felt so goddamn weak. I wanted her so fucking bad!

  After the wedding, I dreamed about her every night, and when I saw her in the waking hours it was all I could do not to just frigging pull her into me and tell her how much I loved her, how I needed her. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t good enough for her; I was a mess. She deserved better than that. So I ignored her in an attempt to push her away. I was fucking frigid—anytime she tried to approach me I’d walk the other way, or worse, pretend I couldn’t have cared less about what she was saying.

  I saw the hurt. It registered in her eyes. I’d at least been her friend before, but now I was acting like a goddamn dick who didn’t give a shit about her. And the thing that fucking scared the fuck out of me was that, when I was acting like that, I felt just like Dillon. Talk about hating yourself. How easy would it be to go to that place, to turn into him for real? Did I have that in me?

  I began poring over these books Colt had given me. I knew I had to figure out a way to turn it around. Jules and I were friends, and at least we could have that, even if I didn’t allow myself anything more. But when I did try to mend the damage I’d caused between us, it was obvious that she didn’t trust me. I could see the confusion register in her pretty eyes, and I wanted to fucking off myself.

  So now here we were in Saskatoon. I was already dying a little inside from jealousy, watching Jake fall in love with the girl of his dreams, and now it was happening with Caleb too. And it killed me that fucking Ryan was exactly where I wanted to be.

  Was I destined to never feel loved or to love someone and have it reciprocated?

  When Jules turned eighteen, things started to look up a bit. I found myself wondering if maybe something could happen between Jules and me after all—she certainly wasn’t a little girl any more. My sister had moved out and gone to college, so I was finally able to get away from Dillon. And then Jake came home and it was great to have my him back again, even though we’d grown apart some since he’d gone off to war.

  But, it seemed like I could never quite hold onto the good stuff. When Jake won Livie’s heart and whisked her away, it was bittersweet for me. Even though I was happy for them both, I was left wondering how the fuck he’d done it, because I wanted that with Jules too! I wanted Jules more than I wanted fucking food or air!

  Of course, Jake was only three and a half years older than Livie, where I was almost six years older than Julia. I felt like a cradle robber just thinking about her that way, even if she was legally an adult. If Colt and Jules’ brothers had known what I was feeling they would probably have pounded my ass into the ground.

  In some ways it was fucking torturous watching Jake and Livie fall so passionately in love. But honestly, what was I thinking anyway? Jake North was Williston’s golden boy; war hero and North heir. I was a screwed up kid with a house downtown, a mom who had abandoned him and a father who beat the shit out of him whenever he was drunk, which he always was.

  What did I have to offer Jules? I was just a lowly speck in this vast fucking universe. How could a diamond like Julia North ever love me?

  No, I could never accomplish what Jake did. I wasn’t the man that he was.

  I loved my sister Livie and showed it best by protecting her, that’s all I knew. So I’d protect Jules. I’d protect her from me.

  I lit a third cigarette. So much for quitting, I thought. Quitting smoking or quitting Jules?

  Just cage the beast, Nate, I rambled in my head.

  I didn’t know how to love, and if not for Colt and Suzanne, I wouldn’t have even known what it looked like in real life.

  But still something ached inside of me to prove it.

  Prove it, Nathaniel, the voice challenged. It was the same voice I heard when I got up on a wild horse or a lunatic bull.

  I’d proven my strength with them. I’d proven that I could overcome the fear it took to ride. But anytime I thought about proving my love to Jules, there were too many voices telling me I couldn’t, that I wasn’t worthy or even close to her class.

  First of all, I was pretty damn sure both Colt and Caleb would seriously disapprove. And even if I got past that I was wedged into another corner with that asshole Dillon in my head, reminding me exactly what I was.

  Then of course, there was my own voice. Life hadn’t been easy on me. Life had been perfect for her. How could I love her the way she needed to be, the way she deserved, in a way that would grow her into the woman she was meant to be? That’s all I wanted for her—for her to follow her dreams and passions and be happy. And I knew there was someone else out there much more qualified for the job.

  But I couldn’t quite let go, could I?

  I thought I might have had a handle on it. That was, until Livie and Jake started planning their wedding and Ryan stepped onto the scene.

  I’d always dreaded the day that Jules would begin to date. I had comforted myself with the idea that she’d go off to college and fall in love with a doctor or lawyer or someone who would deserve her and I wouldn’t have to see it. When the new guy Ryan came on as part of the ranch team I never dreamed he’d have the balls to ask out the boss’ daughter, but sure enough, he did it—and she accepted. I hated him for it because he did what I had wanted to do for the past two years. I soothed myself with the knowledge that I would rip his head from his fucking shoulders if he hurt her, but he’d been a perfect gentleman towards her. The next day he’d come in talking about how beautiful and sweet and smart she was, everything I already knew, everything I longed for. I was frigging beside myself and couldn’t get right after that.

  That voice had spoken loud again, telling me to prove it. If I wanted her, if I wanted to be worthy of her, I was going to have to prove it.

  For once I’d shut out the rest of the destructive thoughts and stopped hooking up with any other girls. Cold turkey, done. It was one very viable way I could prove myself to her and her parents.

  Then Dillon had his court date for nearly killing me and Livie, and even though I didn’t have to testify, the strength I’d built died. I don’t even know why exactly. Maybe the whole thing just reminded me again of who I really am. Who I could be. All my willpower had disintegrated into dust.

  Sitting here in my truck, her beautiful face, streaked with tears and mascara, was in the forefront of my every thought. She’d been crying when she shot out of that bar like a bullet from a gun. The very thing I had never meant to do, I’d done in spades. I hurt her.

  What she said played on repeat in my mind. “Why not me, Nate … what’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you, Jules. You’re perfect,” I answered into the night air of the truck cab. “It’s what’s wrong with me.”

  Chapter 5

  “Teardrops on my Guitar”

  Taylor Swift

  “Come on Jules, I can’t leave you like this!”

  “Yes you can!” I cried out to Piper after the twelfth time she’d banged on my hotel door.

  “Let me in, sweetheart.” I got that she was trying to comfort me, but all I wanted was to be alone!

  It was my miser
y, and damn it I wanted to feel it! I needed to feel it. I knew that this deepest misery was something I was going to have to go through, because once I could get through this sensation of Nate being ripped out of my heart, maybe I’d be able to finally live my life and let him live his.

  Poor guy didn’t even know what the hell was wrong with me. Didn’t that just beat all? My heart was utterly shattered by some guy who didn’t even know that, with my every breath, his name was on my lips, tattooed and inked into the fragile flesh of my heart.

  “Fuck, Livie, at least you got a kiss,” I whispered as the sobs came stronger, wracking my body, drowning me under the current, severing my soul from his.

  I wished the pain was poetic and beautiful, but it wasn’t—it stole my breath and crushed me against the cold hard floor until I was more helpless and vulnerable than I’d ever been.

  After a little while, Piper got it and left me to myself. I lay on the floor by the side of the bed and curled my arms and legs around a pillow as if it were a floatation device that could somehow save me.

  How the fuck am I supposed to function after this? That man had been integrated into my life since I was a little girl. And what I’d just done tonight was absolutely humiliating! I showed all my true childish colors, and I couldn’t stop it … I just cracked, and now I’d never be able to face him again without being mortified by my own embarrassing actions.

  Oh my God, I’d just made everything uncomfortable for the rest of our lives! Nate spent holidays with us, birthdays, every day! His photographs were in all of our memory books; he’d come on many of our family vacations. He’d even painted my bedroom!

  Katy Perry sings about unconditional love, but I think love can’t truly be unconditional or even pure. I know because when I was little I loved Nate with a purity and childlike innocence that expected nothing in return.

  The first time I really understood some of the pain he went through at home was when I was ten. He’d just had his seventeenth birthday and was smashed, drunk out of his mind, when Jake brought him home to our house. The two of them were shouting and swearing at each other. At first I thought they were fighting so I snuck outside the door to Jake’s room to listen. From the conversation, I realized that Nate’s own dad had busted him up bad. Jake wanted to bring him to the hospital but Nate didn’t want to go. He said he had control of the situation and that he didn’t want social services to take Livie away. He claimed that, as long as he gave himself up to his dad to be a human punching bag, when he was around, Livie was safe.

  Jake insisted Nate needed stitches and Nate said he didn’t give a shit if the scars on the outside of his body matched the ones on the inside. That’s when I knocked on the door.

  “Yeah!” Jake shouted out.

  “Jakey, let me in.”

  “Go away, Jules.”

  “Hey, don’t yell at her, she didn’t do anything,” Nate came back at him.

  “What? You want her to see you like this?” Jake argued.

  “No, fuckhead! Just don’t yell at her.”

  They were quiet for a minute before I heard Jake say, “I gotta take a leak.”

  I jumped around the corner to hide myself as he came out of his room. When he was out of sight, I quietly tip-toed into the room and saw Nate sitting at the desk.

  “Oh, Jules, go on back to bed, you don’t need to see this,” he groaned.

  I didn’t ask for permission, I just walked over and set my fingers gently on the bruise swelling over his eye. The cut above it spilled blood over his face. He looked angry, frightened, dangerous and sad all at the same time.

  “My daddy is real good at fixing things. Please let him fix your eye. He can make you stitches. I don’t want to see you hurt,” I pleaded.

  “You’re daddy is good at fixing things.” Nate considered me and nodded. “Okay. If you want me to I will.”

  My dad stitched him up that night and several other times too. I loved Nate then. It was unconditional, pure and innocent—nothing expected, nothing to earn—it was just there, like my love for my family. But later, as the years tumbled, things changed. I was sixteen and he was twenty-three, and I hated every girlfriend he had. I hated that I was relegated to little sister status with Livie, and I hated that he didn’t look at me the way he looked at the girls who threw themselves at him and my brothers. That pure, innocent unconditional thing was long gone and, soon, so was the little girl who was now all grown up and couldn’t get his attention in the way she wanted.

  By my eighteenth birthday, I’d thought for sure he’d started to see me for the woman I’d become, but he obviously hadn’t. Maybe that’s how conditions are formed. Married couples love each other and forgive each other for all kinds of crap, but you break the rules and the conditions will start to show themselves. Cheating? That’s a condition most people won’t abide by. Not spending enough time on the relationship? Condition. Forgot the dry cleaning? Condition. At least for some people.

  So I got it. I got the pain, I got the hurt and I got my eruption tonight. Mine and Nate’s relationship fell into the realm of conditional love. I loved him so much—my love for him pulled me toward him like gravity, was the air I breathed and the atmosphere I existed in, but now … now I wanted him to love me back! I expected him to love me back. I expected him to love me like a man loves a woman. That was my condition. But, Nate didn’t love me like that.

  It was time for a change. It was time to say goodbye.

  I made a couple calls, then reached up and pulled the blanket down off the bed, onto the floor, and rolled myself into its warmth.

  “FOR SAM AND DEAN’S SAKE, OPEN THE FREAKING DOOR!”

  Livie? Not possible. “Who is it?” I hollered back sleepily at the person pounding on my door.

  “If you make me stand out here another minute I’m going to embarrass the royal hell out of you. Now open the door, Jules!”

  I jolted upright and untangled myself from the blanket that had wrapped itself around me like a freaking boa. “I’M COMING!” How the hell did she get here? Livie was here! I suddenly felt the reassurance I needed to breathe again.

  I bounded to the door and threw it open!

  “What? What?!” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  “Well, fuck me, you were right,” Piper affirmed as she held a tablet up next to her face. “I owe you a twenty, Olivia.”

  “Hey, sis,” Livie said, looking at me via Skype. “You look like hell.”

  “Nice trick, guys.” I turned back into the room, defeated.

  “This wasn’t a trick!” Piper defended.

  “No? Than what do you call it?” I barked back.

  “An intervention,” Livie said.

  “I knew you trusted Livie so I called her,” Piper said gently.

  “This part was my idea,” Livie confessed.

  I nodded, turned on the coffee maker and sat at the small dinette table. Piper sat next to me and positioned the tablet on the center of the table so we could see each other.

  “It was bad, huh?” Livie soothed. “Piper filled me in on the details. Sounds like Nate was being Nate and you finally snapped.”

  “I didn’t snap. I broke, and I’m done. I already called the airport. I have a flight first thing Monday morning to Seattle. I can’t do it anymore, I can’t see him everyday or hear his voice, and I can’t hide out in my own home. I need distance so I’m going to hang with Sam and Will for a while.”

  Livie nodded her head. “Makes sense. It’s a good idea.”

  We all fell silent.

  A whimper bubbled up through my throat. “He didn’t come after me.”

  “He did when you ran out of the bar,” Piper reminded me.

  “Yeah, to see where his pool partner was going, but he knows where I am. He never even tried to come talk to me. You run, he chases, right? Aren’t those the rules?”

  “Not always.” Livie shook her head.

  “That’s what Jake did,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, but
it took him weeks to show himself. And Jake had a powerful core. He had a family that had given him a life and a home and a foundation. Jake was damaged … Nate is shattered.”

  The hurt on her face squeezed my heart and I thought maybe I was starting to understand.

  She continued, “He won’t come to you, Julia, because he’s succeeded in what he felt he had to do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Push you away.” She was dead serious. “I learned something about Nate and what he hides after what happened with our father. He protected me for so long—all my life really—from that bastard, stepping between him and me so he never got close and I never felt the brunt of that abuse. But the result was that Nate had to learn to separate what he felt from who he was so he could live and function, but not hurt or feel.”

  Tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision.

  “I don’t think he knows what to do with you,” Livie explained. “Or himself. I think he’s scared shitless, and his own soul is on fire but he can’t figure out how to quench the burning.

  “You, sister, are whole and secure and solid and safe. You’ve had nothing but love your entire life. Nate doesn’t know what that is—so the friend zone is a safe place to keep you relegated. He can control it, and his emotions. He feels safe in that capacity, and he thinks he keeps you safe at the same time.”

  The tears spilled, and I didn’t try to stop them. “I can’t change his mind.”

  “The fuck you can’t!” Piper snapped. “You just have to change his heart first. And, woman, you’re already more than halfway there.”

  “What do you mean?” I sniffed.

  “What do I mean?” Piper stood up, walked into the bathroom and threw the roll of toilet paper at me. “Blow your nose, dry your eyes and get your boots on, ’cause it’s time to wade through some shit and kick down a few walls.”

  Chapter 6

  “Wanted”

  Jessie James