Rex

Fourteen years later

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Rex

“I get the funny feelin’ we’re not gonna meet the deadline, Duke,” I told my dog as we stood in the living room and surveyed the space before us. “I mean, six months might be doable if I had a crew.”

But I didn’t.

I peered over at Duke, my three-year-old, floppy-eared retriever mix. “Perhaps you’d be willin’ to pitch in?”

Duke didn’t even have the decency to acknowledge me.

“Seriously?” I chuckled. “Maybe swingin’ a hammer’s not in your wheelhouse, but perhaps we could find somethin’.”

Duke cast a half-interested look my way.

“What? As much as I want to, I can’t do it all by myself.”

And if I tried, I was going to have to modify the timeline. Again. Never mind the fact that I had overhauled the entire plan at least a dozen times, usually pushing it out a year, then another and another, hoping, with significant optimism, that one day I’d find the motivation and get my ass in gear.

At some point, optimism was going to take on an entirely new meaning.

And then a year ago, it hit me. I woke up one morning raring to go, ready to work. I’d done well for a while, putting in twelve-hour days to focus on the attic. Once that was done, in an effort to keep the momentum, I gave up the small apartment I’d been renting to move into the house. But as usual, I had found a few dozen excuses not to get started on the old farmhouse I was turning into a bed-and-breakfast. Most of those mitigating circumstances had been ridiculous, but hey, what could I say?

“I’m an optimistic procrastinator, Duke. That’s all there is to it.”

Duke let out that familiar doggy sigh. The one that said he’d heard it all before.

“What? There is such a thing,” I insisted, peering around the empty room. “And fine, maybe it’s a decade or so overdue, but still. A man can only do so much, right? I cleared it out. That’s a start.”

Duke didn’t seem to agree with me, but I knew he wouldn’t. My dog was nothing if not skeptical.

Despite the timeline being roughly thirteen years overdue and the plan pretty much nonexistent at this point, I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. I had faith that this place would come together. Eventually. Maybe not in the next six months like I wanted, but I was trying.

In fact, I finally had something to show for it. For the past eleven months, give or take a week or three, I had worked nonstop. And thanks to my dedication, I’d managed to remodel the third floor completely, turning what used to be a dark, musty attic into a functional living space for a future manager. Two bedrooms, one bath, a small eat-in kitchen, a nice-sized den, lots of windows to let in light, and even a couple of balconies. It was exactly how I’d planned it, and all that hard work had added an additional one thousand square feet of living space.

Not that I’d needed more. The eight-thousand-plus-square-foot farmhouse that sat dead center in the middle of downtown Coyote Ridge was big enough already. While the house resided on a decent five acres, I also owned the two thousand acres of farmland behind it that had once been considered part of the adjacent town. At some point, it had been annexed into our county, officially making it part of Coyote Ridge.

Needless to say, I had more space than I would ever need.

For myself, anyway. However, it was perfect for the dream I’d had since I was a boy. A dream that involved turning the dilapidated old house into something functional, utilizing every inch of space for what would be a phenomenal getaway.

Sooner or later.

And converting the attic into living space, as well as moving in, was just the beginning. The rest, starting with this—

“Son of a bitch!” I dropped the hammer, grabbed my hand, and growled through the pain.

Two hundred seventeen. No. Make that eighteen. Yep. That was the number of times I’d hit my damn thumb with that damn hammer since I started the ridiculous task of rebuilding the place.

Fucking hammer.

I took a deep breath and stared at the wall. Or rather, what would be a wall. Technically, right now, it was only a few two-by-fours being put in place to hold up the floor above, so it didn’t quite qualify.

Yet.

Considering I would have to rebuild and remodel thousands of square feet, you’d think one little wall wouldn’t give me so many problems.

Fucking wall.

I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. In. Out.

With the first phase—the third-floor conversion—completed, it was time for me to focus on the house. Tearing it down to the studs hadn’t been easy. Day in and day out, my ass had been ripping out and hauling more debris than I cared to think about, and truth be told, there were times I wanted to say to hell with it all. It would be easy to sell, move somewhere else, and forget the only dream I’d ever had.

“Easy’s for pussies,” I mumbled to myself.

I wasn’t going to give up now. No fucking way. I’d worked too damn hard for that.

“Do you think I should’ve sold it, Duke? Left this small town and started over somewhere else?”

Duke gave a light snort but didn’t lift his head up off the floor.

“If I’d done that, who would’ve picked you up at the pound, huh, buddy? Answer me that.”

There for a while, I had come damn close to selling off the family property, leaving the small town my younger brother, Rafe, and I had grown up in, and finding somewhere else to put down roots. A place where we wouldn’t be the outcasts, the misfits, the kids whispered to have done the vilest of things. The rumors were endless.

While Rafe and I had been cleared of all crimes, people still weren’t quite sure they believed what had happened that fateful night fourteen years ago. Some even claimed it was premeditated. I would admit, I’d entertained the idea of my father dying a time or two, but never the way it went down. While I had hated the old man, I wasn’t that evil. And I knew Rafe wasn’t, either.

There were only a handful of people who knew the sordid details of what had happened that night. I would’ve preferred to keep it a secret, but telling the tale had meant keeping Rafe out of jail. So, after some encouragement from my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side, I had relayed the information. Then I had to do it again, filling in the holes for the sheriff. Of course, Sheriff Monroe—having been the lowlife that he was—had been more than happy to air our dirty laundry with anyone who asked.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t have secrets in a small town. And still, some had felt it necessary to pass judgment over the years. Not so much anymore. While the town had constantly questioned what was going to come of the vacant house that sat on Main Street, somewhere along the way, they’d gotten used to it.

Of course, there were still rumors. Some ridiculous, others insulting. And those damn rumors were the reason selling had seemed the logical thing to do. If, of course, I was the type to run from my problems.

Which I wasn’t.

Not by a long shot.

So, I’d stood my ground, dug in my boots. This had been my father’s childhood home, and my grandfather’s, and my great-grandfather’s, and so on and so forth. While I had no desire to let Billy Don’s legacy live on, there was no reason to let one bad seed ruin the entire orchard. Before Billy Don, the Sharpes had built a well-respected reputation in town. They were upstanding citizens, hard workers, always willing to lend a hand when necessary. And with that same hard work and loyalty my ancestors had shown, I had proven I was part of the good bunch despite who my father was.

Unfortunately, procrastination was a trait I’d inherited right along with trustworthiness and dependability. So, no, my pet project wasn’t coming along quite the way I’d initially envisioned. Then again, I’d been a naive teenager when I originally thought it would be a piece of cake to transform this old, run-down farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast that would draw people from all over.

Fucking dreamer.

There was no denying that life had taken a series of twists and turns that had gotten me off track for a while. But I was right where I’d always dreamed I would be. Sure, the path to get here had been riddled with bumps and bruises and boatloads of disappointment, but my intentions were still the same. I would turn what was nothing more than a house haunted by bad memories into something worth staying in.

And I would do it alone if I had to.

Of course, that would take far longer than I wanted, but a man could only lure his friends to pitch in so many times. As it was, my family were my closest friends. Cousins, mostly. CJ, Jaxson. They’d been there for me through it all. While they rarely balked when I asked for their help, I knew it wasn’t fair to them. Payment in the form of a six-pack only went so far.

If only Rafe would come home.

I sighed. “Not gonna happen,” I reminded myself.

Truth was, I figured I would never see Rafe again. It was a fear that had the power to steal the air from my lungs. I missed my brother. Had since the asshole walked out of my life eight years ago.

Seemed no matter how often I asked my brother to come home, I was either met with silence or resistance. Clearly the man had no desire to move back to Coyote Ridge. Too many bad memories, perhaps? Or maybe Rafe simply blamed me for what had happened. That was my worst fear. I’d spent years wondering if that was the real reason Rafe had left.

Either way, I had to move forward. I had to prove I had what it took to do right by my family. And maybe Rafe would come back one day to see all that I’d done.

So here I was with the constant reminder looming before me. Desperate and eager to expel the demons from my childhood home and start new memories for myself, my brother, and anyone who wanted to venture to this small patch of Texas real estate I called home.

Getting this place up to par hadn’t been easy up to this point, and I expected no less in the days to come. Transforming the farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast was, in theory, a brilliant idea. Or it had been.

Back before I had actually started working on the damn thing.

Back before I had truly understood just how much work it needed.

And fuck all, it needed some serious work.

New hardwood throughout would mean new trim. New trim would mean new paint. New paint would mean new fixtures. Not to mention the new AC units, new doors, and windows, all of which had to be replaced for energy efficiency.

Those were just the bones.

That didn’t include all the work that would go into each of the seven bedrooms—five upstairs, two down. And of course, remodeling the kitchen, dining room, living room, game room, the four existing bathrooms, plus the four I intended to add. The only things I could check off were the approvals from the Coyote Ridge historical committee, the inspector’s go-ahead on the structural soundness, and the completion of the third floor.

And to think, I was only a year into it.

Some thought I was crazy for wanting to stay in Coyote Ridge, to live in the house with the ghost of my dead father. And sure, there were bad memories, but there were a lot of good ones, too. Ones I wasn’t ready to forget. Like the evenings when Rafe and I would sit with Mama and watch television. The days when Grandpa would take us out to the barn, let us muck out the stalls, then take us back inside for ice cream after a job well done.

Which meant I needed to get my ass in gear because excuses were no longer part of my vocabulary. I had to get the place open so I could start bringing in some money.

My thoughts drifted back to Rafe as I scratched the top of Duke’s head. “Where do you think he’s at, boy? Still in Corpus? Or maybe down in Houston?”

Truth was, I didn’t know where Rafe was because he wanted it that way.

“I suspect he’ll come back when he’s ready.” At least that was what I continued to tell myself.

Year after year, I waited patiently for my brother to come back. Rafe had left Coyote Ridge the day he turned eighteen. Hightailed it right out of Dodge without so much as a note. It had taken me nearly a year to track him down after that, but I finally had. I would never forget the day Rafe told me that he didn’t want anything to do with me. Even the thought made my chest ache.

These days, I did my best to keep in touch, texting Rafe at least once a week. Most of those went unanswered, but every so often, he would respond, letting me know he was fine.

“I miss the asshole,” I grumbled as I pulled my ball cap off my head and ran my fingers through my hair. “Definitely miss him.”

Hoping that one day he’d come home was what motivated me to pick up that damn hammer again.

* * *

Jack Cunningham

I pulled into my apartment complex, a sigh slipping out before I even bypassed the security gates.

“I need a vacation,” I decided.

The feeling grew stronger as I weaved between the buildings. I maneuvered into my empty space just as I was overcome with the urge to flee, to run far and fast to somewhere else. Anywhere else.

“A long vacation,” I added as the idea burrowed deeper into my brain and threatened to take root once and for all. “Someplace quiet.” My gaze scanned the balconies. “Where there aren’t any people. A cabin in the woods. No. Too creepy. Maybe just a hotel. Somewhere no one knows my name.”

A small smile tipped my lips.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I need. Better yet, make it a beach on a tropical island.”

For the record, there was no one in the car, and I wasn’t on the phone, yet I couldn’t seem to stop talking aloud. I did it all the time. Thankfully, there was rarely anyone around to listen to my ridiculous ramblings. Not that it made the small quirk any easier to swallow.

I shut off the engine and stared up at my apartment building.

“Not gonna get a vacation, am I?” I sighed, dropping my head back on the headrest.

Nope. Not in the cards because, as the saying went, I had made my bed; now I had to lie in it.

For the record, I hated my fucking bed.

I also hated my fucking apartment.

As a result, I hated my fucking life.

Now that I was parked in my designated spot in front of my apartment building, the repressed groan I always fought so hard to keep in escaped. It was a rough, gravel-filled sound chock full of…

“Self-loathing and disappointment. That’s what I’ve succumbed to.”

Another sigh followed a quick roll of my eyes. This was the absolute worst fucking part of my day. The coming home part. In fact, I would prefer to eat glass. Or fall down a flight of stairs. Or get a root canal. Without an anesthetic.

Sad but true. I would take any of those ten times over, rather than walk up those damn stairs and face what was on the other side of that door.

As usual, a million if onlys began running through my head.

If only I wasn’t so impulsive.

If only I could be more patient.

If only I could just say no.

If only I could treat my relationships the way I did my work. It seemed all rational thought was relegated to my craft, leaving nothing for the most important decisions in my life.

Such as, you know… “Asking a woman to marry me.” I laughed without mirth. “That’s an important decision, right? Probably one of the most important in a man’s life. Yet I don’t seem to put much thought into it at all.”

To add insult to injury, I had fucked up not once but three times. Three.

Not at the same time, of course. I wasn’t an asshole. But I was twenty-nine years old, and I’d been engaged three times to three different women.

“Third time’s a charm, right?” I huffed a breath.

No. No, it certainly was not. It was a fucking nightmare.

Thankfully, I hadn’t yet made it to the altar during any of the aforementioned bouts of lunacy, so there was that. As for my latest what was I thinking escapade … well, there was still time to fix it because the wedding countdown was now at T minus forty-one days. Fiancée number three had whipped up some fancy shindig that was to take place on the most clichéd day of the year. Valentine’s Day.

And right now, she was up there in my third-floor apartment, probably waiting for me to come in and make a final decision on what sort of fabric doily would be under the place setting. Truth was, I didn’t give a damn.

Which was why coming home was the absolute worst fucking part of my day.

“Suck it up.” I gripped the steering wheel and inhaled deeply. “You have to go inside.”

At eight o’clock, the parking lot was dark, the early-January sun having dipped beneath the horizon. The days were short and the nights endlessly long. Probably had more to do with the company I kept than the stupid Daylight Savings.

I peered over at the cars on either side of me. My BMW M6 wasn’t all that out of place amongst the other luxury vehicles. After all, it wasn’t an inexpensive area to live in. Most of the tenants were single businesspeople with high-pressure jobs and not enough time in the day. The entire complex was secure.

Granted, I would’ve preferred to keep my car in the single-car garage I paid for monthly, but no. Fiancée number three had opted to park her Mustang in there.

“A fucking Mustang.” I rolled my eyes.

I had tried telling her I’d dropped six figures on my ride, but I was pretty sure she thought I was made of money, so it didn’t really matter. It was a compromise, she liked to say.

“Actually”—I snorted—“it’s my gentlemanly duty not to force her to get into a cold car in the middle of a Texas winter.” I ground my molars together. “Someone should tell her central Texas doesn’t really have winter.”

Not that it would matter. She would simply tell me I needed to embrace the give and take of a relationship.

Right.

Tina Townsend did not know the meaning of give and take. As far as our duo went…

“I give, she takes. And takes and takes and…” Another groan escaped. “Maybe I should take up meditation.” I shook my head, clearing out the thought. “Actually, what I should do is grow a pair and stop being a pussy about it.”

Except, not only was I impulsive, but I was also damn good at avoiding confrontation. Which meant I tended to drag out these bad decisions until there was no way to avoid World War III.

“This is the life I’ve built for myself.”

Sort of.

I opened the door, stuck one foot out. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Before I was fully out, I jerked my leg back in and slammed the door.

“Maybe just a few more minutes.” I stared up at the newly renovated apartment building that I’d called home for the past three years. In the beginning, I had actually liked the place. Upscale area, friendly neighbors, walking distance to damn near everything. And being in the heart of downtown Austin, it was in one of the most sought-after locations.

These days it no longer felt like home to me.

“Because of Tina, no doubt.” Another groan followed.

I could see the lights on in my apartment, and the same apprehension I felt every time I came home consumed me, overwhelmed me. That nauseous churning in my stomach that told me I’d made a huge fucking mistake was back with a vengeance and it seemed to be getting worse lately.

That or I had an ulcer.

I dropped my forehead onto the steering wheel and sighed.

“You have to go inside. You can’t sit out here all night, no matter how much you want to.”

Or could I?

After all, it was ball-shriveling cold right now. Perhaps sleeping in my cramped car could become my thing. Sort of like talking to myself. I could embrace it. And when Tina finally got the hint and moved out, then I could go back to my apartment.

She was never leaving. I could feel it. Never, ever, ever.

“Fuck. I need a drink.”

I glanced in my rearview mirror.

Yeah. A drink. That was what I would do. I would grab a beer, chill for a bit. Maybe get a hotel in town. Then, tomorrow, when I’d had some time to process all the shit going on, perhaps I could come home and deal with Tina.

And figure out if I could still go through with the wedding.

After all, with every passing minute, the noose was getting that much tighter.

“Not the answer,” I admonished. “Running is never the answer.”

Except it was so damn easy.

Although I’d told Tina I would be gone the entire weekend, I figured it wasn’t helping our relationship for me to put so much distance between us. Of course, I was no closer to figuring out what I wanted. Every time I thought about the wedding, my stomach twisted in knots, my heart threatened to beat right out of my chest, and bile rose in my throat. I needed to have a talk with Tina. As much as I hated to do it, I had to push the wedding off. For now. Perhaps we needed another year to settle in.

I took one more deep breath, decided it was time to go inside.

If I were a smart man, I would put an end to the problem tonight by shoring up my nerve and addressing it directly. The problem being five foot five inches of whiny fiancée who was likely on the other side of the front door waiting for me to walk in so she could rip me a new one.

Tina was good at that.

“Too good. But that’s going to change,” I promised myself. “I’ll sit Tina down and we’ll talk it out. Figure out where we go from here.”

Yes. That was the best plan I’d had in forever. No more running, no more excuses. I would address the issue and we could move forward.

Even with good intentions, I knew tonight would be like any other. If, of course, Tina hadn’t gone out for the evening, I would sit down to a silently tense meal with the woman I shared a bed with. We’d share a few details of our day, then I would clean the kitchen before retreating to my office—a.k.a. the breakfast bar—and work on some of my drawings while I waited for Tina to give up on watching whatever ridiculous reality TV drama she was obsessed with and go to bed.

Only when I was sure she was asleep would I join her.

On weekends like this, when I spent endless hours on an upcoming deadline, Tina was usually fit to be tied. It didn’t help that I had sprung this weekend trip on her at the last minute. Technically, I hadn’t needed that much time, but these days I tended to come up with any excuse not to go home.

So, in an effort to put some space between myself and Tina, I had intended to hole up in a Dallas hotel room and knock out the final character design for the project I was trying to focus on. Unfortunately, Shawn, the author I was contracted with, and I hadn’t been able to agree, and I knew it wouldn’t matter how long we went over it. So my plan had gone to shit before it fully formed. Not in the mood to argue, I had decided to call it a night and head home.

The lesser of two evils? No. Not by a long shot. But this was my apartment.

“Should’ve gone to the bar, had a couple of drinks, thought this through.” Yep. That was where I should be right now. Copious amounts of alcohol usually helped to ease my frustration. For a little while, anyway.

But no. I’d come up with the ludicrous notion that I needed to make amends with Tina since our last conversation had been a fucking fight. The kind that always ended with her calling me a selfish asshole. Not that Tina would care that I was home early. She would bitch and moan, then apologize and pretend it never happened. She was good at that, too.

Unlike Tina, I wasn’t able to forget because the woman was ruthless in pointing out every one of my flaws, of which I apparently had many.

“Suck it up or do something about it.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

With one last resigned sigh, I opened my car door, forced my weary body out, then shifted the seat forward. After dragging my art case out of the back seat, I released another deep breath, shut the door, then headed toward the stairs. Every step felt like I was trudging through quicksand, carrying two hundred pounds on my shoulders.

I had texted Tina half an hour ago to let her know I was on my way home. I’d even asked if I could pick something up for dinner, but she hadn’t answered.

“Not unusual,” I mumbled under my breath. “She’s busy. Always fucking busy.”

Luckily, Tina made a living doing spin classes down at the gym—where we’d met—along with a side gig bartending at a popular club in town. The latter paid for her partying habit, and the former kept her from going insane because, according to Tina, she was not designed to sit still. Tina was not the kind of girl who could stay at home and simply relax. She had to be moving around all the damn time.

Another trait I had picked up on after we’d started living together.

If Tina wasn’t claiming to be writing her breakout novel—of which she had written two whole chapters in the year since she started—then she was watching television or spending hours people watching down at Starbucks or whatever corner coffee shop was popular at the moment while she chatted endlessly with one of her dozens of friends. And if she wasn’t working on Friday or Saturday night, she went out with her friends, painting the town until the wee hours of the morning.

“What’s wrong with spending a night in? Watching a movie? Sharing popcorn?” I snorted. I saw nothing wrong with that.

Tina called me old, but whatever.

In an effort to support the woman I had asked to marry me, I agreed we could go out together one night a week. For the nights I preferred to stay in, I encouraged her to go out with her friends. I did my best to be supportive, urging her to be the social butterfly she claimed to be, because what else was I going to do?

“Supportive,” I griped as I reached the third-floor landing. “That’s certainly not a flaw.” I lowered my voice to a mumble. “Did Tina ever mention that? Of course she didn’t.”

God, I hoped tonight was one of the nights she went out with her friends because…

“Fuck.”

I was home. And this time, there was no turning back.

✔️ LGBTQ+

✔️ Unexpected Encounters

✔️ Small Town

✔️ Bed and Breakfast Dreams

✔️ Rural Romance