Letting Go (A Mitchell Family Series) Read online

  I didn’t know the last time he had seen Tyler, but he would be surprised at how muscular he had gotten before the accident. Being on the college football team caused him to bulk up a bunch and by the first game; he was thirty more pounds of muscle. They shared the same hair color. It was dark in the winter, but from working the crops, got lighter in the summer.

  I noticed I was daydreaming about the Tyler I missed, and gave my attention back to Colt.

  He shrugged and looked down at his cousin in the bed. “You already know what they are saying Van. Can you blame them?”

  Tears filled my eyes. Tyler was lying lifeless, I had lost him, and now I had lost them. The family that I had loved as my own for so many years. “No.” I covered my face with my hands. The tears poured out and I could feel my body shaking. “I am so sorry.” I said in a muffled voice.

  “Ah hell Savanna. I don’t know what to say to you. I sure as heck don’t feel like hearin ya cry.” His southern accent was so strong, but I guess that is what happens when you live in Kentucky.

  I stood up and started grabbing my things. “Maybe I should just go then, because all I seem to do is cry and ruin people’s lives.”

  I started walking past Colt. His strong hand grabbed my wrist. “You don’t have to leave.” He whispered, seeming unsure of his reaction.

  I stood close to him and looked up into his eyes. They were still that light green that I always remembered. His brow was creased in a way that made me think he was in pain. He had thick dark eyebrows that made his eyes seem even lighter and accentuated his frustration with this situation.

  “If I could take things back, I would. I never wanted this Colt, I swear.” I confessed.

  He leaned over the bed, looking at Tyler. “Yeah, I reckon it was just bad timing. I know he liked his Jack. His momma and daddy didn’t know about that. I don’t blame ya, but I would like the whole story. The full one.” He replied.

  I nodded my head. “Okay, but not here. I don’t like talking about it around him. I know it sounds silly, but I feel like he hears me. I don’t want to upset him.” I admitted.

  “Fine, I have the truck. You want some dinner? I got off a plane a couple hours ago and haven’t had nothin to eat all day.” He confessed.

  I hadn’t gone anywhere with anyone for so long. At first, I wanted to say no, but this was Colt, someone who knew me before I was with his cousin. He knew I wouldn’t hurt anybody intentionally. “Okay, we can grab something to eat.”

  I leaned over and kissed Ty before following Colt out of the hospital room. When we got outside, I recognized the old pickup truck immediately. It was Ty’s fathers. I assumed that Colt borrowed it to come see Ty. We both climbed into the old clunker and headed down the road.

  Colt pulled over at an old diner on the edge of town. They were known for being open twenty-four hours and having the best pies around. We found a small booth in the far corner of the place and sat down facing one another. Once the waitress got us drinks and we both ordered food, Colt got right down to business.

  “You gonna start explainin' soon?” He asked.

  I played with my paper place mat, never looking up at his face. My sexual dream with Ty was still fresh in my head and I felt myself blushing just thinking about it. I took a deep breath and focused on the guy sitting across from me. The one that made fun of me since I was around ten. “A month before the accident I told Tyler that I needed some time. I was struggling with my courses and figured if we just spent some time apart I could focus better. I swear it was not because I didn’t want to be with him. My feelings for him never changed.” I promised.

  Colt took a sip of his beer. “Did you explain that to him?”

  “Of course I did, but he just assumed it was something else. Anyway, after a week or so, he stopped calling me so much. I missed him, but I figured he was just giving me some space.” I fell silent for a moment, because the next part of the story was like stabbing myself in the heart.

  Before I could even open my mouth, I felt the tears building in my eyes. “He found other ways to deal with the breakup.” I confessed in a quiet voice, just hoping he understood.

  “Other ways? Or someone else?” He asked calmly.

  “Yes.” Was all I could get out.

  Colt took another sip of his beer. I still couldn’t look at him. “Are ya sayin' he had another woman?”

  “Women. Plural.” I said with my hands over my face. This person across from me knew me and I should have been okay with letting him see me like this, but I was so ashamed.

  “I don’t blame him. I can see how he would be all messed up over you.” He blurted out.

  I removed my hands and looked right at him. One of his eyebrows was cocked. “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked angrily.

  He held up his beer to motion to our waitress that he needed a refill, then he leaned in closer to me. “All I am sayin’ is that I can see how the breakup would hurt him. You both have been together for a long time. He was just tryin’ to forget ya that’s all.”

  I hated him. I hated his words, even though I knew he was just being honest. I wanted to get up and leave. He had to know how awful he was making me feel.

  “So, what happened that night? You catch him with his pants down?” He asked.

  “Yeah, I did.” I swallowed back the tears and tried so hard not to picture the last time I spoke to Tyler. I could smell the liquor from the time I opened that bedroom door. His little blonde conquest was sprawled out on all fours on the bed and he was on top of her, riding her into tomorrow. I shook my head. “His pants were off actually and he was very drunk. He tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t stand there watching them together. I just needed to leave, to get as far away from Tyler as I could.”

  When I stopped talking, Colt started. “Let me guess. He got in that car and went lookin' for ya. Ya see, alcohol is a funny thing. It makes you do things you wouldn’t never do, but it always makes you tell the truth. It heightens your emotions.”

  “I get it, really I do. I know it was my fault. If I would have just stayed….”

  He cut me off. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong Van. He messed up. Sure, you broke his heart, probably tore it into pieces, but he made his bed that night.”

  I looked up at him. I was shocked. “You believe me?”

  “Look Van, it is easy for my aunt and uncle to blame someone. They see their son and have no answers. You can’t blame them.” He explained.

  “I miss them though. I miss them so much Colt. They were a big part of my life. I feel so empty without all of them. I feel like I don’t want to live anymore.” I confessed.

  He reached over and pulled my hand away from my face. “Don’t ever say you don’t want to live.”

  He was serious. His face was stern, almost like a parent to a child.

  I quickly changed the subject. “So what are you here for Colt? Are you just visiting Ty?”

  “Na, I am here to help with the summer crops and some of the livestock. Uncle Bo can’t do it himself. Dad has plenty of help at home, so I offered to stay through the harvest.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He stared at me for a second and took another sip of his new beer. “Shoot!”

  “Do you think you can help me see Daisy? I am not really welcome at the farm right now and I miss her something fierce. I don’t want to sneak around, but I think it would be better if I visit when they are not there.” I admitted.

  He waited a minute. “I reckon I can do that. Just give me your number and I will text ya.”

  I had to laugh. “A country boy like you knows how to text?”

  He gave me another cocked eyebrow. “Look here Van. I may be from the country but it aint the ice age Darlin'. We have indoor plumbing at home as well.” He added with a wink.

  We didn’t say much more when our food came and as soon as we were done, we both paid and went our separate ways, once he dropped me back off of course.

  I watched him pull awa
y before getting into my own car and calling it a night.

  Chapter 3

  Colt

  I never knew what my cousin saw in Savanna Tate, but that was before she became a woman. The girl had acquired never-ending curves. Her grey eyes that used to be so big, now fit her face perfectly. Even her lips and cheekbones had changed. When she was younger, she had her haircut like a boy and never even dressed like a girl. Now, if I hadn’t seen the pictures on my parent’s fridge, I would have never believed it was the same person. She had become quite beautiful. It’s no wonder that Tyler assumed there was someone else. It would have been my first assumption as well. With the way she looked, she could probably get any guy she wanted.

  For some reason I believed she was telling the truth, not that it even mattered anyway. The past couldn’t be changed.

  Tyler was far from perfect, in fact, when he came to visit me just last year we went to a bar, where he hooked up with one of the local girls. He claimed that being in a different zip codes gave him the right to ‘sample the land’. I could only assume that he never came clean about that to Van.

  My cousin looked like shit. I imagine that was from being in a bed for months. I hadn’t believed my aunt when she said that Van spent all of her time there. How could they doubt her love for Tyler? I had never known someone to be so devoted. It was sad. She had to know that he may never wake up. Was she going to sit there day after day until she got so old she couldn’t anymore?

  I was the last person to question her intentions. My dang girl had up and left me. I reckon it had to do with my drinkin' and the fact that I couldn’t be bothered with entertaining someone that I had nothin’ in common with. If I had extra time, I was going to spend it fishing or hunting. I did miss the hot meals at night, but I could just head to my parents for dinner.

  It was just me and Sam now. Sam being my lab of course. When I offered to come work on the farm that had been my only stipulation. I couldn’t leave my dog back in Kentucky.

  I didn’t always want to be a farmer, but the truth was that it was in my blood. For four generations my family had lived off the land and provided for their families. My father had never been too keen on me getting my college degree, but like my cousin Tyler, I was pretty damn good at football and got a scholarship. Had I not torn my ACL junior year, I may have been drafted. My major was business, but jobs in my small town of Kentucky were hard to come by, and even though my parent’s farm had enough workers to manage itself without me, my father wanted me to be around to do the books. My father’s ranch was well known and he and my mother never had to worry about money. They had the best cattle in the state.

  I didn’t want to be a part of my father’s money, even though I knew eventually it would all go to me, if the old hard ass didn’t live to be older than me. Knowin’ him, he would. I swallowed my pride and built a small cabin on the edge of my parent’s farmland. It probably wasn’t small to some, I mean eventually I wanted a family of my own. It gave me enough space to have my own life, but enabled me to be close enough to my family in case anything happened. There had been many nights where the cattle got out, we had to go out, and round them all back up. Even the high tech chicken houses that we had, managed to break down every now and again.

  Still, my uncle was desperate for help, and thought I would be put to good use if I came here to the Carolina’s for the summer. The fields had already been seeded when I arrived, and for the next week there weren’t any chickens to attend to. The last shipment had gone out last week in fact. After visiting my cousin at the hospital and having a meal with Van, I found myself having nothing to do.

  Since I still had my uncle’s truck, I decided that it would be fine to stop by the one and only town bar on the way home. It was just about eight in the evening and the beaten up bar wasn’t very crowded. Several people sat around the wooden bar in the center. I found an empty spot at the bar and ordered a beer.

  I was just sitting there minding my own business when someone came up beside me and tapped me on the shoulder.

  “I thought that was you.” She said. “How the heck are ya Colt?”

  I remembered this girl from when I spent summers here as a kid. I was trying to think of her name when she interrupted my train of thought.

  “It’s Sabrina remember?” She asked.

  Trying to play it off I answered. “Of course, I don’t forget a pretty girl’s face.”

  She blushed and gave me a second smile. She signaled the bartender to bring us two beers and turned to face me again. “So what brings you back here?”

  “Just helping out my uncle with the farm.”

  The red head took a sip of her beer. She had always been pretty attractive, but the problem was that she knew it. I hated cocky girls. “Have you been to see Ty?”

  “Yeah, I saw him today. Looks like shit.” I added.

  She looked at me with a curious grin. “Was Van there? Don’t tell me, of course she was. So how did that go? You better have been nice to her. Ty’s parents have been horrible.”

  “Yeah, she was there. We uh, we had dinner and she told me about everything.” I replied.

  She cocked her eyebrow at me. “Were you nice? I know your kind Colt Mitchell and being nice to a lady is not how you roll.” She implied.

  I chuckled. “How I roll?” This was the second woman today to accuse me of basically being a dick.

  “Yeah. You know exactly what I am saying, so don’t act all innocent. Just tell me you didn’t leave her even more depressed. That girl can’t take anymore. Did she tell you about her own hospital stay?” She asked.

  “No. She didn’t. What happened to her?” I didn’t know why I wanted to know, but something made me ask.

  She looked straight toward the bartender. Her eyes seemed so serious. As she began to talk she never turned to face me. “She wanted to kill herself.”

  “Well hell. She mentioned that.”

  “She doesn’t leave his side. It isn’t healthy. None of this was her fault.” She explained.

  I lifted my hat off my head and then put it back on. It seemed I did that a lot when I was at a loss for words. “No, I reckon it wasn’t. Why don’t you take her out? Get her to do something. Take her mind off of things.”

  “She won’t Colt. I try. I try like every day. I don’t know what to do with her. Tonight is a big bonfire and she refuses to come out. I know since it is the weekend she will be coming home, and even then she just sits around in that house and mopes.”

  “Maybe you need to drag her ass there.” I suggested.

  She gave me a half smile. “Maybe you could ask her to come?”

  “What? Why would she come for me? We aren’t exactly friends Sabrina, in fact the last time I came to town she made it clear that she hated my guts.” I explained.

  She pushed me on my shoulder. “That is because you called her a buck toothed boy. You know how much she hated that.”

  “Yeah, well in my defense she did look like a boy for a long time.” I added.

  She pulled out her cell phone and started texting while she was still talking to me. “Trust me when I say that there is nothing boyish about that girl now. I am sure you noticed if you spent time with her earlier.”

  She was right. It was the first thing that I had noticed. That little awkward duckling had turned into a real swan. “Yeah, I noticed.” I said with a sly grin.

  Sabrina got quiet. “Call her. Make her come out with us. Tell her you want to go out but don’t know anyone. Don’t even tell her I saw you here.” She suggested. “Please?”

  “I don’t see how me calling can make any bit of a difference, but I reckon it don’t hurt to try.”

  Sabrina grabbed her gemstone-covered cell phone and started looking through it. “Here is her number.” She said.

  I held up my own phone. “I already beat ya to it Darlin’. She gave it to me earlier.”

  She started smiling while shaking her head. “Well then get to callin’.” She urged.

&nb
sp; I creased my brow while I hit send on the phone. Sabrina continued to drink her beer, while she intently watched for me to respond to the person on the other line.

  Hello

  Hey, um Van, it’s me Colt.

  Oh. Hey. What’s up? Did the Mitchell’s leave and I can come see Daisy?

  No. Actually, I was wonderin' if you would want to come out to this bonfire with me. I don’t know anyone here, but I can’t just sit around in that house.

  I don’t think so Colt. I don’t really do that kind of thing anymore.

  I don’t think I can take no for an answer.

  I can’t Colt.

  I am asking for you to do me a favor just like I am doing a favor for you with Daisy. It is just one night Van.

  Are you saying you won’t help me if I don’t go?

  Maybe I am.

  You are an asshole Colton.

  Meet me at the old barn in an hour Van.

  She hung up before agreeing, but I had a feelin' she was gonna show.

  Sabrina was busting. “Tell me what she said.”

  “She aint happy, but she will be there.” I said confidently.

  She started clapping her hands. “Oh yay! Thank you thank you!” She said as she hugged me. Before I could pull away, Sabrina brought her lips up to my ear. “I will personally thank you for this later.” When she pulled away her eyes were focused on mine.

  “You have a deal Sugar.” I winked as I got up from the barstool.

  Sabrina explained where and when to meet and we parted ways at the bar. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but as long as I had two pretty ladies by my side, I figured it would be an okay time.

  Worst case was that I took the pretty redhead home and gave her some good lovin'. She seemed all too eager to oblige anyway. I wasn’t usually that type of guy, but I was single and a grown damn man. The summer was going to be boring enough being by myself.