Rylan shrugs as I pocket my keys and get out of the truck, meeting him around the front of the vehicle. “And you can thank me anytime for making sure your place is now feng shui.”
The best part about finding out I have a shit ton of money in the bank is being able to finally take control of my life instead of having to rely on my sister for everything. I bought my own truck so I didn’t have to keep borrowing Kat’s SUV, and I rented a townhouse in downtown Charleston so I didn’t have to impose on her and Daniel any longer. She put up a good fight when I told her I was moving out, and I felt a little guilty about the worry that was written all over her face when I reassured her that I wouldn’t be alone since Rylan was coming with me. I promised to keep going to see the military shrink and call her if I needed to talk, and spent the last few days moving in. Being able to pay a hefty deposit and a year’s worth of rent up front in cash made the paperwork go through a lot faster than normal, and before I knew it, I had a place to call my own where I wouldn’t have to worry about waking Kat up in the middle of the night if I had another fucking nightmare.
Not that I’d had any of those damn things since that night with Shelby, but I knew they were still in there, waiting to wreak havoc on my brain. My shrink wasn’t too happy when I told him I’d settled on the hobby of getting Shelby back, especially when I told him about her accident and how much she’d changed since the last time I saw her. He didn’t think it was good for me to put all my focus on someone who might be just as damaged as I am. He wanted me to concentrate on fixing myself, not someone else, but I didn’t give a fuck. Just because I’m required to talk to him every week, and he’s the one with the fancy degree, doesn’t mean he knows what’s best for me and my fucked-up brain. The only thing that got him to shut up about how bad this all was for me was the fact that he was intrigued about the whole no nightmares or flashbacks since the night in the tack room.
“I can’t believe you’re making me see Paul. That guy hates me,” Rylan complains again as we walk into the huge open door of the stables.
“It’s been six years since we worked for him. I doubt he hates you anymore. And he only hated you because he always had to yell at you for not doing work.”
Paul Walden has been the property and stable manager for the Eubanks Plantation for as long as I can remember. He’s in his late sixties by now, and even though I haven’t seen him around the few times I’ve snuck over here, he’s the type of man who will never stop working. He told me on more than one occasion that they’d have to drag his dead carcass out of the stables before he’d even think about retiring. As gruff and old-school as he’d been, he was like a second father to me when I worked here. Scratch that. He was like an only father to me since mine never gave a shit about what I did.
Paul always took care of Kat and me in his stern, no-nonsense way. He let me borrow an extra car of his when mine took a shit and I needed to get Kat to school or doctors’ appointments or make it in to work. When our parents were alive, he gave my sister and me a place to crash when we needed to get away from their excessive partying, and after they died, he had us over for dinner at least one night a week to make sure we were okay and slip money into Kat’s hand when I wasn’t looking, since he knew I was too proud to take a handout. He didn’t hover and he didn’t make me feel like I was too young or stupid to handle everything on my own. He stood back and let me take care of my own responsibilities, but he was always there to help, even when I was too pigheaded to ask for it.
“How could I possibly concentrate on shoveling horse shit when there were always hot chicks coming in and out of the stables?” Rylan questions as we continue moving down the long main hallway of the barn and I finally spot Paul talking to another worker at the end of the row of horse stalls. “You were too busy with your head up Shelby’s ass to notice back then, but there were some fine specimens who boarded their horses here or stopped by for a look at one of them that was up for sale.”
I ignore Rylan’s rambling when Paul’s head comes up as I get a few feet away from him and stop. I stand here quietly, listening to him give the worker a few orders before slapping him on the back and telling him to, “Get that shit done before I die of old age, boy.”
The worker, not much older than I was when I first started working here, nods his head and runs away with wide, nervous eyes to do his duties.
“Still scaring the hired help, I see,” I tell him with a smile as he walks up to me.
Even though it’s been six years since I last saw Paul, he hasn’t changed a bit. He still stands just as tall as me with just as many muscles hidden under layers of wrinkled and age-spotted skin from chucking hay bales. He still looks like Clint Eastwood with his salt-and-pepper hair and tanned, weathered face from working outside in the sun all day, including the permanent scowl that’s always in place.
“Scaring those young pups is the only way to get their asses moving so they don’t stand around on their phones doing the Twitter and sending pictures of their privates to all of creation,” Paul replies as I pull my hand out of the pocket of my jeans and reach it out to him.
He grabs it in a firm grip, shaking it once and giving me a nod.
“Good to see you again, son. Been watching what happened all over the TV since the news broke,” he tells me in a low, gruff voice as he drops my hand. “Damn shame what happened to you boys over there, but I’m glad you made it home.”
My heart starts thumping nervously in my chest and I have to take a couple of deep breaths to calm it before memories overwhelm me.
“What about me? Are you glad I’m home, too, old man?” Rylan jokes.
Both of us ignore him this time, and Paul takes a step back to lean his elbow on top of the wooden gate closing off the stall next to him. “You doin’ okay, son?”
I copy his pose, resting my own elbow on top of the gate, swallowing back the vomit that’s threatening to come right up into my mouth whenever someone brings up what happened.
“I’m getting there. Trying to do normal shit and forget about it, but the shrink they’re making me talk to every week wants to keep dredging it up.”
He takes one of the toothpicks he always keeps in the right front pocket of his flannel shirt and sticks it in the side of his mouth.