Chapter 63 Coming to Grips
Sierra’s breath hitched as the weight of her father’s hand in her hair anchored her to the moment. The morphine drip hissed softly above them, a mechanical counterpoint to the dry rasp of his breathing. Outside, a soft desert breeze whispered through the eaves, carrying the faint scent of dust and sage. She closed her eyes, letting the tears fall without shame, her forehead pressed to his chest.
This is how it begins, she thought. The unraveling. The thread would fray into something raw and aching.
Fifteen years before, she’d sat like this, in her mother’s bedroom, her hands clutching the faded floral quilt as her mother’s fingers trembled, brushing her hair back, not to soothe but to remember. The memory had burned itself into Sierra’s soul: the way her mother’s laugh had turned brittle, her voice a threadbare lullaby. She’d fled this kind of grief after that, trading it for the sterile hum of skyscrapers, for spreadsheets and board meetings where emotions were quantified and neutral.
But here, in the moment, her father’s thumb ghosted against her temple in a rhythm born of love and exhaustion. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The silence between them was a language older than words, a truth neither of them could unwrite.
A creak of floorboards made her stiffen. She assumed it was Ryder, his presence a constant, a shadow she hadn’t yet turned to face. But when Cody’s boots scuffed against the rug, his voice cracked with something brittle and sharp.
“Si.” His hand on her shoulder was heavy, unsteady.
She turned, her cheek still damp. Cody looked worse than she’d seen him in years, his face gaunt, the stubble on his jaw like brambles, his eyes ringed with shadows. He clutched a half-empty coffee mug, steam long gone.
“How bad is it?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
Cody snorted, the sound raw with fatigue. “You mean besides the morphine drip and the fact that he can’t swallow without choking?” He gestured at their father with the coffee mug, the metal clinking against its rim. “He was in remission when you left. He got to feeling better and started trying to work again. He seemed like his old self for a while, and then slowly, he started slipping: stumbling, muttering about ‘not needing help.’ He tried to ride last week and almost fell off a horse. Ryder had to carry him back to the house like a damn sack of feed.”
She flinched. “Cody…”
“No.” He set the mug down, hard. The thud echoed in the small room. “You don’t get to say it. Not after you skipped out on us. You think I haven’t been trying? I’ve been herding cattle with one eye and watching Dad with the other. Ryder stayed. He fixed the fence lines when the monsoon flooded them. He’s been here, Si. Through all of it.”
Her father’s breath hitched, and both of them turned to him. His lips moved, soundless. Cody’s jaw tightened, and he reached out, brushing his father’s forearm with a tenderness that surprised her. He didn’t respond. His eyes were closed, but his fingers twitched against the bedspread.
Cody exhaled, his voice dropping to something softer, sicker. “He’s been getting worse by the day. He won’t admit it, but he’s scared. And now you’re back, and I don’t even know why. Did you just pop in to fix things again or are you planning on sticking around this time?”
Sierra’s pulse thudded in her ears. The air between them thickened, the scent of her father’s musk clashing with the antiseptic tang of the morphine. She wanted to reach for Cody, to pull him into the kind of embrace he’d rejected all his life, but his stance was rigid, a defensive wall.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered.
Cody laughed, a sound that broke on a sob. “Don’t. You know damned well what I’m talking about. You left us with nothing. You left Ryder with a broken heart he never let you see. And now you waltz back with your fancy New York suit and that Julian guy…”
Her stomach dropped. “Julian is just…” She honestly didn't know what Julian was. He was a thrill. He meant something to her, but she wasn't sure what.
“Just what?” Cody’s voice rose, cracking. “Is he a charity case? A trophy? Tell me, Si, what’s he mean to you? Is he the kind of guy who writes out checks for the ranch? Is he the kind of guy who draws you to Manhattan when the going gets rough here?”
The floorboards groaned as he paced, his boots slapping against the planks like a metronome of fury. “What about us? What about the ranch? What about Ryder?” His knuckles whitened on the bedrail as he turned to face her, his eyes blazing. “You think I haven’t seen the way he looks at you? Like you’re some ghost you can’t bring yourself to touch. Like you’re the one who walked out on him.”
Cody had always taken things in stride. He had never allowed his thoughts and feelings to pour out like they were in that moment. Sierra’s throat closed. She could feel her father’s gaze on her now, his breathing shallow but deliberate, as if he, too, had been waiting for someone to put his thoughts into words. The weight of Cody’s accusations pressed down on her, and she wanted to lash out, to defend herself, to scream that she’d come back because grief had a way of narrowing the world down to its essentials. But how could she explain that? How could she explain that returning here had felt like stepping into a dream she’d forgotten she’d dreamed?
“Please don’t do this, Cody,” she said, so low she almost didn’t recognize her own voice. “I didn’t come back to fix anything. I just needed to be here.”
Cody’s laugh was hollow. “Funny. That’s what Ryder said when he came back from New York. ‘She’ll come back when she needs to.’ Well, here you are. But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
He turned on his heel, his boots thudding down the hallway. The screen door slammed seconds later, the sound reverberating through the house like a gunshot.
Sierra remained frozen, kneeling over her father. The ranch felt bigger now, emptier, as if Cody’s rage had carved a hole in its walls. She pressed her forehead to her father’s chest, his pulse a faint drumbeat against her skin.
Outside, the sun climbed higher, turning the desert a feverish gold. And Julian waited. She didn’t know what she’d expected from him, a distraction, a reminder of the life she’d built, but Cody’s words lingered, a net of questions she couldn’t untangle.
Could love, once lost, still find its way home?
Did she even have the capacity to love?
Was she too selfish to truly love?
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of rain she could feel but not see. And for the first time in years, Sierra didn’t know the answer to any of the questions being asked.