Brokedown Cowboy

Yeah, he knew all that.

But it didn’t stop him from waking up most nights in a cold sweat, his heart pounding harder than a spooked horse’s hooves on arena dirt.

Because the simple truth was that Connor Garrett knew all these things, but his subconscious had yet to catch up.

He sat bolt upright in bed, sweat beading on his bare chest and his forehead. If this weren’t standard procedure for his body, he might’ve been concerned he was having a heart attack. Unfortunately, though, he knew at this point that the racing heart, accompanied by chest pain, was just stress. Anxiety.

Damn lingering grief that refused to lessen even as the years passed.

He wasn’t surprised when he woke up alone in bed, not anymore. It had been three years, after all. He wasn’t surprised, but he noticed. Every time. Was acutely aware of how cold the sheets were on her side of the bed. It wasn’t even the same bed he’d slept in with Jessie. He’d bought a new one about a year ago because continuing to sleep in the bed they’d shared had seemed too depressing. But it hadn’t accomplished what he had hoped it might.

Because no matter how hard he tried, whether he lay down in the middle of the bed at the start of the night, or even on the side nearest to the window, he always ended up on his side.

The side by the door. In case of intruders or any other danger. The side that allowed him to protect the person sleeping next to him. The side he had taken every night during his eight years of marriage. It was as if his late wife’s ghost was rolling him over in his sleep.

And then waking him up.

Unfortunately, Jessie didn’t even have the decency to haunt him. She was just gone. And in her place was emptiness. Emptiness in his bed. In his house. In his chest.

And when his chest wasn’t empty, it was filled with pain and a kind of dread that took over his whole body and made it impossible to breathe. Like now.

He swung his legs over the side of the mattress, the wood floor cold beneath his bare feet. He stood and walked over to the window, looked out into the darkness. The black shadows of pine trees filled his vision, and beyond that, the darker silhouette of the mountains, backlit by a slightly grayer sky. And down to the left he could barely make out the front porch. And the golden glow of the porch light that he’d somehow managed to leave on before he’d gone to sleep.

His chest tightened. That was probably why he’d woken up.

Abruptly, the dream he’d been having flooded back through his mind. It hadn’t been a full dream so much as images.

Opening the door late at night to see Eli standing there, his brother’s face grim, bleaker than Connor had ever seen it. And a ring of gold light from the porch had shone around him. Made him look like an angel of some kind. An angel of death, it had turned out.

As stupid as it was, he was half convinced that leaving that same light on downstairs brought the dreams back stronger.

It didn’t make sense. But if there was one thing he’d learned over the years, it was that grief didn’t make a lick of sense.

He jerked the bedroom door open and walked downstairs, heading toward the entryway. He stood there in front of the door, looking at the porch light shining through the windows. For a second he had the thought that if he opened it, he would find Eli standing there. Would find himself transported back in time three years. Listening to the kind of news that no one should have to hear.

There was a reason his darkest nightmares consisted of nothing more than his younger brother standing on his front porch.

Because in that moment his life had transformed into a nightmare. There was nothing scarier than that. He was confident he could take the bogeyman if need be. But he couldn’t fight death.

And in the end he hadn’t been able to save Jessie.

And he was not opening the damn door.

He flipped the light off and found himself walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge, rather than going back upstairs. He looked at the beer, which was currently the only thing on the shelves besides a bottle of ketchup and a bag that had an onion in it that had probably been there since the beginning of summer.

He let out a heavy sigh and shut the fridge. He should not drink beer at three in the morning.

Three in the morning was clearly Jack Daniel’s o’clock.

He walked over to the cabinet where he kept the harder stuff and pulled out his bottle of Jack. It was almost gone. And no one was here. No one was here, because his fucking house was empty. Because he was alone.

Considering those things, he decided to hell with the glass. He picked up the bottle and tipped it back, barely even feeling the burn anymore as the alcohol slid down his throat.

Maybe now he would be able to get some sleep. Maybe for a few hours he could forget.

He’d given up on getting rest years ago. These days he just settled for oblivion.

And this was the fastest way he knew to get it.

* * *

“YOU SHOULD JUST INSTALL a drain in the house so you can hose it down and let all the dirt wash out. Just like you do out in the barn.”

“What the hell are you doing here, Liss?”

Felicity Foster refused to be cowed by the overwhelmingly unfriendly greeting her best friend had just issued. It was just Connor, after all. She was used to his less than sparkly demeanor. She was also used to finding him passed out on the couch in the morning.

It would be nice if that occurred less frequently, but if anything, he seemed to be getting worse.

Not that she could blame him. She blamed his barn burning down. As far as the loss of Jessie was concerned, things might have continued to get better had he not lost that, too. It was just a building, bricks and wood, but it was his livelihood. It was just another piece of Connor’s dream burned down to the ground. He’d had enough of that. Too much of it.

She was officially pissed at life on his behalf. How much was one man supposed to endure?

“And to answer your rather charming question, Connor,” she said, stepping nearer to the couch, “I brought you groceries.”

He sat up, his face contorting, making him look a bit like he’d swallowed a porcupine. “Groceries? Why did you do that?”

“I know it’s been a while since you’ve gone out and socialized with actual people, rather than simply sharing your space with cows, so I feel compelled to remind you that the normal human response to this would be thank you.”

He swung his legs over the side of the couch and rubbed his hand over his face. She wanted to do something. To put her hand on his back and offer comfort. She was used to those kinds of impulses around Connor. She’d been fighting them for the better part of her adult life. But her conclusion was always that touching him would be a bad idea. So she stood there, her hands held awkwardly at her sides, leaving him uncomforted. Leaving the appropriate amount of space between them.

That was part of being a good friend. At least, it was part of maintaining a healthy friendship as far as she and Connor were concerned.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice gruff. “But why the hell did you bring me groceries? And why did you bring them by before work?”

“I brought you groceries because man cannot live on booze alone. I’m bringing them this morning because I was too tired to lug them over last night, when I actually bought them. So I thought, in the spirit of goodwill and breakfast cereals, I would bring them by now.”

“I do like breakfast cereals. I’m ambivalent about goodwill.” He stood up, wobbling slightly. “Feeling a little bit ambivalent about gravity, too.”

“I’m surprised you feel like eating. How much did you drink?”

He looked away from her and shrugged in a classically Connor manner. Playing things off was an art form with this man. “I don’t know. I woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I had a little bit to drink and ended up staying down here. Anyway, I don’t really notice the hangovers anymore.”

“I don’t think building up a resistance to hangovers is a crowning achievement.”

“For my lifestyle, it certainly is.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, cowboy. I’ll pour you some cereal.”