Savior Complex: A Small Town Love Triangle Romance

I can see Ang moving in the kitchen from the window, and I leave my spot on the porch to help her.

“Get out of here,” she says, shooing me back out.

“I can help,” I insist, but she won’t have any of it.

“River and Forrest are already sticking around to start the grill. Besides, I already know you’re going on a ride with Bear, and I think you should.”

“Bear?”

“Oh, Brayden, I mean,” she laughs. “It’s just what the girls called him growing up.”

I feel like I’m full of questions, but I can’t help asking, “Girls?”

She looks up quickly from the lettuce she’s chopping, pausing for a moment, then nodding. “Hazel and Amber,” she says. “Hazel was a twin. Well, I suppose she’s still a twin. That never goes away.”

I realize I’ve stepped on a landmine here. There were two girls in this family, now there’s one.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

“Oh honey, how could you?” Ang shoots me the most compassionate smile, as if I’m the one who lost a daughter. “It was a long time ago, though you never truly get over a loss like that. You just learn new ways to live with it.”

I nod, thinking of Nanna Dot. It’s been five years now, and that hole still feels as deep and wide as the days after I found her. It will never go away. Yet, I’m still getting up every day. Still going about my day. Still existing even if it seems unfair that life continues after something that should have ended the world.

“I get it,” is all I say, and she reaches over and pats my shoulder.

“I had a feeling you would.”

“Can I ask how she died?” I ask.

“It was a drowning accident, about ten years ago,” she says. Her expression falters, and I know she’s recalling that awful moment. “We almost lost both of them,” she adds. “We were lucky.”

Lucky. The word rolls through my mind long after I’ve left the kitchen. I feel like a fool for even comparing the loss of my grandma to what they experienced. To tell them “I get it.” As if losing my aging grandmother is the same as losing a child, along with the life she had before her.

Lucky, because they only lost one daughter and not both of them. I can only imagine how much this is eating all of them up.

I think back to the earlier conversations Brayden and I shared. He never said anything, but he did allude to something awful that happened to him ten years earlier. This has to be the thing, what made him escape to college around the same time I came to the ranch for healing.

Does the death of his little sister haunt him the way the ghosts of my past do?

“Hey, you ready?” Brayden calls out, and I snap back to the present to see him waving me over. I want to ask him about it, but I also know he hasn’t told me for a reason. So I bury my thoughts as I break into a trot to join the small crowd formed around the guys. The horses are already saddled up, tied up to the posts along the fence, and each person is wearing a helmet with the ranch logo on it—a sea horse with “Winters Salt & Sea Ranch” in a sprawling font.

I don’t even ask what to do once I see each of the guys helping guests onto their horses. I move toward a family who are waiting their turn, a couple and their young son of about ten years old. His mom is cooing at the horse and trying to get the kids’ attention, but the boy isn’t having any of it.

“Do you folks need help?” I ask, grabbing one of the steps meant for the shorter guests.

“Oh, yes,” the mom says, resting a hand on her son’s shoulder. He steps out from under her hand, and she smiles as if to say kids these days, but I can sense her frustration too.

“I’m not a baby,” the boy says to me, looking directly at the stool.

“Justin Everett,” his dad growls, and Justin stands up a little straighter, though the look on his face is full of distrust as he keeps his eyes on the stool.

“I’m sorry,” the mother says. “It’s been a long car ride, and we probably shouldn’t even go on the trail ride.” She glances at her husband, and I can sense that car ride was especially long. I also am pretty sure a ride on the beach in the fresh air is exactly what they need.

“Sitting in a car for hours isn’t my favorite, either,” I say to Justin, placing the stool on the ground near his horse. “Also, this isn’t for you. It’s for me because I’m a bit too short to get up there on my own.” I step one boot on the stool, then place a foot in the stirrup. Then I swing over. “That’s all you have to do. Think you can do that?”

He nods, appearing a bit less sullen as I swing back over. The truth is, I don’t need the stool. But maybe if he sees me use it, he’ll use it too.

Sure enough, after a few tries to reach his foot into the stirrup, he finally gives up.