“The families tried to keep them apart,” he continued, “but it didn’t work. They would secretly meet up at Lovers’ Cavern. They carved their names in the rock there.”
Cordy couldn’t help her wistful sigh. She wished she’d made it up there to see their names. Maybe she could plan a hike once the baby was here.
“Finally,” Chance said, “Jesse’s father told him he would be shipped back East for school—and to get him away from Ida.”
“Jesse wasn’t going to do that.” Cordy could see the ending of this sad story coming, her heart already in her throat.
“No.” Chance wouldn’t look at her. “Giving up Ida wasn’t happening. Jesse took some gold from his father’s safe and ran away with her. But a freak blizzard came up, and they died. The searchers found them together.” He swallowed hard. “Ida was still in Jesse’s arms.”
Cordy shivered at the image. So much love wasted for nothing. Ida and Jesse could have been happy and raised a beautiful family, but instead, they’d become a tragic story.
She hugged herself tighter. “That’s an awful story.” It was more than awful, but it had also been a long time ago. “But… but I don’t understand what it has to do with your father.”
And you.There was a key to Chance and what he called his mess here, but Cordy couldn’t see it.
Chance finally looked at her. The bleakness in his warm brown eyes staggered her. If she wasn’t holding onto herself, she might have stumbled backward.
“It has to do with all the Kessal men.” He tapped his chest. “Me included. When we fall in love…” He sucked in a breath. “It’s all-consuming. It’s forever. We find our one, and that’s it. We’re gone.”
Cordy’s chest ached. He made it sound like a curse.
Had Chance ever been in love? Was that why he avoided commitment? His heart had already been broken?
That madeherheart feel like it was breaking. She hated the thought of him hurting like that. But she couldn’t ask him—she was almost afraid of the answer.
“All the Kessal men?” She forced the question out.
Chance lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “It happens with every one of us. Jesse killed himself, Augustus built an entire second back porch because his wife didn’t like the view, my grandpa sunk a second well so Grandma could have her garden and orchard where she wanted. Hell, great-uncle Peter got his wife a zebra that damn near killed him. She thought it was pretty.”
Cordy didn’t know who any of those people were besides Jesse. But Chance spoke about them as if they were very real and very present to him. As if he’d been raised on these stories and they never left his mind for long.
She’d never had anything like that. Her parents didn’t dwell on the past, and they never told stories about their families. It was always about the places they’d been and where they wanted to go next.
Iggy pushed his head against her leg, asking for pets, sensing she was upset. Cordy patted him without looking, thankful she had him. No matter what, she always had him.
“As for my dad…” Chance ran his hands down his face. His expression was haunted. “After Mom died, all he did was drink.”
His throat worked like the rest of what he wanted to say was caught there. Chance blinked hard.
“What about Quint and Ruby?” Cordy wanted to ask more about his dad, but that seemed safer. “They seem… Well, not exactly blissfully happy. I don’t totally understand what’s going on, but I know there’s something wrong.”
Chance’s jaw muscles tensed until they stood out stark in his face. “Quint… Quint is the problem there. They’re unhappy, but my brother can’t let her go. He’ll die before he lets her go. Except he can’t change enough to make her happy either.” He lifted his hat and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It’s a fucking mess. And it’s why I’ve never brought a woman into this situation, and I never will.”
Finally, she was beginning to understand. Jesse, Holden, Quint… and Chance. Themesswas his father, his brother, the rest of his male relatives. Chance avoided commitment all thanks to this family… curse… or whatever it was.
Chance never wanted to fall in love. Not even a little bit. And he was too good a man to never fall in love.
She could say some trite words about how his partner might not die, that he might meet someone and be perfectly happy for decades and decades. But wasn’t her own situation proof that fate could strike anyone at any time?
Reed had been young, healthy, and ought to be here getting ready for the birth of his kid. But he was gone, just like that.
So no, Cordy wouldn’t spout some polite lies about how Chance was wrong.
Cordy tried to swallow down that knot of gray feeling.
“Ruby is Quint’s one.” Her voice caught, and she couldn’t make it come unstuck. “And your mom was your dad’s one. But then she passed.”
Poor, poor Chance. So young, grieving his mom, and then his dad went and disappeared into alcohol and grief. Chance must have felt like he was losing both his parents.
