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Carter misses Rip more than he cares to admit. And Beth is gone for days or weeks at a time, visiting Rip or working with her father. He misses her too. It seems almost like Rip was her anchor and without him she’s just drifting from port to port.
His first night alone in the lodge is awful. Even the “fucking hippie” as Beth would call her, had gone to Helena. The house is too quiet, like his old home with his biological father on the nights the son of a bitch would go out drinking and return to a quiet house to beat the shit out of his sleeping son. If the tv was on and the house was noisy Carter could sleep knowing his father would pass out on the couch by 9. But on the nights he went out, the clock would tick like a bomb just waiting to go off. Carter learned not to sleep on those nights. It was easier to see it coming, to try and hide or escape.
He knows rationally he’s safe here in this fancy dark lodge. But the quiet puts him on edge.
That first night Beth is gone, Carter lays awake feeling so out of place and strangely longing for the tack-room he’d slept in when he first arrived.
So the next night he sleeps in the barn. And the night after that too.
Beth comes home and Carter returns to the lodge, and never breathes a word to her about it. The house while still quiet feels a little safer and Carter falls asleep to the sound of Beth cursing into her phone as she reprimands some poor assistant.
She leaves again a week later and Carter returns to the barn. The next morning he oversleeps and wakes up to Loyd hovering over him.
“The house is too quiet.” Carter says as he stands up, unfolding himself from the too small cot.
“There’s extra beds in the bunkhouse. You can stay there when you need to.”
They don’t speak of it again.
———-
Rip returns home unexpectedly, the call from his wife reporting her father died of a heart attack during a benefit in Helena still ringing in his ears. He’d offered to go to her but she’d declined instead asking him to go home and tell everyone at the ranch.
It’s not even dawn when his truck rolls down the drive and the lodge is empty. Carter’s bed is neatly made and Rip feels a surge of both pride and worry that the kid was likely already in the barn working. He’d be the first to admit Carter’s work ethic was impressive, but being out in the barn at 3:30 am was an indicator of a problem, perhaps a foaling gone wrong or a horse with colic.
With that, Rip makes his way to the barn but finds it empty. Just as he pulls the door shut a figure with a gun tells him to stop and put his hands up.
Despite the heaviness in his chest Rip feels a bit of pride at the sound of Loyd protecting this ranch the same way he would. “Loyd it’s me.”
“Rip?” The figure steps out of the shadows and pulls Rip into a man hug. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”
They go back into the barn and Rip delivers the bad news to a teary eyed Loyd. They talk for a while about John and how Beth is doing. And then the conversation turns to Carter, and Loyd reluctantly tells Rip the kid’s been sleeping in the Bunkhouse whenever the lodge is empty.
Rip feels an unexpected sense of guilt that he and Beth had just left the kid to fend for himself in that great big house all alone. Rip knows he himself would hate sleeping in that house all alone and can’t imagine how Carter must have felt. He vows to do better in the future.
Loyd quietly clears all the cowboys out of the bunkhouse earlier than normal. Taking them to the barn to tell them the news.
Rip lingers in the doorway watching Carter sleep and wondering how he has grown so fond of the kid.
He sets a chair next to the bed and straddles it sitting down. For a moment he just takes everything in, thinking of the words he will need to use to break the Carter’s heart. Thinking of how this ranch will change. Wondering if Beth will be ok.
Finally he moves his hand to shake Carter awake.
Carter rolls over slowly and for a moment he thinks he’s dreaming. Then he sits up with a start knowing in his gut that something is wrong. He feels panic swallowing him. “Is Beth ok?”
Rip feels his heart swell more. The love this kid has for his wife, the loyalty, it felt like something Rip could understand. It felt communal or unifying or something Rip couldn’t put a finger on. “Beth’s ok. But her dad’s had a heart attack.”
——
That night, Carter and Rip ate in the lodge at the kitchen counter, both quiet, dwelling in their thoughts and memories when the door opened.
Beth seemed to blow in like a hurricane. Dropping her bags in the doorway she made her way into the room as Rip stood to meet her, drawing her in to a long hug.
Carter didn’t move, sitting silently watching their interaction feeling for a moment like he was intruding.
Then her green eyes turned to Carter. The loss of her own father making her feel extra sentimental towards the kid she considers hers now. “Come here.” Beth says motioning for him to hug her.
Carter has never hugged her before. But he feels warm as he stands to meet her. As her arms wrapping around his lanky body he feels himself start to cry. He’s not sure if it’s because the person that’s the closet thing he’s ever had to a mother is hugging him and he can count on one hand the number of hugs he’s had in his life, or because the person who’d taught him to ride and had been the nicest when Carter first arrived had just died.
Beth just strokes his hair and looks at Rip, tears running down her cheeks. They’ve all just realized how short life can really be. She vows to do better in the future. To be a real family, to tell Rip the truth of what she did so many years ago, to do better with Carter, and Kayce, Monica and Tate too. They are all each other has now.
Rip steps a little closer putting an arm around his wife and a comforting hand on Carter’s shoulder.
A surprising calmness rushes though Carter’s body and for the first time since Rip left, or possibly even ever in his life if he really thinks about it, he feels safe.