Heartbreak Town (COMPLETED)

Chapter Fourteen

"I thought you'd be out here." Swayde greeted. The wooden screen door slammed shut behind him. Renne looked over at him from her laptop screen. "Coffee?" He asked, holding out a mug to Renne. Renne gladly accepted the steaming cup of rocket fuel. "So you're up early." Swayde said, sitting down next to Renne on the porch swing.
     "Yeah. I couldn't sleep." Renne replied, taking a sip of the hot coffee Swayde brought out for her.
     "Is my bed too hard? I've kinda gotten used to sleeping on the ground with my saddle as a pillow, so to me, my bed is like sleeping on a cloud." Swayde said, partially teasing, but also serious. He folded his leg so his ankle rested on his knee. He sipped his steaming coffee.
     Renne let out a small chuckle. "You're bed was very comfortable. I was just thinkin' about stuff." Renne pulled the blanket that rested on her shoulders tighter around her in the brisk early morning Wyoming breeze. She pulled her legs tighter under her.
     "So how did you sneak out here without wakin' me up? You know I'm a light sleeper." Swayde asked, looking over at Renne from under his cowboy hat.
     "Oh, I just snuck out your back door." Renne replied as she looked out at the gorgeous Wyoming scenery. Swayde's view from the house looked like something from a postcard. It was magnificently beautiful.
     "Ah, that sounds familiar. D'you remember when I would drop you off after one of our dates and I would sometimes have to sneak out through your back door?"
     "Or my window. That was your typical escape route." Renne hid her smile by lifting her coffee mug up to her lips.
     "Sometimes I wonder what your parents would've done if they were still alive when we were dating." Swayde said it with a smile on his face, but as soon as he processed what he said, his smile quickly faded. "I'm sorry I didn't mean-"
     "It's okay, Swayde. I often wonder what they would've done too." Renne replied. She stared at the picture on her laptop screen.
     "What are you lookin' at?" Swayde asked, changing the subject. 
     "Oh, just some pictures of Mallory and I as kids." Renne turned her laptop so Swayde could see. "I was workin on stuff for my ranch, but got distracted." Renne flipped to the next picture. It was a picture of her and Swayde in the last year that they were dating. She quickly kept clicking to the next picture, but there were several pictures of them together. "Sorry, I didn't know these were in this folder." Renne kept flipping through them. Swayde's hand on Renne's made her stop her frantic clicking.
     "Those were some good times, weren't they?" Swayde said when he looked at the picture they had stopped on. The couple was at a pumpkin patch and Renne had picked out the biggest pumpkin she could find and Swayde picked the tiniest one. In the picture, Renne was turned sideways, facing Swayde, and Swayde had one arm wrapped tightly around Renne's waist. They were both looking at the camera, but Swayde had a goofy smile on his face as he held the palm sized pumpkin in his hand.
     Renne smiled at the memory. "Yes they were." They had so many great memories together, despite how things ended between them. Renne genuinely missed their once in a lifetime relationship. No one, not even Matt, had ever looked at Renne with that much love or shown that they care so much about her as much as Swayde did. Attempting to get their memory out of her head, Renne minimized the picture screen and pulled up the stuff she was working on for her ranch. "No offense, but I have to get back to work on placing these orders and paying the bills for the ranch."
     "No offense taken. I should probably start breakfast for us anyways." Swayde said, standing up from the swing.
     "Ooh, well I should probably hurry up with this so I can make sure that you won't burn the house down cooking eggs." Renne cast a teasing grin at Swayde.
     "Ha ha. Very funny, missy." Swayde teasingly shook his head. "I'll call you when it's ready."
     "Okay. Thanks for the coffee." Renne said as Swayde walked into his house. There certainly were things that she missed about him.

     "Did you want to swing by your grandparents house now to pick up your clothes, or do it after we get done at the hospital?" Swayde asked Renne later that day as he drove them to visit Mallory in the hospital.
     "Um, we can do it after we see Mallory." Renne replied. "Are you sure you're fine with me stayin' at your place?"
     Swayde glanced over at Renne. "I'm positive. I know that you need time to process everything that's goin' on, and I know that you could use a break from your family and the kids."
     "Thank you. I really appreciate it." Renne smiled at Swayde.
     "That's what friends are for, right?"
     Renne nodded in response. "So I was thinkin' I could make tuna fish casserole for supper tonight, does that sound good to you?"
     "You know I love everything you make, Reagan." Swayde said, flipping on his turn signal.
     "Okay. Tuna noodle casserole it is." Renne replied, glancing out her window at the scenery flying past. Something in her snapped and she realized just how much she missed this tiny town. With everything going on now, Renne wished more than anything she could go back five years and change the fact that she left. Renne was beginning to realize that that was the biggest mistake of her life.