by Dawn McClure
That damned pro and con list was really biting his ass.
Let it go. Not your business.
When he started getting closer to the corral, he could make out two female voices. Had her mom come out to talk to her? As he neared, he could tell it was Abby and not Misty’s mother as he’d originally thought. Perfect. He wanted to talk to her anyway. Tattoos? Really? That had been the best attribute she’d been able to come up with?
When the voices became clear, what he heard brought him up short.
“So, let me get this straight. He rocks in bed—like hands down better than Brandon—and he's been showering you with gifts? Who's your bitch? What did I tell you? If you'd listened to me from the beginning, y'all could have been bumping uglies for a month now.”
Was Misty still weighing the pros and cons of being with him instead of Brandon? He damn near ground his molars to dust. And she questioned his loyalty?
“Yeah, but he absolutely refuses to come to Rapid with me. How can we survive that?”
I can't go with you! Why can't you see that? His anger hit a new high. It wasn't that he refused to go, it was that he couldn't go. Big difference. She had to know he’d do just about anything for her.
“You were going to do long distance with Brandon, and you never said shit about it. Like you didn't care at all,” Abby said.
Damned right. That stupid list aside, Abby was smarter than he'd ever given her credit for. Was Misty not willing to go through a long-distance relationship with him? Why?
“But I trusted Brandon.”
Pain hit him square in the chest so hard it made the earlier pain he’d felt feel like a tap. Nearly rocked him off his feet. Christ, he'd thought Misty knew him better than that. Sounded like she didn't trust him at all.
“Misty, are you serious? David loves you. He came back and started mending fences with everyone right away. He apologized. Bought you gifts. Showers you with attention. Saved you from a freaking tornado.” There was a pause, and he knew without seeing Abby that she was looking at Misty as though she were crazy. “He loves you, Misty. Always has. Everyone can see it.”
Everyone but Misty, he wanted to yell. He barely kept himself from making his presence known right then and there, but apparently when he'd thrown his morals out the window to read that paper, they hadn't come back. He wanted to hear what Misty had to say when she thought he wasn't within earshot. Surprise, sweetheart. I'm right here.
“I'm just going to say this to you, because to anyone else I'd sound like a bitch. But, well, I was content with Brandon. I never worried about him, and I guess if we didn't survive the separation, no harm no foul. I trusted him. I don't trust David yet. This long distance is going to suck. Big time.”
Ice pick in chest. He put a hand against the barn and strained to hear their voices since they'd quieted down.
“The separation didn't bother you when it came to Brandon because you never loved him,” Abby said.
Silence for about a minute. He thought a blood vessel in his head might explode. Had Brandon ever thought of Misty's desire to ride? Had he ever bought her a horse that cost as much as a car? Had he ever wanted to see her get back in the barrel racing circuit, or want to see her happy more than he cared for his own happiness? Hell no. David had made plenty of mistakes, and he’d owned up to them. Misty had seemed like she was ready to move past all of that. But now that he’d read that list and heard this conversation, he wasn’t sure where he and Misty stood anymore.
“I don’t know. There was no passion with Brandon. There was just...safety. But with David, I'm afraid of being hurt. I'm afraid to go to Rapid without him. Why can't I feel both safety and passion in a relationship? Why does it have to be one or the other?”
“Who says it has to be?” Abby sounded exasperated. Good! He was too! “I don't think David would ever purposely hurt you. Again,” she clarified.
Again. Misty was still scared he'd run, and Abby confirmed it.
“It's not even that.”
“Then what is it?” Abby practically yelled. He echoed the outburst in his mind. “Just spit it out. You know you can tell me anything.”
He could hear the horse shuffle as he inched closer to them to hear. He looked around the side of the barn, saw Misty on the mare with her head down. She was acting like she'd been acting the night before—as if something were really weighing on her.
“The simple fact is, he could come with me. He's been gone for how long? But he won't even entertain the idea. Just told me he can't, and we dropped the subject. I know his dad just got out of the hospital, and my brain tells me to leave this be. But in my heart, I don't think...” She kept her head down and just shrugged her shoulders, allowing her thought to trail off.
Abby was sitting on the fence with a confused look on her face. “Don't think what?”
Misty took a deep breath. “I don't know if I should pursue this relationship with him. It's like we're setting ourselves up for failure. And I'm afraid this time it'll hurt even more than the last time. There are things he won’t share with me.”
What things? The only thing he hadn’t exactly brought to her attention had been that crap with his father several years ago. But that had nothing to do with them. David had to work through that with his father. He should have told her about his relationship with his father, but how would that have any bearing on their relationship now? Was that what she was referring to? Matt must have said something. Either Matt or Caroline.
Abby threw her hands in the air. “Misty, you didn't give a rat's ass that Brandon was going to be four hours away. Never even broke a stride.”
Misty looked her friend dead in the face. “Because I didn't love Brandon. It wasn’t that big a deal.”
When Misty caught sight of David coming around the side of the barn, she threw Abby a look that told her to shut her face, since her friend had been mid-sentence talking shit, and then quickly smiled at David. She knew it was the type of smile that said, “We weren’t just talking about you. No. Not at all.”
Instead of saying that out loud, she let her face do the talking and her voice do the side-stepping. “So, is the sprayer all fixed?”
When he stood under the barn light, it looked like he had oil on his face, and his shirt was sprayed with it. “Yeah. Matt and Shane are at my house bugging the old man.” He nodded toward Abby. “Hey.”
“Hey, cowboy.”
He seemed uncomfortable. He hadn’t smiled at her when he’d walked up to the corral, and since she was on the horse he’d wanted her to want so badly, that was a bad sign. She hoped he hadn't heard them talking. She’d texted him earlier to apologize about being so harsh about the horse situation, and he’d apologized too. She shifted on the mare she hadn’t wanted and glanced at Abby, a feeling growing deep in her gut that he’d heard them talking. They hadn't exactly been using inside voices. “Just give me a few minutes and I'll have her put away for the night.”
He put one boot on the fence and laced his fingers together, his forearms resting on the top slat. He and Abby started talking when she led the mare away. It didn't take Misty long to tend to the horse, but by the time she emerged from the barn, Abby had left and David was alone.
The floodlights above the barn shone straight down on where he stood, the light hitting his ball cap and shielding his eyes from her, highlighting only the five o'clock shadow on the lower half of his face. An uneasiness came over her. She was probably reading too much into things. Guilt was riding her over what she'd told Abby, but he sure seemed reserved. He still hadn’t smiled.
A muscle ticked in his jaw—not a good sign. Her fear started kicking into overdrive. She’d wanted to get some things off her chest, but now she wished she hadn’t uttered a word. “Did you get dinner?” she asked when she stood in front of him.
He barely raised his head to look at her. Closer up, she could see the tension in his shoulders. “No. Mom made some froufrou-ass chicken salad. I passed. Dad wasn't too pleased with what she’d made.
They’re going to have some growing pains when it comes to food, that’s for sure.” He tilted his head. “Guess most couples do from time to time.”
She smiled, but it took a little effort on her part. “She loves him. She's trying to keep him around.” Misty knew the feeling. Had been juggling that same desire for the past few days. Hell, with David, she’d been doing it for years.
“You?” he asked.
His voice was deep and much too mellow. It felt as though he were holding something back. She swallowed. No kiss hello? Something was definitely weighing on his mind. “No, I skipped dinner. I was cleaning up the barn and then I...” started riding that damned mare I said I didn't want.
Lately any silences between them had kept from that awkward feeling. This wasn't one of those times. Maybe it was because she felt guilty for what she was feeling when it came to the two of them. For what she'd said to Abby. But sometimes she couldn't trust herself to think clearly, so she'd had to talk to someone.
“Listen,” David began, his head hanging. She still couldn't see his eyes. “You have to know I'd do just about anything for you. Always have.”
Well, shit. He had heard her. Heat spread across her cheeks and blossomed in her chest. How much had he heard? What had he heard? She hung her head as well, not wanting to look him in the eye. “Yeah.”
“I can't leave. I've turned it over in my head a dozen ways, and every time I convince myself I should go with you to Rapid, the mature part of me knows I can't. I can't leave my dad right now. He expects me to run this ranch. Just this evening he told me I have the books now too. He wants to retire. I made the mistake of leaving when I shouldn't have once in my life. You really want me to go down that road again?”
She shook her head, not even sure if he were looking at her. “No. And I can't stay.”
“I don't know what to say.”
“How much did you hear?” Part of her didn't want to know the answer, but the other part had to know. She'd really opened up to Abby. Maybe she should have opened up to him like she'd wanted him to do with her. Her mother had once told her that if a couple didn’t communicate, their relationship didn’t mean much.
“Enough.”
Okay. So he wasn’t going to tell her. He must have heard her say that she loved him. He had to know that she did, just as she knew he loved her. The words didn't need to be said.
“I uh… I dropped your visor in your truck because I was going to get the oil off my face. I found your pro and con list.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. She'd known that stupid list was a bad idea! Could the night get any worse? She tried to fumble through an excuse, her words tripping over one another and not making much sense, and did her damndest to remember what they'd written on it. They’d been shitfaced at the time. She only knew that what she’d written about Brandon had been much better than what Abby had written about David. Misty cringed when she recalled that his list had contained stupid crap like hawt and ex-Marine. Hadn’t Abby put a heart by the word?
It had been an immature thing to do. Nothing to be taken seriously, especially not now after all that had transpired between them. Finally she re-grouped and ended with, “David, that was weeks ago. And it was just…it was stupid.”
They both looked up at the same time. She nearly lost her breath at the pain in his eyes. “Why did you even break up with him? Looked like he kicked my ass in that list.”
She was certain that trying to stutter through more lame excuses would make things worse, so she settled for the truth. “I was mad at you. That was the night of the bonfire. David, you have to know a lot has changed since then. I was drunk, and I—”
“I want to see you happy, Misty. I don't want you to be miserable.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but David suddenly pushed away from the fence and ripped his hat off, the gesture reminding her so much of her brother that she was momentarily shocked.
He pointed his ball cap at her. “If you had all those things from him then why bother with me?” he yelled into the silence of the night. “You scratched out the word loyal from under my name until the paper ripped. So why end it with Brandon?”
She was completely taken back by his outburst. Last time he'd yelled at her had been during the tornado. She was temporarily speechless for the second time that night. Hell, even the grass hoppers had stopped chirping.
“Why?” he yelled, coming back to the fence.
Standing on the other side, they seemed to be divided by more than a rickety, old wooden fence. His outburst couldn’t be just from that dumb pro and con list. It just couldn’t. “David—”
“No, don't give me some watered-down bullshit. You can talk to Abby about all your fears concerning us, but all the words you use for me are guarded. You trusted Brandon, but not me? He's loyal, caring...whatever the hell I read. All the things that what… I'm not?”
Her anger finally sparked to life, and she found herself yelling back, “All the things you once were!” How dare he attack her for talking to Abby. He couldn't talk to her, but he could to Matt and Caroline?
He went stock-still, his arms falling to his sides. “And what am I now?”
She didn't say a word. Hadn't anticipated anything like this happening tonight. She didn't want to fight with him, but while she'd been thinking only about herself and her upcoming departure, she'd forgotten about all the shit David was going through. He was conflicted. Probably wanted her to stay as much as she wanted him to go with her. His father had nearly died and he’d taken over a working ranch practically by himself after having been gone for four years. His parents needed him to step up. Take the reins. And he’d been doing that at the young age of twenty-three.
She was leaving. He was staying. Period. Maybe she'd known the answer all this time, but had been unwilling to face it. A four-hour separation for three years after such a short time together as a couple? It wasn't going to work. It just wasn't.
“I asked you a question, Misty. What am I now?”
She’d never heard him use such a serious tone before. She could feel the pieces of their relationship falling apart as they stood there, separated by a fence and the old, dumb dreams of a couple of kids. Part of her wished he’d never come home. That he’d never re-opened the wound.
What was he now? One boy. One girl. One impossible dream. All her life she'd wanted him, and he'd constantly remained one thing. “You're impossible.”
Chapter 25
Back at the guesthouse, with Misty likely on her way back to her own place, David snatched a six-pack of longnecks from the fridge. He’d had to take a four-wheeler from the Evans’, because after he’d turned on his heel and left Misty, he’d realized he’d driven her truck to pick her up and couldn’t very well take it after their breakup. Or whatever the hell just happened between them.
The word breakup might be harsh, but that’s about what their exchange had felt like.
As he headed through the living room, Caroline was sitting on the couch with her phone in her face. She still had bruises under her eyes from Misty's fist, though during the day you couldn't see them through all the makeup she managed to slap on her face.
“Trouble in paradise?” she asked without looking up from her phone.
He paused at the front door, just long enough to bite out, “Four more days and you'd better be gone.”
Hell, the one woman he'd wanted to stay had left, and the other was sticking around like an irritating sliver just under his skin. There’d been a time he and Caroline had been friends. He wasn’t sure that was the case any longer.
As he made his way to the barn, just to get the hell out of the house, Matt pulled up, headlights bouncing.
David didn't really want to talk. Didn't want to listen to anyone's shit. Minutes after he read that damned pro and con list he'd tried to tell himself it was none of his business and Misty had been conflicted when she wrote it. The list was just the immature product of two drunk girls. The more he'd thought on it though
, the more it pissed him off. Then to hear her say she trusted Brandon—but not him?
Then the kicker: “I didn't love Brandon.”
David would never understand her. Why in the hell did she love him if he was none of those things she'd listed under Brandon's name? Was she in love with the seventeen-year-old David or the man he’d become?
“Hey, where you goin'?” Matt asked, slamming his truck door.
“Away,” he snapped. He was going to get drunk and pass out in the barn. That way he wouldn't run into Caroline or have to listen to her shit. Plus, by staying in the barn and not the guesthouse, if he and Misty ever spoke again, then she'd know he'd never touched Caroline because, you know, she couldn't trust him.
“Hey, Misty called me and told me about that list.”
“Good. You're all caught up. Have a nice night.” David kept walking through the darkness until he reached the barn and flipped on the light. His own little doghouse. He’d have to remember to go get his dad’s truck from Misty’s in the morning. Very early morning, so he didn’t run into her.
He'd thought about telling Misty about his father and all the shit he’d gone through with him, but he knew she'd just hang on to the fact that he could have called her before he’d left. And he damn well could have. And eventually he had called her, but apparently it had been a touch too late. He hadn't wanted to bring her down with him. She had to go to college and there had been no way in hell he could have gone with her. Their predicament had seemed impossible—just as impossible as the last conversation that still bounced around in his head.
“What am I now?”
“You're impossible.”
Well, fuck it all to hell and back. She was impossible. Always had been. How did one damn mistake take away all the things he'd done for her over the years? He'd been there any time she'd needed him. Hell, even when she hadn't. He'd risked his life to save her ass during the tornado, but she didn't trust him? He doubted Brandon would have gunned straight into the path of a tornado for her.