by Louise Bay
She leaned forward and tried to bend the horse’s leg, but it didn’t move. She glanced up at Robert but he didn’t offer any help. What was happening? She’d spoken her truth—she was a bossaholic and she’d admitted it. She was being really honest; I was sure of it. What more did this horse want? Her shoulders slouched and she released the horse’s leg.
Shit.
Robert stepped forward and took the pick from Rose. “Don’t worry, you just haven’t found your whole truth yet.” Whole truth? What did that mean? “You’re describing the symptoms and not the cause, and without understanding the root of the problem, we can’t know ourselves. You’ll get there.” Was it possible that the horse was really picking this stuff up?
Rose stared at the ground. Excelling in things was what she did. SATs, ballet or work, she liked to do well and improve. I’d never known her not be good at everything she tried. Not being able to lift that horse’s leg would kill her. She came and sat next to me and I grabbed her hand and squeezed.
“Remember, girls. Lady wants you to be completely honest with her.” Robert pointed at me. “You next.”
My pulse quickened as I stood. I’d thought this was going to be a breeze, but the horse seemed more and more like she had some kind of magical power to see under our skin. But it wasn’t going to be a problem for me. I knew what my issue was. I just wished I didn’t have to lay myself bare, with my one-night stand watching. The whole point of casual sex was not being concerned about being judged by the person you were with. Still, standing up in front of him to confess how I was useless at love was the last thing I wanted to do. I may never see him again, but I didn’t want him to look back and think he’d been with a total loser. I’d had fun with him. I’d had incredible fun, and despite it being so fleeting, I’d prefer that he was left with good memories of last night.
It was different with Kennedy, Rose and I. We had grown up together, before we understood the power of people’s judgement, before we’d learned to hold back or give the right impression. They were the only people who I was certain would love me no matter what. If I could make my confession in front of just them, it would be easier.
No more one-night stands, I vowed. They never ended well.
I grasped the smooth, wooden handle of the pick and made my way toward Lady Luck. She was a big animal, who seemed to grow with every step. I’d never been up close to a horse before, and my muscles tensed and my jaw tightened. I couldn’t predict how she would react to me. Would she bite or kick? Was that a thing—horses attacking people?
The pressure of having Blake in front of me, the horse standing so near, and my friends looking over in anticipation pressed on my chest.
I stood facing the horse, my back to everyone else. If Blake was horrified by whatever I said, it wouldn’t matter. I’d be back in Boston soon. I had nothing to fear from my friends; they loved me. Knew me inside and out. There was nothing I could say that was going to shock them.
I took a deep breath and reached out my hand. Lady’s fur—was it fur? Or hair? I was procrastinating. Whatever it was, it prickled under my fingers, rougher than I expected.
This was fine.
I just needed to tell her what I’d been telling myself for ages.
“Hey, Lady, my name is Mackenzie and I’m a loveaholic.” Avoiding Blake’s eyes, I glanced back at Rose and Kennedy. Rose smiled and Kennedy raised her eyebrows and nodded, urging me on. Wasn’t that enough of a confession? I loved falling in love. I turned back to Lady. Perhaps Blake wouldn’t hear if I had my back to him. I took a deep breath. “I’ve met my fair share of amazing men, and I don’t have a problem falling in love. It’s just that things start to go wrong—and eventually I get dumped. Sometimes I get dumped wearing a wedding dress, sometimes on my birthday and also, that time, just after sex.” My mouth was running away with me. I needed to stop talking.
“Anyway, they fall out of love with me.” Phil had said he didn’t think he knew me well enough. Did that count as falling out of love? I didn’t want to mislead Lady. I wanted to be honest but I hated bringing this stuff up. I just wanted to get to the next part. “I’ve never gotten to wear the white dress. I need to understand how I can do better, how to make them stay in love so I can walk down that aisle and get on with the rest of my life.” Yes, I think that covered it.
I blinked and then reached down to pull up the horse’s hoof. It was glued to the ground. I released her, then smoothed my hand down and tried again. Nothing. What? I’d told her the complete truth. Why wasn’t she cooperating?
Nothing. The horse stood as if made of marble.
“I think she’s broken.” I laughed as I straightened, trying to make light of the horse’s reaction. I meant what I’d said. I’d told the truth, and in fact I’d confessed much more than anyone else. I really wanted this to work, and the horse still hadn’t raised her leg. Apparently Lady didn’t get it right all the time.
“Nope,” Robert said as he took the pick from me, and I walked toward Rose and Kennedy, avoiding glancing over at Blake. “I think you know in your heart that you didn’t share your whole truth. You were just scratching the surface. Lady wants you to get down and dirty, roll your sleeves up and get real. But that’s what the next few days are for. To find your truth.”
Rose tilted her head to one side and her mouth was downturned as if she was feeling sorry for me. It wasn’t me she needed to be sorry for. It was Robert—he was going to have to find himself another gig if his horse was malfunctioning. I’d told the truth. I knew what my problem was—hell I even knew what the solution was—I just needed to get the guy to stay in love.
Apparently Robert’s mind-reading skills were working just fine as he interrupted my thoughts. “Lady Luck doesn’t get it wrong. You might not like it, but she’s calling you out and asking you to think about the difference between what’s in here”—he tapped his temple with his forefinger—“and what’s in here.” He pointed to his chest.
He believed a horse over me. I scanned the faces of the other girls, who wore sympathetic looks.
They all believed the horse over me.
This was bullshit. I’d have to make them see. I was telling the truth. Lady had it wrong.
I slumped back down onto the log.
“Now, I’m starting to enjoy myself,” Kennedy said, patting my knee.
“Hey.” Was she happy I’d failed the test? I hated the thought of everyone thinking I was a liar. It wasn’t who I was. I’d been as honest as possible and said far more than I’d wanted to in front of strangers. And the guy that’d seen me naked.
Perhaps Love Rehab had been a mistake. I’d come here to find my future, not to be questioned and insulted. Why did I have to obsess about the detail of the problem when what I wanted was the cure?
“I’m serious. Bringing all of this up is good for us. I’m not saying it to be mean. It makes me realize how crazy we are,” Kennedy said. It didn’t feel good. I wanted to go back to Jimmy’s, down some shots, dance to some Gaga and kiss a cowboy that hadn’t already seen me naked.
We watched as the last girl, Natasha, confessed that she didn’t believe she deserved a decent man and lifted the horse’s leg as if it was marshmallow.
Fuckadoodlecowboy.
Brianna stepped forward as Robert thanked us for participating. “You’ll get to have another chance with Lady before you leave us. What you need to do before then is reflect on the real authentic you, your whole truth.” He looked at me as he spoke and I felt my cheeks heat. “Ask yourself what the root of the issue is, try to see patterns in your relationships that maybe you haven’t noticed before. You might be tempted to place all the blame on your partner, but that’s not going to help. Concentrate on your part. How did you react? What could you have done differently?” I glanced at Brianna and she was nodding and my heart sank lower. Was the rest of the trip going to be like this? Frustrating and not relevant to me? “I want y’all to dig deep. And for the two who were successful, take some time to think about what you want yo
ur future to look like, and what you need to change to get there.”
Apparently, Rose and I didn’t get to look toward a future, according to Robert, but that was exactly what I wanted to be concentrating on. What was the point in focusing on the past, on what hadn’t worked? Kennedy wasn’t the only one of us who had changed our mind about this trip.
I’d been pinning all my hopes on this stay on the ranch. And now I was beginning to think that Love Rehab was just going to be five days of my life I’d never get back.
Five
Blake
“Come on, girls, work with me here. You can discover lots of things about yourself in the quiet. Give it a try.” Brianna led the group on a silent trek around the lake, giving them time to consider their session with Lady Luck. I was staying in the back, making sure no one got left behind.
The sun, high in the sky, beat down on us and sweat collected at my brow, threatening to trickle down my face. Our route was flat along the dusty path around the lake, but it was the heat rather than the gradient that dictated our speed. It wasn’t the pace or the temperature that was the real challenge. The girls were finding it more difficult to keep quiet than I’d have thought possible. I wasn’t sure why. I loved the peace that Christie brought, but apparently not everyone appreciated it.
As I kept some distance between me and the girls ahead of me, my focus was drawn to Red. She’d gathered her dark red hair up into a ponytail, revealing the back of her long white neck that I knew tasted so good. Her ass had lost none of its appeal from the previous evening—round and firm. Her denim shorts were tight enough to have me wishing I could slide my hands under them and squeeze and stroke, and the sway of her hips almost begged me to grab them and pull her toward me.
Fuck. The last thing I need is a hard-on.
I should have put two and two together and realized she was going to be here today before I’d taken her to the lake last night. But she’d seemed too happy, too sexy to need a retreat to get over a bad boyfriend. Any guy in his right mind would kneel for that woman—I’d certainly been happy to last night. Perhaps I’d been hypnotized by the sway of her ass, but somehow I’d not connected the dots and unwittingly I’d created an awkward situation for both of us. Brianna would kill me if she knew I’d hooked up with one of the guests. But what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her—a theory tried and tested on my sister. And it wasn’t like it was going to disrupt anything.
I’d expected to have to gag myself to stop my laughter from ruining Uncle Bob’s horse challenge, but instead I’d been more interested than I’d thought I would be. A confidence test more than anything else, it seemed to work and I could almost see the thoughts it generated in the girls who’d not managed to lift Lady’s leg. Maybe Brianna was on to something with these trips. They seemed popular and, more than that, from what my mom was saying, women really got something out of it. I was kinda fascinated to know what exactly. Men really weren’t so complicated. But girls remained a mystery to me.
Watching these women confess their issues with the men in their lives felt like spying. When it was Mackenzie’s turn, I felt especially shitty, as if I were taking more from her than she’d wanted to give. I probably should have excused myself but I wanted to hear what she was going to say. It’s not often you get to understand the motivation of your one-night stand. Was she trying to cure herself last night with me by prioritizing sex over love? Lady hadn’t accepted her story. I couldn’t comment on whether or not Red was telling the truth, but there was an awkwardness about her as she spoke that jarred with my memory of the girl I’d spent last night with.
What would I have said if Uncle Bob had asked me to do the same thing? Why had my previous relationships failed? Girlfriends told me I worked too much, which was true. Others had said they wanted a man who prioritized family. But being back here in Christie and not Massachusetts was because I prioritized family—Harvard had shown me I was an Oklahoma guy at heart. So that really wasn’t the issue. I just didn’t want to start my own family right now. The timing wasn’t right. I had to get my career in order first.
Women just weren’t where I put my focus. At the moment, relationships were about a regular physical relationship with the same woman. Picking up girls might not be that difficult, but I enjoyed sex more with someone I’d known longer than a couple of hours. Last night had been an exception. I wasn’t sure if it was the lake setting or Mackenzie’s body—maybe it was the way she’d screamed my name. If one-night stands were always like that, I doubt I’d ever have a relationship. If I’d been speaking to Lady, I guess I’d just tell her I wasn’t ready for anything serious right now. She would have lifted her leg for me.
I’d prepared myself for seeing Mackenzie in the paddock this morning. I’d been cold, almost warning her not to acknowledge me, fearing Brianna’s wrath and not wanting to mislead her into thinking that I was interested in anything more with her. But I did want an opportunity to explain and to tell her that last night I didn’t know she would be here.
Mackenzie stopped to tie her laces. This was my chance.
I widened my stride and caught up with her. “Hey, Red.”
She tugged at the laces and stood. “Hi.” She didn’t even glance at me, then ran off back to the others. Maybe she didn’t want to see me or maybe she was pissed that I’d not been friendlier earlier. I’d try and get a few minutes with her later to explain. I didn’t want to ruin her trip. I probably should confess to Brianna, excuse myself from the whole trip and head back to the ranch. The thing was, I really did want to talk to my sister. She’d always been my confidant, even when we were kids.
My mother always called my two brothers, my sister and me Goldilocks and the three bears. She said that Bentley talked too much, Barrett just the right amount and me not enough. Bentley did everything at a hundred miles an hour, Barrett four miles an hour and I was a steady sixty. Bentley was the heartbreaker, Barrett the heartbroken and I’d probably broken as many hearts as I had put back together. We all had our strengths and weaknesses. I wasn’t great at talking, but the one person I could always be open with was Brianna. And she always had the best advice.
I needed Brianna’s perspective on the decision I was in Christie to make—Oklahoma or Boston. She hadn’t bugged me about it. She knew better. Knew that the fresh air and space from my reality allowed things to settle in my head and have the important stuff rise to the surface. Then we’d talk.
Heading from the wood pile back to the fire that burned in a large pit in the middle of the camp, I caught no sounds of wakefulness and no lights coming from the cabin. The only light came from my headlamp and the fire that would burn for some hours yet.
We’d arrived at the site only shortly before dark, so the girls hadn’t had time to fully appreciate what a perfect setting we were in between the lake and the woods. The lake to one side of our camp had a small jetty that we used to fish from or jump off when we were kids. Trees—oaks and pines mainly—provided the backdrop to the other side of the camp between us and a small hill, which meant we were sheltered from the wind.
I set the logs down, took off my gloves and held my palms up to the heat. It wasn’t cold out, but no matter what the weather, a fire was always a comfort and we needed it to boil water.
I’d never seen the campsite before yesterday and I’d been impressed when I arrived. My brothers had built six wooden cabins set slightly back from a central social area, which consisted of a fire pit surrounded by log benches. Each cabin was big enough for four people and had basic amenities—two sets of bunkbeds and a bathroom. It was a lot less luxurious than these girls would be used to. I hadn’t gotten the impression from Mackenzie’s designer jeans and fuck-me boots the previous evening that she was used to camping. But as Brianna had pointed out, change starts with a change. My sister might be younger than me, but I didn’t know anyone wiser.
Wood creaked behind me followed by shuffling and the sound of footsteps. No doubt Brianna coming to bust my ass about something.
I sighed. I wanted a few minutes to myself, to organize the thoughts in my head.
“Shit,” someone hissed behind me.
I turned to see Red heading back to the cabin.
“Hey, Mackenzie,” I said, my voice a loud whisper. She froze on the spot and I stood up. “Come here.”
She turned toward me but didn’t meet my eyes as she wandered closer to the fire.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she mumbled.
“Me neither. Let’s not sleep together.” I cringed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It sounded like a come-on or a rejection or—fuck, I needed to cut my tongue out. I didn’t want her to think I wanted a repeat of last night, but I didn’t want her to think I was an asshole either. “I wanted to talk to you.” I patted the bench next to me, relieved when she took a seat.
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Didn’t seem like that to me.” She continued to stare into the fire.
I held out one of the bottles of water I’d brought down from the ranch the previous day and she took it. “I’m sorry about that. When I first saw you, all I could think about was getting my balls handed to me by my sister if she found out about us. She’d kill me.” And I’d expected never to see her again. I was trying to figure out my life, not add a layer of complication to it.
“You didn’t know I was staying here last night, did you?” she asked as she leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, staring into the fire.
“No, I should have put two and two together.”
She nodded. “Well rest assured, if I’d have known, I’d have never . . .”
My gut clenched at her regret. I reached for her, but stopped myself from touching. I didn’t want her to say any more. Didn’t want to hear that she wished away last night. She was beautiful and sexy and for a couple of hours, she’d been mine, without complications or distractions—time-limited escape and release. “I’m not sure I’d have been able to resist you even if I had have known.”