by Maisey Yates
“I’m a lot more fragile than I thought, too.”
“But I think being able to admit that shows me that you’re even stronger than I thought you were.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
GABE HAD DECIDED not to keep drinking, because the only thing worse than being sad was being a sad drunk.
By the time he got into bed that night, he was regretting it.
He could use a little oblivion.
The absence of Jamie in his house was so pronounced it was surreal. She hadn’t lived with him. She’d spent a handful of nights with him. And yet his house felt...
It felt wrong somehow. Like it had lost the most important piece.
And a strange, matching emptiness echoed in his chest. He refused to think about what that might really mean.
That the missing piece might actually be in him.
He didn’t know how the hell he’d gotten here.
He was a successful man. A man who’d gotten everything he’d set out to get. But he was a man who hadn’t set out to get anything he loved.
And that was a strange realization.
And as he sat there in his bedroom, filled with things he bought with his money from the rodeo, memories of that life flashing through his mind, it felt...empty. An empty pursuit. Something that had fed his bank account and nothing more.
Something that had fed a desire for revenge against a man who had hurt him.
And that thought brought about anger. Anger at his mother. For the part that she played in that. For the way that she’d manipulated him.
Who are you really angry at?
He gritted his teeth. He didn’t know what to do with this damn life. This life that had so many wonderful attributes. That didn’t have a damn thing that he could even complain about, really. He hadn’t thought meaningfully about choices. Not really. He thought in terms of the way that his father hadn’t wanted him on one path, and his need to protect his mother had put him on another.
And it all made it sound like some big hand was reaching down from the sky and moving him around. But if that was his concept of God, it was a bad one. Particularly since he’d never thought of it that way before. And he wasn’t a man who had ever given much credence to fate, either.
And that meant that he had to acknowledge, with all honesty, that the choice had been his.
He might have done it for his mother, but he made the choice to go into the rodeo.
He made the choice to stay.
Just like he’d made the choice to tell Jamie that things could never happen between them. Like he made the choice to turn away from that.
Because it would be hard.
Because it was what he wanted.
Yeah, the rodeo had been easy for him. That was the bottom line. Because he hadn’t truly cared whether or not he failed. Because it meant nothing to him. And if he’d fought tooth and nail and stood against his father and told him that he wasn’t going to accept the old man’s edict to not join the ranch and he’d failed, then he would have...
Well, he’d have had no one to blame but himself.
Damn.
He built a life for himself, made entirely out of materials he didn’t give a shit about. And then he wondered why he felt nothing. Nothing in triumph, nothing in failure. He made it that way.
Because he never wanted to...
He’d never wanted to be like his mother. Broken and crying and destroyed over caring so much about something that didn’t love you back.
He was a coward. Jamie was right.
He’d ridden damned bucking broncos, so it had never occurred to him that he might be living life afraid.
Oh, he wasn’t afraid to have his bones broken. Wasn’t afraid to get stomped on and ground into dust in an arena. No, he wasn’t afraid of that.
But he was afraid to love.
He was afraid to put his whole self into something and have the return come back broken. Damaged and mangled beyond repair.
He was afraid of wanting someone who would never want him in quite the same way. Who would hurt him. Again and again.
He got out of bed, his feet making contact with the cold floor. And his thoughts kept racing, even as he started moving. As he put his boots on, grabbed his truck keys and headed out the door.
He wasn’t afraid of being his father. He was afraid of being his mother.
And he wondered if part of him had chosen to behave just a little bit like Hank Dalton, so that he would never find himself in Tammy Dalton’s shoes.
He could see himself, seventeen and being told he might be a father. And the real terror he’d felt. Not just that he couldn’t do it, but of all the pain he’d be opening himself up to.
Marriage. A child.
It had terrified him even then.
Fuck.
He was just so very fucked.
And Jamie...
At that moment that dull ache in his chest turned into something more. Something deeper. And it fractured. Pulling his whole chest apart, and he bled. He bled for this. Bled for her. Bled for them.
He was, in a metaphorical sense, selling his own horses out from underneath himself. So that he couldn’t try and fail. So that he couldn’t try, and end up wounded.
It was that moment when he realized he was headed to the Dalton ranch.
He had given himself a mediocre life that he didn’t want any part of, and he had blamed his parents. He had blamed his circumstances. He had blamed his need for the rodeo money. He had blamed every damn thing in the world except for Gabe Dalton. But Gabe Dalton was the only one who could answer for these sins.
It was easy to make it about the sins of his father. Easy to make it about the sins of his mother.
But all had sinned. And he sinned against himself more righteously than anyone else ever had.
And Jamie... Jamie had loved him, anyway. Jamie had demanded he look her in the face and say he didn’t love her, and he was such a coward he’d looked her directly in the eyes and spoken those words. Lied right to her. Lied right to himself.
Because the scariest thing in all the world wasn’t getting on the back of an angry animal. No. The scariest thing in all the world was opening himself up to love. To the potential for pain. Real pain.
Not physical pain that might leave you with a limp, but emotional pain that would live with you for the rest of your life.
He pulled into the driveway and drove to the barn. Sitting in his truck for a moment before turning the engine off. He walked outside the barn, and he went into Gus’s stall. He put his hand on the animal’s neck. And he closed his eyes. It made him think of Jamie. The way that she connected with horses. The way that she loved them. The way that she loved this life. In an unbridled way. A way that hadn’t been harmed by it.
She was what he might have been. If different choices had been made.
And he could no longer put the blame at anyone else’s door but his. He swallowed hard, a strange amount of emotion rolling around in his chest.
Then he brought Gus out of the stall and began to tack him up, not sure what he had in mind. Or where he might be going.
He hadn’t ridden with no purpose in longer than he could remember. He’d started this project because he believed in the power of animals, of ranch work, to heal. And he’d withheld the healing from himself. Because he hadn’t wanted to go back to those feelings he had, to that pain that he’d experienced as a boy.
That loss.
Oh, he was a coward.
He mounted the horse, rode him out of the barn. The night was clear, the full moon providing ample light for both horse and rider. He guided him up a path that led to a broad, open field. He maneuvered him into a run, a trot that transitioned into a gallop, and Gabe let his hands fall to his sides, and then wide. With nothing but the moon and the stars to witness what was the equiv
alent to an emotional breakdown in his world.
And the only thing that could have made this moment better was to experience it with Jamie.
There wasn’t another woman, another person alive, who understood his connection to this. The connection he’d been denying himself for so long. He didn’t even have to explain it to her. She’d been born with it. He had found a woman who made him laugh.
Who made him hot chocolate and toast.
Who got him hotter than any other woman ever had. And who understood the most fundamental emotional avenue he even had. His connection to the horses. His connection to the land. And he’d sent her away.
Because of fear.
He wasn’t worthy of Jamie, and he was overwhelmed by that thought right then.
Because she had faced him on earlier today, her eyes blazing with anger. She had demanded he tell her he didn’t love her. She had dug in and made him answer for himself. And she had stood her ground.
She was a hell of a woman, and he wasn’t worthy of her.
But he could change. He could choose.
Because if he let this go to hell, he’d have no one to blame but himself. It wasn’t the sins of Hank Dalton that had made him the man he was. It was his own fear.
And he had to choose now. Love or fear. And as he looked up into the stars, at the moon, swollen with light, even in the darkness, he knew the answer.
Because fear wasn’t the greatest, and it never would be.
No, the greatest was love.
And for him, the greatest was Jamie Dodge.
And he was going to have to do whatever it took to have her in his life. No matter the cost.
And just like that, as soon as he accepted it, all the things that he feared seemed small. Like stardust in the sky.
And he knew exactly what he was going to do.
* * *
“I NEED TO talk to you both,” Gabe said as he looked between his mother and father and saw the tension there. But it wasn’t his job to fix that. “I need to talk to you both, because we need to sort some shit out.”
“Well, if you didn’t know, we’re kind of in the middle of sorting something out ourselves,” Hank said.
“I do know,” Gabe said. “But it doesn’t separate from me. It doesn’t separate from us. And that’s the thing. All of the stuff between the two of you...it affected us. It always did. And it still does.”
“I don’t know what you expect anyone to do about the things in your life you’re unhappy with,” Hank said. “You’ve been pissy with me for months. But I can’t change the past.”
“Neither can I,” Tammy said. “But you’re doing an awfully good job of hanging on to my mistakes, when I just had to put up with yours for the past thirty-five years.”
“You hid the fact that I had other children from me,” Hank said.
“I was trying to protect my children,” she said. “Those children were a mistake, and you shouldn’t have had them. I accepted McKenna. I did it without question.”
“That you did that because you felt guilty is hardly my problem.”
They were acting like children, and Gabe didn’t have the patience for it. Not now.
“I wrote to West,” Gabe interrupted. “West Caldwell. That’s his name. One of them. I have yet to track down the other brother. When I do, I’ll let you know.”
Hank looked pale. “Have you heard from him?”
“Not yet. I don’t know if I will. He may not want anything to do with us, and I can’t say I would blame him.”
“Don’t say that,” Hank said. “Don’t make it sound like it’s our entire family. Like our whole lives together is nothing but a mess for you. We had good times.”
“We did,” Gabe said. “And what I did or didn’t do with my life...that was my choice. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Dad, I was angry at you for years for the way that you tried to manipulate me into going to school instead of ranching. And I get what you were trying to do. I even understand that it came from a place of caring for me. But it was caring for me in the wrong way. About what you wanted, and not about what I wanted. And I let that anger I felt make my choices for me. And, Mom... When you admitted that you told me about that situation because you wanted me to hurt him...I got angry at you. You shouldn’t have lied to me. You shouldn’t have kept that from Dad. But nobody chose my life for me. I chose it. The same, Dad, as you chose not to honor your vows. The same as you chose to stay, Mom. How angry can we be, for how long, about our own choices? I can’t blame other people for the shit I’ve done anymore. I’ve got to take responsibility.”
“So what are you saying?” Hank asked. “What does that have to do with us?”
Typical of his father, that he immediately wanted to know how it all boiled down to him. “I’m choosing to stay here. And to use your property to run this ranch with these boys. I’m choosing it to try and rectify some of the mistakes of the past. I’m choosing not to be angry at you both.”
He turned his focus to his father. “Dad, I thought I was scared I’d be like you, but that’s not it. I was afraid I was going to grow up and be like Mom. And stay, and stay. Let someone hurt me. But I won’t. I’m not going to let fear dictate who I am. And most of all, Dad, you were right. You have changed. You’ve changed, and Mom forgave you. I’m going to choose to do the same. I’ve got to set aside those things you did back then. Because otherwise...none of us gets to move forward. But I think you have to do the same for Mom. Otherwise, there isn’t a point. You can’t hang on to someone that you’re that angry at. It gets in the way of everything else. It gets in the way of being family.” Gabe shook his head. “We’re not a perfect family. But I think sometimes we’re more good than bad. I want to make my life more good than bad.”
Gabe stood up. “I have somewhere to be.”
“Where you going?” his mother asked.
“To get my life.”
Gabe Dalton had spent more than fifteen years believing that the restlessness inside of him could never be fixed. But now he knew.
He’d been searching for peace. For a reason to stay home. To make a home.
He’d found it.
In Jamie Dodge.
And he wouldn’t rest until he had her back.
* * *
JAMIE WAS HOT, sticky and feral by the time she got back to the barn after what had been an arduous trail ride. Not because the ride itself should have been arduous. It was for inexperienced guests, after all. But it was the dumb-ass rider she’d had on the trip that had made it a pain in the ass. There had been a bachelor party, which was unusual. It was much more common for groups of women to come to the ranch than groups of men.
But she had herself a pack of frat burros, who hadn’t listened to anything she’d said, had been intent on using bad language in front of the family on the ride, and who had gone off course and forced Jamie to go after them, and get into a screaming match with drunk douchebro best man.
She was sick of everything, and the next person who got in her face was going to end up savaged by her teeth.
Plus, everything just kind of pissed her off right now.
A side effect of heartbreak, she was realizing.
Heartbreak she was no longer able to hide. She’d been the recipient of pitying glances, threats to Gabe’s body and three pies in the past forty-eight hours. She had to admit, the threats and the pies were nice.
But they didn’t exactly fix anything.
That was what she was going to do. She was going to go shower and eat a pie. A whole pie.
She was stomping out of the barn when she nearly ran into another person. She stopped and looked up, her heart catching when her eyes took hold of an intense blue gaze that she would know anywhere.
“What are you doing here, Dalton?” she asked.
“I have some things to say,” he re
sponded.
He looked beautiful, wearing a black cowboy hat and T-shirt, tight Wrangler jeans that made her want to get her hands all over him.
She wanted to stab him with a pitchfork.
“We don’t have anything to say to each other. We’re not friends. We’re not friends and I’m never going to make you toast again.”
“I deserve that,” he said. “But the trouble is, Jamie, we are friends. We’re friends, and were a hell of a lot more. In fact, I didn’t know one woman could be so many different things. It was news to me.”
“Why are you here?” Emotion rose close to the surface. She was ready to cry again. She wasn’t even ashamed. “I told you that I love you. I put myself out there. I exposed myself, and you know that nothing in the world is scarier to me than that. You know that I spent my whole life protecting myself. Because I told you. I gave you all that information about me. You know things that no one else does, and you...you abused that. You really, seriously wounded me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was a coward—you were right. I was blaming my actions on everyone but the person who’s really responsible. Me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Go on.”
“Really?”
“You can keep on telling me how you messed up. I’m okay with that.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side.
“I messed up. You did all this work, Jamie. You figured out how to deal with the things that scared you, and fall in love, anyway, and I...I couldn’t do that. Not fast enough. You’re right. I let myself think that I was the experienced one. That I was the one who didn’t have growing to do. But I did. I blamed my parents, but I let that go. I can’t blame them, not for my choices.” He took a breath. “Jamie, I have consistently aimed beneath what I truly want for most of my life. Since that first obstacle. That first time I lost something I cared about, I haven’t tried for anything I loved again. Because I didn’t want to keep putting myself out there and keep hurting like that. Because I watched my mother do it for so many years. I buried it all. Pretended that I was like my father. Like I just didn’t care about much but me. Like the rodeo and success and anonymous sex was enough for me. But it never was. That was never me. But a coward... Yeah, that I always was. But not you. You were brave. You were brave enough to cry.”