Unbreak Me

by Michelle Hazen

  What bothered her was how easy it was. He’d invited himself into her kitchen and her life from virtually his first day on the ranch.

  “You took this job for the horses, right?” Her voice came out a little faint, and she opened her eyes to see him frown at her.

  “I certainly didn’t take it for the pension plan.”

  She bit her lip, hesitating. Watching her, his expression changed.

  “Ah.” He laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, darlin’. You were something else, riding that fancy stallion like you both belonged in the Olympics. But it was Taz who ran away with my heart that first day. That and all this.” He nodded toward the window. “Big sky full of second chances.”

  Her stomach twisted, uncertain whether she was relieved or offended he hadn’t taken the job because he wanted to pursue her. Then the second part of his statement caught her, and her eyes narrowed.

  “Do you need a second chance?” she asked slowly.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” He flicked off both burners and stepped close to her all in one smooth movement. One hand landed on the refrigerator, above her head; one on the counter, next to her hip. He was near enough to let her feel his body heat, but not caging her in. She could step out from under his arm easily, and with a surge of her pulse, she almost wished she couldn’t. LJ stood so close his body was her entire world. Cozy but thrilling. She wanted him pressed against her so she could drown in that bizarre reaction, breathe it in and glory in it.

  He ducked his head, his drawl a lower pitch than usual. “What’s on your mind, beautiful?”

  She could only blink, as if steam were effervescing out of the air between them and she couldn’t quite see.

  “You keep asking all these questions.” He licked his bottom lip, a quick slick of tongue over that mouth of his. “Why don’t you ask me what you’re really wanting to know?”

  “The cooking lessons.” Her mouth was so dry she had to swallow before she could continue. “Was that flirting? Is that why you offered in the first place?”

  His hand dropped, the inside of his wrist warming her shoulder as he opened the fridge. Taking her other shoulder, he spun her around. “See that?”

  She stared, puzzled. Milk, orange juice. Cheese and eggs and containers of leftovers and some lettuce that was starting to go off.

  “That’s what a fridge is supposed to look like.” He let the door fall closed. “I like you.”

  She didn’t move. He was right behind her, the closed fridge giving them no excuse to keep looking in its direction. They were too close for anything except hugging, her bottom so near the front of his jeans that she couldn’t even shift her weight without touching him. This was the point where she should pull away.

  He tapped one finger against the fridge door. “I would have done that much even for somebody I didn’t like. As for the rest?” His knuckles skimmed down the back of her arm so lightly that the rough yarn of her sweater woke up her entire body, her skin rippling with goose bumps. “Now, that might be flirting.”

  “Might be?” she asked breathlessly.

  His breath stirred her hair, as if he’d bent a little closer. “Depends on if you want it to be.”

  She knew the exact instant he backed away. It could have been the faint change in temperature, or the creak of the floor, or something else an instant before those things registered. She inhaled.

  “Until then, no.” LJ put a new pot on the stove. “It’s not flirting.”

  He must have cranked up the thermostat too much, because beneath her clothes, she was sweating. She turned to stare at him, fighting the urge to gulp air. He knew, damn him. He’d known exactly what his nearness was doing to her. “If that wasn’t flirting, what the hell was it?”

  He flipped a dish towel to hang over his shoulder, but the laugh she expected never came. “Hope,” he said.

  Eleven

  LJ climbed the stairs in the Lawler house slowly, the stir-fry he’d made with Andra sitting heavy in his stomach. He should have made this visit the day after the rodeo. Hell, a real man would have done it after their first cooking lesson, when he made spaghetti and Andra made him forget that anything in the world mattered beyond getting her to smile. The steps seemed to waver under his feet, and deep down, he knew exactly why he hadn’t done this sooner.

  The top of the stairs led to a long hallway, the golden pinewood floors softened by a scattering of Navajo rugs. When Stacia had answered the door to the main house, she’d told him Bill Lawler’s study was the fourth door on the left. She’d also said she’d have a whiskey waiting in the kitchen for him when he was done. And some towels to mop up the blood.

  LJ stopped, his shoulders twitching under the too-crisp fabric of his fresh shirt. Stacia’s teasing hadn’t exactly eased his nerves. He’d come here to make a good impression, and he knew what a long shot that was. What a long shot he was.

  Every place he’d ever been, people’s eyes had made assumptions about him. Teachers thought he’d be disruptive and probably slow. Coaches thought because he was tall, he’d like basketball. Cops thought he was either coming from making trouble or headed to make some more. He’d left New Orleans for a better job, sure, but Montana was also supposed to be his chance at fresh eyes.

  His chance to meet people who’d see how curious and willing his horses were, instead of frowning like his uncle and saying his way took too long. People whose hands wouldn’t tighten on their purse straps when they saw him, their eyes dropping to the sidewalk too fast to catch his friendly smile.

  He hadn’t expected the change to happen overnight, though, and he hadn’t won himself any ground by arguing with Bill at the rodeo. He already had an uphill climb to endure with whatever conclusions Bill had drawn about LJ: whether they were because of the color of his skin or the fact that the older man’s head barely came up to his shoulder and Bill was used to being the top dog on his own ranch. Or maybe because he was a man in his twenties, like Andra’s attacker must have been.

  The problem was that when somebody treated him differently, he could never be entirely sure what part of him it was they didn’t like, so it always ended up feeling like all of him.

  LJ started down the hallway. His mama hadn’t raised a coward, even if his toes fidgeted with every step.

  When Andra said her father thought she was leading LJ on, the old anger had boiled in his chest, and he hadn’t cared about his new start. He cared that she believed he had something different to offer. But if he didn’t convince her father of the same, he wouldn’t be around long enough to see if he could prove her right. And back home, he was going nowhere.

  LJ stopped in front of the fourth room on the left, his hands flexing at his sides. He balled one into a fist and used it to knock on the door.

  A low chuckle sounded from beyond. “Stacia, if you tempt me with one more piece of that blueberry pie, the only horse that’ll be able to carry me is a Clydesdale.”

  LJ opened the door. “Not Stacia.” He stood tall, trying not to think about the price of the thick rug he stood on. “I was hoping you might have a minute free so we could talk.”

  Bill Lawler stared at him from over the top of plastic drugstore reading glasses. Slowly, he swung his chair away from the desktop monitor so he faced the door. “Why don’t you have a seat.” He pulled off his glasses and tossed them onto the desk.

  Bookcases lined the room, most of them stuffed with old ledger books, vet manuals, and trophies. So many of the latter they were crammed in by layers instead of displayed one by one. Atop each one, golden horses gleamed tauntingly.

  To get into another stable with a record like the Lawlers boasted, he might be looking at ten years of lunging horses for minimum wage before he could do any real training. God, he didn’t want to go home—back to holding manure rakes at the City Park stables and busboy tubs at night.

  LJ crossed the room, ducking as h
e passed beneath a low-hanging chandelier of elk antlers. The big leather chair huffed beneath his weight when he sat down. This whole house felt solid, safe from howling hurricane winds and softened with country touches, like horses were a way of life for everyone. Not just for the people who could afford the City Park stable fees.

  He took off his hat, exposing the close-cropped hair he’d freshly buzzed before he came over. He’d bought a set of clippers before he moved up here, knowing there wouldn’t be a barber for miles that would know what to do with his hair.

  LJ turned his hat in his hands, then settled on putting it in the chair next to his. “We got off on the wrong foot the other day, but I wanted you to know I didn’t mean any disrespect toward you or your daughter. I was just—” He searched for how to explain the reasoning behind his particular brand of lowbrow humor when it came to Andra. “I think people are too careful around her sometimes. I think it makes her feel uncomfortable.” But no, that wasn’t quite right. “Or left out, or something.”

  LJ tried not to wince at his fumbling. His debate coach from college would be so depressed by his performance right now. When he was debating anything he cared about, he got too impassioned and forgot to use his prepared points or to school his accent.

  Bill’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “I doubt the lack of flirting around the stable yard is what makes her uncomfortable.”

  “I don’t make her uncomfortable.” Shit, why had he said it that way? “Sir,” he tacked on. “She likes me.”

  Bill’s bushy eyebrows shot up.

  “I mean, what I meant to say was we’ve become friends. That’s all.” As true as they were, the words tasted like a lie. That hadn’t been all they were since way before she’d kissed him. He wanted to know her, and it was a weird, mixed-up wanting that wasn’t exactly about sex or romance or even friendship. It was more he wished she were permanent, like family. Wanting her in his bed was only a part of that huge, wordless dream.

  LJ waited, inhaling a breath that smelled smooth like leather polish. The familiar scent should have put him at ease, but instead he started to sweat in the hollows where his arms were pressed against his sides.

  Bill leaned forward again, picking up his reading glasses and folding them, then tapping one end on the desk. “LJ,” he said. “Do you think you’re the first man who’s stepped onto this ranch and fallen boots over Stetson for my daughter?”

  LJ’s muscles clamped hot over his bones. “No, Mr. Lawler. I do not.” He doubted he was even the fortieth man to look at Andra and decide he never wanted to look away. But he came here tonight because she’d looked back. With dilated green eyes and her chest heaving for air beneath that old pink sweater as she asked him if he was flirting, her gaze unable to tear itself away from his mouth even as she said it.

  “In college, Andra was . . .” Bill started, his body going tense. He glanced toward the bookshelves and cleared his throat.

  “I know, sir.”

  “You do?”

  “She told me.” LJ shook his head. If he was going to have any chance at winning this man’s respect, he needed to stick to the truth. “Some, anyway.”

  Bill’s chin ticked up. “I expect you read the old articles about it.”

  “I didn’t.”

  They stared at each other. Hazel-green eyes to brown, and LJ would have ripped out his own lungs before he’d have blinked.

  Bill finally nodded. “Okay. Either way, you know my daughter needs to be able to relax when she’s home at the ranch. What she doesn’t need is a bunch of cowboys sniffing after her, hoping to coax her into bed.”

  “With all due respect, what your daughter needs is not for everybody to treat men like something so terrible she stiffens up every time she sees one. All you’re showing her is that she should be afraid.”

  Bill’s nostrils flared, and he dropped his reading glasses. “And I suppose you’re suddenly the expert on what she needs.”

  “It’s not like that.” LJ shot up rifle-straight in his seat. “Sir, all I want is to do my job.” One more breath to keep his voice precise and even. “And a chance to prove that your daughter is always safe with me.”

  Bill’s fists clenched so fast the paper of his desk blotter crumpled and tore partially free. “Safe? The first time I caught you alone with her, she wasn’t even breathing, she was so scared. She hadn’t had one of those attacks in months until you came around. You have no clue what you’re sticking your nose into.”

  Bill glowered across the desk.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” he went on. “I see how you look at this ranch.” His eyes narrowed, the creases beside them fanning out to show all the years he’d spent riding under the brutal Montana sun. “You come here and see a beautiful young girl—vulnerable, lonely. And you think you can charm your way into a permanent position on a ranch you could never afford in two lifetimes.”

  The air in LJ’s lungs scorched his cells, boiled up his throat. He’d never given Bill a single reason to think he was using Andra to secure his job here. If anything, spending time with her had endangered his position. But this wasn’t about logic. This was about an overprotective daddy who had hardly spoken to a black man before and decided after one glance that he wanted better for his little girl.

  LJ’s hands locked on to the armrests of his chair. He could snap the thick wood beneath this leather and toss it to the ground, flip the heavy mahogany desk onto its side with only one hand. Let this self-righteous asshole know exactly how dangerous he could be.

  Which would also prove to him exactly how much he couldn’t be trusted. “I would never—”

  “Prove it.” Bill’s eye twitched as he sat back in his desk chair. “You want this job? On your own damned merit?”

  LJ stuffed his festering anger down deep and nodded.

  “You can keep working here, or you can try and date my daughter. Not both.” Bill’s hazel-green eyes went hard. “If what you want is a career here, then you earn it honestly, by showing me with hard work and years of loyalty that you’re an asset to the ranch. And if you want my daughter, you get your own job and support yourself without her family money paying your bills.”

  LJ couldn’t even blink. The closest show barn of this caliber was hundreds of miles away, not that it mattered. The Lawlers were the only ones in the business willing to pay a novice trainer enough that he could send anything home to help his mama with the bills. He would know: he’d spent three years before this working on his uncle’s ranch and searching for a better job anywhere in the country.

  The hard truth was that horses were a rich man’s hobby, and he’d never be a rich man.

  LJ tried not to picture his mama’s expression when he had to come crawling home because he got fired. She had no problem railing at him about burning the soup or getting up late for school, but when he really disappointed her, she went quiet. Like she was confused because she truly believed in him. When he failed, his steel-willed mama lost her stride a little bit.

  But this wasn’t an ultimatum; it was a trap. If he kept working on the ranch, Bill would fire him either for getting too close to Andra or for the first tiny mistake he made. And if he chose her and quit, he’d have to go so far away he couldn’t afford to travel back to see her.

  “I understand,” LJ said. And he did. He grabbed his hat and left the office with his head high and straight.

  He understood that nothing he said and nothing he did would change what the man behind that desk thought of him. And it made him want to burn the entire world down, with himself howling in the center of all of it.

  Twelve

  Andra pulled her feet up onto the narrow bench in the dressing room and hugged her knees to her chest. She glared at the clothes crowding the hooks on the wall and falling onto the floor of the tiny department-store cubicle. This was ridiculous.

  No, riffling through her own closet this
morning had been ridiculous. She’d never noticed before that every shirt she owned had either a horse printed on it or a horse-related stain somewhere. Or both. Mostly both.

  The sun hadn’t even risen when she realized she couldn’t stand to wear a single thing she owned. Had she always looked this sloppy? She used to have a whole section of her closet for fun and flattering non-work-related clothes. Now she had a single dress, which she pretty much only wore for funerals.

  Grabbing her keys, she’d texted her dad that she was taking the day off and headed for her truck. She was in the mood to feel pretty, damn it, and how could she do that while wearing a shirt marked with green horse slobber?

  This morning, it’d made sense. Now she was staring at a lot of shirts in styles that hadn’t even existed the last time she went shopping, while her mind chased its own tail in a dozen different circles.

  She yanked out her phone, but her list of frequently called numbers was painfully short. She wasn’t talking to her dad or brother about this, no way, and Stacia would think she was insane. All the other numbers were for ranch employees, and for once, her problem had nothing to do with a horse.

  She chose a name, hit “Call,” and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “’Lo?” LJ answered, managing to make the single syllable sound warm as the southern sun.

  “I need you to do that thing where you make everything seem simple.”

  He laughed. Was it a little strained, or was that her projecting her own mood? “Ah, I don’t know if I’m so good at that today.”

  She hesitated. “Is everything okay?”