Unbreak Me

by Michelle Hazen

  He took a long step forward.

  “You think you know me? I begged my neighbors to take care of my mama so I could come after Andra. My uncle’s been driving on bald tires for six months, and I asked him for every cent he could spare so I could get a plane ticket and not risk my truck breaking down on the way. I landed with eight bucks in my pocket, and when that wasn’t enough for a bus ticket to the ranch, I hung my thumb out to strangers.”

  He couldn’t look at Andra. It’d taken him two days of mostly walking to get through what would have been a few hours’ drive, because not too many people were keen to pick up a hitchhiker who looked like him. He’d washed the smell of those days off himself with cupped handfuls of sink water in a gas station, and he’d damned well never planned to tell Andra what he’d had to do to get back to her.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” she said, her voice so soft it ached in his ears.

  He still couldn’t meet her eyes, didn’t want to remind her of the angry words he’d thrown at her before she left New Orleans. Of what she’d said as soon as he got here. He knew if he’d called, she’d have told him to go home, but he’d dared to hope if she saw him in person, he might be able to change her mind.

  Andra reached out and took his hand. Her fingers hesitated when she felt the fresh scabs over his knuckles, and then settled even more gently over the top of them.

  LJ stopped breathing for a long moment, afraid of everything that might mean. Or might not mean. Without letting go of her, he stared down her father, because this was the truth. If that wasn’t enough to win her over, he had nothing else.

  “I put her before my pride, before my job, before my family—” His voice cracked, thinking of his mama recovering at home for the last three days without him. Andra clutched his hand, and he wondered if this would all backfire, if she’d hate him for leaving Mama in the care of their friends and neighbors. He swallowed and kept going, refusing to blink. “When you lied to Andra, where did you put her on your priority list, huh? Because it wasn’t in front of your pride.”

  Bill’s chin quivered slightly, his skin paling like he could feel the argument slipping away from him. “So you’re going to drop your sick mother and move here for my daughter, is that what you’re telling me?”

  LJ opened his mouth, and nothing came out. What could he say to that? Because no. The answer was no. He had to go back for a while whether or not Andra forgave him, and Bill was right. Mama wouldn’t move, and every time she ever called, he’d have to go.

  “Jesus, Dad! What are you saying? It’s his mother.”

  “I told you once that relationships weren’t as simple as you young people like to make them out to be,” Bill said, his tone as tired as his posture. “I told you being from different places would bring you nothing but hurt, but you didn’t care to listen. I don’t want him leaving you behind crying for him. Not once, not ever again. Where are you going to live, Andra?”

  That was the question LJ hadn’t dared to ask, but his stomach curdled as he waited for her answer, her hand in his so far from a promise it felt like it might vanish if he squeezed too hard.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not staying here. Not after everything you did behind my back.” Her voice was scathing. “Call a lawyer and have him draw up the papers. You’re buying out my share in the ranch, and I’m taking Gracie. I’ll be gone by morning.”

  Her father flinched like she’d hit him, but LJ forgot to watch the rest of the other man’s reaction when Andra turned to him instead. He stared, reeling from her pronouncement. How could she say that? The ranch was her family, her future. She’d trained or bred nearly every horse on the place. If she left, she might as well shave off her fingerprints and rewrite her DNA.

  Her eyes only met his for a second before they fell again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, for all of this.” She let go of his hand, caught her horse, and left.

  His skin was still warm where she’d touched it. She’d reached for him, in the middle of all that. He’d dared to hope that meant she forgave him, that she wanted to try. But then she just let go again.

  He glanced at Bill, only to see the older man’s face crumple. Bill turned his back, but not before LJ saw the glint of tears, heard the quick throat clear he’d used himself once or twice in an attempt to salvage his dignity in a particularly low moment. He was desperate to go after Andra, but there was no chance they could figure out a future together if he left things like this. This man was her blood.

  LJ pulled off his hat and stared up at the big Montana sky as he ran a hand over his hair, too thick because he hadn’t taken the time to run the clippers over it before he left New Orleans. He glared at the puffy summer clouds, wishing he couldn’t hear his mama’s disapproval loud and clear in his head. Once, just once, he’d like to do exactly as he damn well pleased, without her opinion playing any part of it.

  LJ crammed his cowboy hat back on his head and said to Bill, “I’ll talk to her. She’s mad, but she’ll come around. Family’s too important to throw away.” He had no idea what else he could offer to get Andra to take a chance on a future with him, but he knew he could talk her into forgiving her father, eventually.

  Bill coughed and turned so he was staring out across the acres of his own land. Not looking at LJ, but not ignoring him, either. “I appreciate the gesture, but there’s no point. If she says she’s signing over her part of the ranch, it’s as good as done.”

  LJ smiled thinly. “I meant she’d talk to you again someday. Not that she’d be on this continent when she did it.”

  Bill choked on a sound that might have been a laugh or something more miserable.

  LJ started toward the barn, then turned back. “When you gave me that choice, I should have told you where to shove it.”

  The corner of Bill’s mouth twitched upward just for a second. “Yeah. Or maybe I should have known I never needed to ask at all.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Boot heels rapped against the concrete of the barn aisle, and the horse Andra had left tied there nickered in greeting. The strides were too far apart, too quiet to belong to her father. Andra retreated farther into the tack room, dropping onto the old plaid couch between saddle racks and flinging her hat toward the microwave and fridge that marked this as the employees’ unofficial break room.

  She ripped off the corner of a feed sack to blow her nose on. Quickly, so hopefully no one would hear. The footsteps paused outside the doorway. She tried to use the waxy piece of sack to wipe her nose, but the tears just kept coming. LJ came inside and closed the door.

  He knelt down next to her, but for the first time since she’d known him, he didn’t seem to know what to say. He just watched her with an anguish in his eyes that brought a fresh wave of tears brimming to the surface.

  “I’m white, LJ.” It felt like a dam breaking to finally say it out loud. “I never felt white until I was the only one who was, and it took me longer than it should have to admit I can’t change all the things that means for us.”

  A shadow flickered across his face, but he didn’t move away. “That’s nothing new, Andie-girl. I been thinking about that since the first day I stepped foot in your kitchen.” He shook his head. “It’ll be some kind of the same everyplace I go. If I cared about that, I never would have kissed you that first time.”

  “I kissed you. It’s not like you had a choice in the matter.”

  He smiled sadly. “You just keep on thinking that, Rodeo Queen.” His hand lifted toward a stray piece of hair that had fallen across her cheek, but then fell again, the space between them remaining unbridged. “Tell me what I have to do, Andra. I’ll do it. You know I will.”

  Her breath caught hard and she shot to her feet. “That’s the problem! I’m not letting you move to Montana just so you can take all of this on your shoulders, with my idiot dad and the stupid peo
ple in town, all so I don’t have to face—”

  “That’s not why.” He rose to his full height. His interruption was quiet, but she broke off anyway, to let him speak. “I should have explained it better when you were telling me all the reasons you didn’t think I would come back to Montana. It’s just . . . I was mad and I made a mess of things.” His eyes were dark and intent on hers. “New Orleans is me—you were right about that. But it’s not all of me. There’s shit there I don’t want to deal with all the time, like hurricane season, or those reporters filming the Graviers’ old house, or cops hassling me for nothing. Sometimes I need to get out of the city and smell the pine trees, have nothing on the schedule but horses to ride.” He stroked the edge of his thumb down her cheek. “I can’t be here all the time, but I want to be.”

  She bit her lip. Everything he was saying sounded so perfect she could hardly stand to hear it.

  “You said back in New Orleans that none of this was about what you wanted,” he said, his voice that low, rumbly tone it got whenever she was upset. “What if it was?”

  She froze, her gaze locked on his chest because she was afraid to look at him.

  “You keep talking about everybody else. About the places we live, the jobs we do. I’m here because you haven’t said once that you don’t want me.” He shook his head, his voice so light, so gentle even now. “All you have to do is say it, Andra. I’ll go.”

  Her hands knotted into fists. After everything her father had just thrown at him and everything he’d gone through to get here, she couldn’t lie about her feelings. But if she told him the truth, it would only hurt him more when the world tore them apart.

  The silence stretched, every second clawing at her like the ragged edges at the beginning of a panic attack. Then LJ turned toward the door. She grabbed his wrist, hanging on with all her strength.

  “I love you.” The confession burst out of her in pure, ugly fear, because she couldn’t bear seeing him leave. It was the only reason she had left first. But once the words were out, her whole body sagged. There was no reason to try to lie now, no way to hide it. “I love you so much,” she whispered, the words catching in her throat like a prayer that was almost too sacred to voice.

  LJ took one rough breath and kissed her. His hands trembled where they cradled her face, and she covered them with her own, her heart pounding so hard it was like it wanted to break out of her chest and beat within his.

  “God,” he gasped against her mouth. “That scared half the life out of me. I thought you were going to tell me no.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and shook her head against his chest. “Never. It’s everything else that I’m not sure about. You’ve never been the problem.”

  He kissed her forehead, her hair, laughing like it was the only way to handle the same relief that was making her giddy. “You just disowned your daddy over me, sweet girl. I think I might be the problem.”

  “Because he’s a jackass.” She scowled, burying her face back in his chest to soothe herself with the scent of him. “Not your fault.”

  “Well, it’s still something we’re going to have to deal with if we live here. And I think we should.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned, but she was smiling, too, because she was back in his arms again and everything felt better there. “So you’re a gold digger after all. I should have known. The prettiest ones always are.”

  LJ didn’t laugh. He pulled back and ducked his head to catch her gaze. “If we leave now, it’ll fester. You’ll start to miss your dad, but when you call, it’ll be awkward. All this’ll be sitting under the table every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, and he’ll hate me a thousand times more than he did before.” The corner of his mouth kicked up. “But if we stay right now, when he’s feeling sorry and small, he’ll end up kissing my ass for the next decade to make up for it.”

  She blinked as she tried to determine if he’d just said what she thought he had. He winked, and she burst out laughing. “LJ Delisle, you ought to be outlawed.”

  He shrugged one thick shoulder. “Your daddy ain’t cruel. He’s just ignorant. One’s no better than the other, but the second can be fixed.”

  “But what about New Orleans? I mean, not just your mom, but your home.” She caught his hand, her eyes dropping. “I wish we could have had more time there. Seemed like with the people who didn’t approve of me, I never made a dent in changing their minds, but when it was just me and you or Tash and Ty, I loved that place. As much as I love the ranch, though for different reasons.”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly, “I been thinking about that.” He straightened to his full height. “My mama’s never going to kick lupus for good, Andra, and she won’t even talk about moving up here with me. Claims she doesn’t need any help.” He shook his head. “But it seems like neither me or you fits just right in one place, so maybe we ought to live in two.”

  Her brow creased, even as hope fluttered in her throat. “How? We’re horse trainers, LJ. It’s not exactly a mobile profession.”

  “Right. So when Mama needs us, maybe we trailer a big load of horses down to my uncle’s ranch outside New Orleans. Do our training there for part of the year and take turns looking out for Mama.” He tried out a smile. “Horses may be heavy, but they are portable.”

  She hesitated. “I mean, of course we could work them just as well there, but that’s a lot of moving stock around.”

  “Sure, if you look at it that way.” He played with her fingers. “But most horses get all their training in one place, and then they go bug-eyed when you try to stuff them in a trailer and go to a show. Lawler horses are bred to show, and that means travel. What if we raised them that way from the start? Get them used to trailers and being ridden in new places.”

  The idea tugged at her. From a training standpoint, it was a unique idea, one so effective and bizarre that only LJ would propose it. It felt unexpected and right, just like the first time he walked into her kitchen.

  “Do you think we really could?”

  “I think I’d train horses on the moon if that’s where you wanted to live,” LJ said. “Though that whole gravity thing might turn out to be a problem.”

  She started to laugh, and he kissed her right in the middle of it, so her smile got all tangled up with his, the warmth in her chest rising until she wasn’t sure if it was his body heat or the flood of her own relief. She wrapped her arms around him and gripped the back of his shirt, knuckles throbbing with the ferocity of her hold. She didn’t have to let go. Thank God, she didn’t have to let go.

  “I was just trying to do the right thing when I left,” she whispered. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I know, sweet girl. I know it.” He kissed her again, and she stopped worrying that it was all about to be over, and melted into him.

  When they eventually parted for air, she let him go just long enough to lock the door. Not that it would help much, since all the employees had a key. LJ must have been thinking the same thing, because he took a tack trunk and shoved it in front of the door. She grabbed his wrist and tugged him backward until they hit the plaid couch. A button popped off his shirt when she pulled it off his head, and he threw it aside as she went after his jeans. LJ kicked off his boots and lay down, Andra snuggling into his chest.

  She couldn’t believe he was really here, that LJ had followed her thousands of miles north, even knowing that when her father found out, it would cost him his job.

  She laid a kiss on his shoulder, his collarbone, his strong throat. Taking her time and enjoying him the way she hadn’t gotten a chance to in his backyard shed. The feel of his body was so much more than she would have known to wish for. Thick muscle with just the right amount of cushion to make it comfortable to curl against him, yet firm enough he always felt steady. Powerful, but in a casual way that was so quintessentially LJ.

  Her hands roved down his body, slow
ing to stroke more gently when she reached his erection. She loved this part of him. The gorgeously smooth skin, the way it filled her hand. The way his desire translated so honestly through it that she could see how much he wanted her. All that time when she’d been yearning for him, wanting more and afraid to take it, she’d been certain that was the one part of LJ that would always scare her. But there was no part of him that didn’t love her, and that made fear impossible.

  LJ slipped his hands under the back of her shirt. “I want to feel you against me,” he whispered. “I don’t think anybody’s going to come in here, but I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.”

  “I want you.” It was the most truth she could pack into three words, because love could be a knife that never stopped twisting, but she’d chosen him over her father because she didn’t just love him. She was going to do something about it.

  He undressed her.

  She relaxed more with every layer gone, with every time his hands came back to her skin. This was exactly what he’d been doing since the day their eyes had first met. Stripping away her reserve, her fear, and her doubts with every one of his smiles and winks and laughs. She melted into his hands and knew that for all the years of her life, this was the place she’d been heading toward.

  His breath came out on a groan that sounded like her name, and she inhaled the scent of leather and horses that surrounded them, perfectly at ease.

  Andra curled her hips against him, pleasuring herself even as she enjoyed him lengthening for her, his desire rising to meet hers. She slipped a hand between them and wrapped her fingers around the thick base of him, loving the way his head fell back on a quiet moan. She braced a knee on the couch and lifted herself up until the swollen head of his cock was poised right at her entrance, teasing the hollowness inside her that squeezed and begged, waiting for him.