by Toni Aleo
He nods. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No, ya should have,” I answer before kissing Belle’s nose. “I know what they’re saying in the papers.”
“But they’re not true.”
I make a face as I shrug. So, he didn’t believe them. That’s good to know. “They aren’t all lies either, though.” I can feel him watching me. “I’ve been to the clinic. Actually, I went the day after I was with you.” He doesn’t answer me, and when I look up at him, his face is stone. “Everything came back negative, but I had a reason to go.”
“I was the reason?”
“No,” I say quickly, looking away. “I slept with someone the night before you, and I didn’t remember it.” I meet his gaze once more as my face warms. “I remember going back to the penthouse with him, I just don’t remember the act.” He looks away, nodding. “But Jackson, when ya asked, I should have told ya that, not freaked out the way I did. So, I’m sorry. I’m guessing I am a bit of a hoor.”
His gaze bores into mine. “You’re not, and stop thinking that way. It’s beneath you.”
My heart’s in my throat as I whisper, “Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s bullshit, and stop using that as a reason to justify your actions. You know you’re not a whore, and I know it. So stop using that. You’re just lost.”
“What?” I ask breathlessly, my eyes so wide they hurt.
But he shakes his head. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What?”
“Can you leave?”
“Um, yeah, I guess.”
He nods before mounting Belle, and when he looks down to me, I just gaze up at him in all his glory. While the maroon work suit isn’t that sexy, I still think he’s stunning in it. “Where are we going?”
Reaching down for me, he says, “Do you trust me?”
Taking his hand, I nod. “Yes, I trust you.”
He pulls me up onto the horse with him. As I wrap myself around him, I feel his heat, setting me on fire as I take in his masculine smell.
“All right, hold on to me.”
So I do.
Lena is wrapped around me, and I’m trying to think of everything else other than taking her right here on the back of this horse.
As we ride, our bodies moving together with each gallop, I can’t help but take in the beautiful scenery. The sky is the most gorgeous shade of blue, and everything is so lush. A light drizzle has started, but it’s nothing to worry about. Or at least, I don’t worry. Lena might since today she looks more like the portrait than ever before. She doesn’t say anything, though, her head resting on my back as her hands hold me tight around my waist.
Her apology was honest.
But it wasn’t enough.
I want more.
When I cut right hard, Belle adapts like a champ. We go around the whole castle, to the back of the land where the day before I had found an amazing little spot. When I see it, a grin pulls at my lips as I slow Belle down, clicking my tongue to her. “Attagirl.”
When she comes to a stop, swishing her tail before shaking her head to clear out her mane, I lovingly tap her neck. “Good girl,” I whisper before I get off. Looking at Lena, I reach up to help her down.
But her eyes are trained on me. “You’ve ridden before?”
“Oh, yeah. I have my own girl at home,” I answer as I put her to her feet. “Manchester is her name, and she’s beautiful.” Soon I’m pulling out my phone, showing her the picture of Manchester and me right before I left.
“Oh, she’s stunning.”
“She is,” I say with a grin. “I miss her.”
“How long did you say you’s been gone?”
“Over a year now.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, it’s been awesome.” Stepping away from Lena, I reach for Belle’s reins to tuck them into her harness so they aren’t in the way as she feeds. Tapping her hind leg, I walk past her and point over to where some trees have formed into almost a bench. “Over here.”
Lena looks and then smiles. “There are stories about this part of the land.”
I look back to her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, they say fairies live here.”
“Fairies?”
“Yup.”
“Little humans with wings?”
She giggles. “Yeah, honestly. They made this. And all this tall grass is the fairy homes.” I look around, and she’s right. There is tall grass and then some cut grass. I’m not sure why, but before I can ask, she goes on, “The saying is, if the grass grows quicker and higher than the rest, with a slight slope, it’s a fairy home. Ya cut it, yer in for a world of hurt.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the last man that cut the homes fell off his mower, and it ran over him.”
I scrunch up my face. “You’re a liar!”
“No, honestly. No one will cut it since. And it never grows any higher. Just like this. It’s a home for the fairies.” She walks past me, inhaling deeply. “Ya smell the honey?”
I do, and when I look to her in amazement, she smiles. “There aren’t honeysuckle bushes around. It’s just the way the fairies smell.”
“Crazy,” I draw out, and she nods.
“Me ma used to tell me that this little bench is a bench for thinking,” she said, going around the “fairy homes” and sitting down slowly, testing the strength of the wood.
Following her lead, I look to her. “I stepped through this yesterday.”
Her eyes widen. “And ya aren’t dead? Jaysus, they must have felt bad for ya since yer not Irish.”
I smile as she grins back at me. She looks majestic sitting there. Her hair is so light and long down her back. It has started to fall out of the bun she had, and I can see more of the color. “Ma said the fairies made this for people to come think of their transgressions and to fix them the best they can. I actually forgot it was out here.”
I sit down beside her and take it in. “It’s beautiful here.”
“It is,” she agrees as she swallows. We sit for a moment, the sounds of the lake behind us. A few geese are back there, and I think I just saw a frog. “So ya forgive me?”
I look back at her, and I shrug. “I was never mad.”
“Ya should have been.”
“No, I should have waited until we were in private to ask. I have a tendency to lose all sense of, I guess, sense when I’m around you.”
A little smile pulls at her lips. “Still, I was a bitch.”
“You were, but it is what it is,” I answer, leaning on my legs, careful not to toe the edge of the fairy home. She has me on edge. I really don’t want to die here. “I just wish you’d calm it with the whore bit.”
“It isn’t a bit.”
“I think it’s a cover. Oh, I act this way, let me say I’m a whore so you’ll feel bad for me.”
She glares at me. “That’s not what I’m doing at all.”
“I don’t think you’re meaning to,” I say then, meeting her heated gaze. “I think you have so much going on inside of you that you don’t know how to process it all. Which leads to the excessive drinking and the drugs—and men.”
“Ah, so you’s read the papers.”
I shake my head. “No, I won’t. And I won’t listen to the people around town. I want to know everything from you. From your mouth. I don’t care what anyone else says. I care what you say.”
“Then how do you know about the drinking, drugs, and men?”
I give her a blank look. “You came into my bar, you were hopped up on something, and you picked me up while drinking whiskey with a hangover. I’d say that hits all the points.”
She looks away, visibly humiliated. “Think ya know me, then?”
“I know absolutely nothing,” I answer just as a sigh escapes my lips. “Other than we have some pretty great sex, and I want to know everything about you.”
Her head whips around, looking over at me. “Ya do?”
“I do.” I look out at the little lake as the
silence stretches between us. I don’t want to ask her anything. I want her to give up the information herself, and I want her to trust me. “Do you ride Belle a lot?”
I watch as she shakes her head slowly. “This is the first time I’ve ridden her in almost three years.”
“You should do that daily.”
“What?”
“Ride her. It’ll help you.”
“Help me?”
“Yeah, with whatever is bothering you.”
I can feel her staring at the side of my face, but I don’t look at her. “Ya don’t have a clue what’s bothering me.”
“I don’t,” I agree.
“So how do you know it will help?”
“Because riding my girl at the time, Juicy Drop, was my saving grace.” I meet her gaze then, her eyes bright and her cheeks a little rosy. I almost can’t believe I’m doing this, but she needs to know this. “I didn’t grow up in Canada. I was actually in America.”
“Oh,” she says, an inquisitive look on her face.
“Not by choice,” I say simply, and I look down, lacing my fingers together. “My dad was a really powerful and wealthy man. He had a few IT start-ups that went global, and my mom was his assistant. That’s how they met. After a night of passion, boom, here I am. My mom and dad were married for about six years before everything went to shit. When I say shit, I mean, shit, shit. They fought all the time, and not just screaming, it would come to blows. When my mom decided she couldn’t put up with it anymore, I was relieved because I certainly couldn’t handle it. I was just a kid, barely eight.”
Pausing, I look at her out of the corner of my eye to see she is waiting on my every word, her hands in her lap as she watches me. “So my mom wanted to leave. He said leave, but when she tried to take me, he wouldn’t let her.”
“No! He kept you?”
“Yeah, for six years he kept me out of her reach and fought her in court like no other. He had everyone paid off to look the other way, to say my mom was crazy, that she was on drugs and all kinds of other stuff. I didn’t see her or even speak to her for that time. I really didn’t speak to anyone, not even my dad because I was so mad at him for what he was doing to me. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be with my mom.”
“Of course, you were a wee lad!”
I swallow hard, nodding. “Toward the end of my stay there, I got more aggressive and started to fight him. He’d beat me into the ground. He even tried to sell my horse once, but she was the only thing that kept me going. I was able to ride her, I was able to love her and talk to her. I told him I’d kill myself if he took her. So he didn’t.”
Blowing out a breath, I close my eyes as I lean on my legs. “During the time I was gone, my mom met and married Tom, my stepdad. They had two kids, but she still fought to get me back. After taking out a second mortgage on their house, they were able to hire a PI—”
“What’s a PI?”
I look to her. “A private investigator.”
“Ah, an eye.”
“Sure,” I answer, my lips quirking at the side. “To come and see the conditions I was living in to build a case against him. But before the PI could even get there, I found my dad dead in his study from a heart attack.”
“Oh my,” she gushes, covering her mouth. “Ya found him?”
“I did, dead as a doornail. And when I started to cry, it wasn’t because he was dead but because I knew I’d be going home.”
“I don’t blame ya a bit. I’d do the same.”
“Right,” I agree. “So, I finally got to go home. I was with my mom, Tom, and my two brothers—who, let me tell you, are train wrecks, but that’s beside the point. But being home, I didn’t feel settled. I always felt on high alert. Even though my father was dead, I was worried he’d come for me. So I worked my ass off, I did everything so that when I turned eighteen, I could leave and hide. Always be on the move. But then my mom got sick.”
She looks alarmed. “She’s fine now, though?”
“Yeah, she’s been cancer-free for the last two years.”
“That’s wonderful,” she says, and I can see the longing in her eyes.
“It is,” I agree, leaning back on the bench, and it creaks a little with my movement. “So that postponed my trip. But when I finally did leave, I was in heaven. What I didn’t expect was for a check to arrive in my name.”
“A check?”
“Yeah, from my dad. It was dated to the day I turned twenty-one with a note that said he was sorry. A huge check.”
“Guilt money.”
I nod. “Exactly.”
“Did ya burn it?”
I laughed. “Can’t burn over six million dollars. Don’t think my mom would let me.”
Her eyes widen. “No, I’d say not.”
“I went everywhere instead, and still, I’m traveling. Loving every minute of it. I thought being on the road, running constantly, would make me forget the pain of what he did, but it doesn’t. I see that money in my account, I can see the note in my head, and I remember everything he did. But I have to remind myself that he can’t hurt me. He’s gone. No one can hurt me but me. You know?”
When I glance over at her, her eyes are watering, but she is trying to hide it. “So yer a wee bit well-off, yeah?”
I smile. “Some would say so.”
Biting her lip, she asks, “So you’re happy, then?”
“I am,” I say before I reach over, cupping her face. “Especially when I’m with you.” When I catch her chin between my thumb and forefinger, I see her eyes light up, a grin covering her sweet face. But soon the grin is gone as she moves out of my hold, looking out at the field where Belle is grazing. She doesn’t say anything, she just sits there, and I’m unsure what she is doing.
Unable to take the silence anymore, I say, “Have you run through the field here?”
Her brows pull together as she looks at me. “What?”
“Run barefoot through this field. It’s like a cushion.”
I stand, toeing out of my god-awful boots, and I’m met with her laughter. “Yer crazy!”
“No, come on. Let’s run!” I start to take off, but when I look back at her, she isn’t moving. Stopping, I throw my hands up. “Come on!”
“I’m wearing these dumb shoes.”
“Kick them off.”
Her eyes burn into mine, and I almost don’t think she’ll do it. To my surprise, she does, kicking them off, and then she’s sprinting toward me. Laughing.
Laughing so beautifully it hurts.
Running ahead of her, I hear her catching up with me, and I can’t believe how amazing this is. Between the soft ground and the grass tickling my toes, I think I’m in heaven, but it’s her laughter that puts me there.
Stopping mid-stride, I turn to her, gasping for breath. “This isn’t a fairy home, right?”
She doesn’t even look around. “No! It’s all back there.”
“Great,” I gasp before I fall back into the grass, throwing my arms above my head and bringing in a lungful of air. The grass is a little wet, but I don’t care. It’s like falling into a pillow. When she drops down beside me, I can’t help the grin that pulls at my lips. She’s only a foot away, but still, I want her closer.
But not yet.
Lena looks to me, a little grin tugging at the side of her mouth, and I reach out, taking her hand in mine. “You’re really beautiful, Lena.”
Her mouth turns up even more as she looks away. “I look like a pretty princess with me hair like this. They wanted to put makeup on me. Just to sit in the house. Jaysus.”
When she looks back at me, I smile. “I think you’re gorgeous no matter what.”
Biting her lip, she tangles her fingers with mine. “Can we stay a bit? Right here?”
I nod. “As long as you want.” But then I look at my watch. “Actually, I have two and a half hours before I have to be at the pub.”
“But you’ll stay with me till then?”
My heart skips a bea
t at the pure need in her eyes. It isn’t even a sexual need, just a girl not wanting to be alone. And since I happen to like the girl, a lot, I don’t mind at all lying in the grass with her. “I will.”
Putting one arm behind her head, she exhales loudly. She looks unbelievable with her hair all splayed out in the grass, completely out of her bun now, and her chin tipped up at me, but her eyes are closed. Her lashes kiss her sweet cheeks, and I love how her lips part just a tad.
She’s stunning.
“Hey, Jacks.”
“Yeah?” I ask as she opens her eyes to meet my gaze.
“Do ya work at the stables tomorrow?” When I nod, she asks, “Will ya ride with me tomorrow?”
Fighting back the urge to get up and fist-pump, I smile. “I’d love to.”
“Thank you.”
She closes her eyes once more as I tip my face to the sun, just as my lips curve up into a grin. With my thumb moving along hers, and my heart pounding loudly, I know that this is, by far, the best part of my trip.
Not the Colosseum in Rome or Notre Dame in Paris. Not even the London Eye or the many things I have done in between.
No, it is lying in the grass on a Monday afternoon.
With Lena.
I can’t stop thinking about him.
All night long, I tossed and turned, just seeing Jackson’s face and remembering how freaked out he was about the fairy houses. It made my day. I couldn’t get enough. When we got back to the stables, I expected him to kiss me, or at least want to go back to my room or something, but he just sent me a grin and took Belle with him. I was a little taken aback, but then, maybe he isn’t interested anymore.
That doesn’t feel right, though.
I see the way he looks at me. The way he holds my hand.
No, he’s interested, so I’m not sure what is going on.
But I’m excited to see him.
Braiding my hair as I head out of my room, I can feel a small smile on my face. I shouldn’t be smiling, though. I have stupid tea with the Fadmish ladies, and then the doctors are coming to see Ma today. We’ll find out if she is having the surgery sooner rather than later. As I head down the second flight of stairs, a door opens and Meredith steps out, an iPad in her hand.