Easy shifted to lean against the door frame, taking a little weight off his bad hip. “I can’t believe you’ve got kids. It makes you seem... grown-up.”
Guthrie flicked a scowl over him before turning his attention back to the saddle in front of him. “I grew up pretty quick. I didn’t have much choice.”
Feeling the sting of those last words, Easy drew a deep breath and smelled dust, leather and old wood. There was hay at the far end of the barn, stalls that needed mucking and feed for the horses—all familiar smells that brought back fond memories. They made him feel homesick, not for a place, but for a time.
But they couldn’t go back in time. The best he could hope for was an adult version of the best years—and friends—of his life. At the moment it didn’t look encouraging.
Seeking another reason to break the silence, he glanced around and caught a glimpse of the horses outside in the corral. “Buck looks good.”
“He is good—the best I ever had.”
“Remember the day I brought him home? When we unloaded him from the trailer, everyone scattered for the nearest fence.”
“Except you.”
Easy smiled faintly at the memory. Buck had been wide-eyed and terrified that cold January morning. All he’d ever known from the humans in his life was pain, and he hadn’t expected anything else from Easy. He’d done his share of harm to the men foolish enough to think that training a horse meant breaking his spirit, and he’d been ready and willing to defend himself that day. It hadn’t been necessary.
“You bet twenty bucks that I couldn’t calm him,” he said quietly.
“And Shay bet twenty bucks that you could.” Slowly Guthrie turned, leaning back against the bench. Face-to-face, the tension between them seemed to double in intensity. “Were you involved with her then?”
His fingers clenching the cane tighter, Easy resisted the urge to hedge. “I was in love with her,” he admitted, his gaze steady and unflinching. “We hadn’t done anything about it.”
“And when did you do something about it?”
“The day we left.”
“So you were in love with her at least four months, and you never slept with her, never kissed her, never did anything? ” Guthrie sounded skeptical and looked it, too, as he shook his head in disgust.
“I kissed her once...on her birthday. I never touched her again until the day we left. How could I? She belonged to you.”
“Yeah, right.” Guthrie’s snort was scornful. “That didn’t stop you from running off with her.”
Easy pushed away from the door’s support and crossed half the room before stopping. “I came here for the wedding fully intending to watch her marry you, and then I was going to leave and never come back. But that day... I saw her alone for the first time in six months, and she—We—” He took a ragged breath. He was none too proud of what he was about to say, but it needed saying. “She would have gone through with the wedding, but I couldn’t bear it. I begged her to leave with me—to leave you for me. I know it was wrong—I knew it when I did it—but I loved her and wanted her, and I didn’t give a damn who got hurt if I took her.”
After a long hard look, Guthrie turned back to the saddle. “Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How do you do that? How do you tell your best friend you’re in love with his girl?”
Abruptly Guthrie turned to face him again. “You don’t fall in love with your best friend’s girl—not if you give a damn about that friend.”
“You think I did it on purpose? You think I chose to betray you like that? I would have given anything to not love Shay. I would have given everything to not do that to you. It wasn’t my choice. It just—” His shrug was helpless, exactly the way he’d felt that day fourteen years ago. Helpless and frightened and ashamed...and relieved. So damned relieved that he wasn’t losing her. “It just happened.”
His words didn’t ease Guthrie’s skepticism. That was clear in his expression, his voice, his impatient gesture. “You loved her so much, but you couldn’t marry her. You couldn’t be faithful to her. You couldn’t help but break her heart.”
Regret warmed Easy’s face and tightened his chest. “You’re right. I did hurt her. I just didn’t seem to be able to stop it. Every time things got really good between us, I’d think of you and—It was wrong for us to be together, wrong for us to be happy when we’d had to hurt you to do it. So, since you weren’t there to punish us, I had to do it for you.”
All the fights they’d had, all the tears she’d cried, all the times he’d tried to drink away his guilt. It was a wonder anything had survived. They’d had so little good and he’d created so much bad. But he still loved her. She still wanted him. They had a chance, if he could put the past, and Guthrie, behind him. “For whatever it’s worth,” he added as he rested his hand on the saddle beside him, “I was never unfaithful to her. She knows that now.”
Guthrie’s gaze dropped to the saddle and Easy’s hand. Resisting the urge to hide it, Easy left it where it was and let him look. He looked, too, rather than see the emotions—disgust, pity—that were sure to be on Guthrie’s face. “Sometimes when I see that hand, I think it can’t possibly be a part of me,” he said with a little less bitterness than he usually felt. “But when it hurts, I feel the pain. When it can’t do something, I get frustrated. It’s mine, all right—the whole two worthless fingers.”
“I was sorry to hear about the accident,” Guthrie said quietly, and when Easy risked looking at him, that was all he saw—regret. Not pity. Not disgust. “Elly says you can’t work with horses anymore. I’m sorry about that, too.”
“That was all I ever wanted,” Easy murmured, raising his hand, turning it to look from different angles. “To marry Shay, raise horses, raise kids.”
“How many fingers you have doesn’t have anything to do with marrying Shay or raising kids,” Guthrie pointed out.
“I don’t deserve her.”
“You think I deserve Liv?”
“Yeah, I think you do.”
“Lucky for me, she agrees with you.” Guthrie’s smile faded as quickly as it had come. He picked up the saddle, snagged a bridle from a hook on the wall, then circled around Easy on his way to the door. There he turned back. “For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think there’s any need to punish anyone for anything. I’d say we’ve all suffered enough.” He looked away, then back and said the best thing he could have said—words Easy had needed for fourteen long years.
“If you love Shay and she’ll have you, marry her and have those kids. Mine need someone to play with.”
Chapter 9
Shay woke early Saturday morning, but not early enough to catch Easy asleep. Though the room was cold—they’d opened all the windows in the house last night to air out the smell of fresh paint in the kitchen—he stood at the window, wearing jeans and nothing else. He was staring out with that same wistful expression he’d worn when she’d found him watching Pete Davis’s horses at her house Thursday night. She knew without looking what gave him that look—the empty corrals, the ramshackle barn. The broken-down home of his broken-down dreams.
Wrapping the blankets around her, she left the bed to stand behind him. His back was cold. Even the denim against her legs was cold as she opened her covers, then wound both arms and blankets around him. He cupped his hands over hers, turned his head to press a kiss to her forehead, then directed his attention outside again.
“Where is Gambler?”
The muscles in his back tensed, and the pressure his fingers exerted over hers increased fractionally, then relaxed. “He’s at my uncle’s place in Texas.”
“Why don’t you bring him here?”
The tension returned and stayed. “I can’t.”
Couldn’t bring him? she wondered. Couldn’t care for him? Or couldn’t bear to see what he’d done to him? “Well, then, Jeff Hendrix has a couple of paints for sale. Why don’t you talk to him?”
“What would I do with
a horse?” There was a sharp tone to his voice—edgy, almost fearful. It made her ache deep inside to think of the rash, reckless cowboy she’d loved for so long now afraid to be around a horse.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, then a little lower. “Maybe train him. Maybe ride him. Maybe just admire him.”
“I can’t train them anymore. I can’t ride. And I don’t want to admire them.”
She tucked the covers into his hands, freeing her own hands to stroke his chest, to unfasten his jeans and slide inside for an intimate rub. “Who says you can’t ride?”
“I can’t even walk—” he caught his breath in a sharp gasp “—worth a damn. How in hell could I ride?”
“You’re walking better every day. Besides, walking involves weight-bearing muscles, joints and bones all working together. Riding involves sitting.” A major oversimplification, she knew, but considering how he was responding to her caresses, she didn’t think he would notice.
“I...I can’t.” His breathing was ragged, his body rigid. “I can’t.”
“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right,” she murmured before kissing his ear. “I think someone famous said that.”
He yanked her hands free, shucked his jeans, then turned so she was perched on the windowsill, her legs around his hips, as he sank deep inside her. For a time he simply stayed there, his cheek resting against her hair, and then he gave a great sigh that shuddered through his body into hers. “You’re the best part of my life.”
“I know,” she agreed without smugness, because he was the very best part of her own life.
“And I know you mean well, but you’re wrong.”
“Wrong?” Experimentally she rocked her hips along the length of his arousal. “Does that feel wrong?”
“No. Hell, no. But you told me yesterday that I have to accept myself the way I am. Not able to work with horses is the way I am.”
She rocked against him again, sending shivers through them both. “No, Easy. Afraid to even try—that’s what you are. You were afraid to try to make love with me, and look how well it turned out. You were afraid to talk to Guthrie, and that was great, too. Now you’re afraid to even get near a horse. You’re so afraid of seeing exactly what you’ve lost that you can’t let yourself see what you might still have.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Prove it.”
He slid his hands to her bottom and thrust deeper inside her. The angle and position were just different enough from lying in bed that his hip didn’t hamper him at all. It was only a few minutes before he finished in a slow, lazy climax perfectly suited to a chilly Saturday morning, and only a moment later that she joined him.
She started to lower her foot to the floor, but he caught her leg, curving his fingers to the back of her thigh, flexing, massaging, caressing. “I don’t have to prove anything,” he announced.
“You and I have spent half our lives proving everything. When did you change?”
He ignored her question—and her point. “The simple fact is—”
“Gambler should be here with you.”
Shadows turned his already dark eyes practically black. “And what would he do here?”
“I imagine the same thing he’s doing in Texas. Laze and graze and take life easy.”
Slowly he let her leg slide to the floor, then pulled away from her, letting her keep the blankets for herself. While holding on to her, he had maneuvered a few feet away from his cane. Now he took one tentative, halting step, then another, to reach it. It was the first time she’d seen him walk at all without it, but he didn’t seem to even notice.
He walked—beautifully, impressively naked—to the doorway, then turned back. “I don’t want any horses here,” he said flatly.
“Then what about cows?” she called as he disappeared into the hall. “You can raise cattle without ever getting on a horse.”
His only response was the closing of the bathroom door. She listened to the shower come on, then tucked the blankets tighter and turned to look out. The main corral was in pretty decent shape. It was overgrown with weeds, but the fence, for the most part, was intact. There were a few boards down here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be easily fixed. The barn looked pretty shabby and might not survive next spring’s storms, but for now it would probably keep the rain out and provide decent shelter in the stalls that opened off the corral.
The place needed stock—horses, cattle. Hell, maybe even llamas. Whatever it would take to get Easy out of the house and into life. But he wasn’t going to get them on his own. He was probably satisfied with the hfe he’d confined himself to, especially now that sex was a part of the bargain. He had no reason to change anything—no reason to expand his life outside these four walls.
Unless she gave him one.
There was no way she was going to contact his parents herself, but they would probably be thrilled to hear from Guthrie. Betsey and Bud had loved him like a son, and they’d hated her almost as much for hurting him as for seducing sweet, innocent Easy. If she told them that she thought it was important to bring Gambler to Heartbreak, they would—well, they’d do nothing, because they would never stay on the phone with her long enough to hear her out. But if Guthrie gave them the same message, they would be more than happy to tell him where the horse could be found and to arrange for him to be picked up.
And once they got the quarter horse here? What if Easy continued to insist that he didn’t want any animals on the place? What if he refused to take care of Gambler? What if the guilt of seeing his beautiful, beloved horse crippled at his own hand was more than he could bear?
Maybe she should back off. Maybe, if she gave him time, he would come around. After all, when he’d first come here, he hadn’t given a damn about anything. Now he wanted the house fixed up and he wanted her at his side. Maybe, eventually, he would feel the urge to make repairs and put the ranch to good use again. Maybe, after a while, he would want to start living a real life again.
And maybe she couldn’t wait that long.
He returned from the shower, his hair combed straight back, a towel knotted modestly around his waist. “You planning to sit there naked all day?” he asked as he took clean clothes from the dresser and the closet.
“I might. You have any better suggestions?”
“Not at the moment. Ask me again after breakfast.”
She watched him get dressed. He was slower than he used to be, but there was nothing wrong with slow and methodical. He realized she was watching when he started to tie his work boot and gave her a mocking smile. “Hard to believe I’m the same man who could expertly truss a calf quicker than most people blink, isn’t it?”
“But you’ve got the belt buckles, the bank balance and the newspaper stories to prove it.” She paused before asking, “Where are the buckles and the stories?”
“At Mom’s house. I didn’t need any reminders of what I used to be. She did.”
Shay felt a surge of anger at Betsey Rafferty. If she’d been more accepting of Easy’s injuries, perhaps he would have been, also. If she’d encouraged him to get out, to do things, to make an effort to fit in and feel normal, maybe he wouldn’t have come here to hide alone for the rest of his life.
“She meant well,” Easy said as if he’d read her thoughts.
“She always did. Like every time she tried to convince you to dump me. Every time she insisted I was no good for you. Every time she invited you to visit but made it clear that I wasn’t welcome, too. She always meant well, Easy. It’s just that she meant well for herself. It was always her welfare she was concerned about. Not yours. Certainly not mine.” She tasted bitterness and tried to swallow it away. “In the end, she won. You dumped me.”
“The end hasn’t come yet, darlin’. I’m here. I intend to be here forever.” He finished tying the second boot and let his foot hit the floor with a thud. “So much for the fastest hands in the West.”
Her smile was
sweet, warm and felt damn near womanly. “Who cares about the fastest, cowboy? Slow hands and a gentle touch have a hell of a lot to offer.”
“Want to prove it?”
She walked to the bed where he sat, bent low to brush her lips across his, then dropped the covers in a pile around him. Sashaying across the room as naked as he’d been earlier, she stopped in the doorway and smiled back at him. “Ask me again after breakfast.”
After a quick shower, she dressed and joined him in the kitchen, where a pot of coffee was brewing. The morning light through the windows glinted off white cabinets and sunny yellow walls and made the appliances, the countertop and the floor look ancient in contrast.
“We’ll do the floors last,” she remarked as she retrieved two cups and spoons from the dining room. “I’d recommend white countertops and replacing or reconditioning the appliances.”
“Why don’t you buy new ones?”
“Why don’t we? Let’s drive into Tulsa today—” The wary, stubborn look that came into his eyes made her break off and take a breath for patience. “Easy, this is your house. I’m perfectly happy to give advice, but you should make the decisions yourself. You’re the one who’s got to live with them.”
“You’ll have to live with them, too. You’re going to marry me one of these days, remember?”
“If you become marriage material, remember?”
“And to do that, I have to be willing to make a spectacle of myself.” His voice was sharp with loathing for the idea. “I have to be willing to go to Tulsa with you and let people stare at me—or, worse, ignore me altogether because they can’t bear to look at me.”
The coffee maker stopped percolating, and she poured two cups of steaming coffee, then left them to cool. “No, Easy. You have to be willing to live a normal life.”
“This life is normal.”
“Hiding in your house? Seeing nobody but me and occasionally Joelle or the Harrises? Relying on me and five-year-old Elly for your social life?” She gave a shake of her head. “Easy, this life isn’t normal for anyone, certainly not a healthy grown man.”
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