Sam folded her arms over the top rail and rested her chin on her wrist. She liked the sight of her sister working hard at something, even if it was only keeping her heels down at a slow walk. She liked the barn smells, hay and dust and horsehide. She liked the contrasting beauty and simplicity of this place; the fancy siding on the walls as backdrop for the manure piles. It was windier here than in town, the breeze tugging her hair loose from its braid. She closed her eyes, let the sun warm the lids, let herself relax and bask a moment.
She heard the grass brushing against someone’s feet before a voice called out to Emmie, “Em, can I talk to you when you get a chance?” The words were polite enough, but the tone was cold.
Sam’s eyes snapped open and slid over toward the elegant brunette standing beside her at the rail. Tonya wore a long skirt with boots, a sweater and chic black trench. Her sunglasses alone probably cost more than Sam’s entire outfit.
“Sure,” Emmie called back, and began reeling the line in, pulling Sherman and Erin in toward her. “Hey, let’s step over to the rail for a minute,” she told her student, and something about her voice was wrong suddenly.
Sam swallowed hard and braced herself just before Tonya’s sunglasses turned toward her. “I haven’t seen you here before,” she said like she wished that were still the case.
It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to remind the woman that they’d gone to elementary school together. Instead, she replied just as coolly. “My sister and I are new here. My boyfriend and Emmie’s husband are friends–”
Tonya made a derisive sound. “God, you’re with one of those bikers?”
Emmie was walking toward them, towing along the horse. “Tonya, I’m coming.”
Sam stared at the spoiled woman-child’s white face, her flawless complexion, her designer everything, her red lipstick sneer. She’d never done anything like it in her life, but in that moment, she couldn’t contain the venom boiling in her blood. Just once, it would be nice to have the one-up on someone. Just this time, it’d be good to be the one to drop a bomb.
“Yeah,” she said, raising herself up, hands clenched on the rail. “I am. Actually, I’m with the biker who dropped you like a hot rock for being a heartless bitch.”
Oh God, she’d actually said it. The word bitch had left her lips. She thought she might faint; she wanted to smile.
Tonya’s perfect brows lifted above her lenses. “Aidan? Then take it from me, honey, and make sure he wears a rubber. He did tell you what happened between us, didn’t he? He got me pregnant.”
Everything stopped. Her heart, her lungs, her mind. Time. All of it ceased to function, as if a switch had been pressed. Funny, some distant voice in the back of her conscience thought. When your life derailed, wasn’t there supposed to be an awful crash? A terrible screech? Record scratch effects and gasps and sudden ugly sobs?
Instead there was this vacuum, this emptiness, the farm fading to a white blur, Tonya nothing but a black coat and glasses in front of her.
“Oh, he didn’t tell you,” she said. “He didn’t tell you he was going to be a dad. That asshole.”
Emmie’s voice seemed to be coming down a tunnel. “Tonya!” It was furious, but it was so far away. “What are you – oh shit. Sam? Sam?”
Why was she calling her; she was right there, holding onto the…
Wait, no. No rail. Nothing in her hands. Nothing but air. She was…
The jarring impact of her ass hitting the ground snapped her teeth together. She bit her tongue and it was the hot copper taste of blood that jerked her out of the void. She was sitting in the grass, numb head to toe, and she couldn’t pull in a breath.
Emmie hopped the fence, still holding the longe line, and crouched in front of her, snapped her fingers. “Sam? Hey, it’s alright.”
No. It wasn’t anywhere close to alright.
Aidan. Her Aidan, who she’d kissed and hugged and slept with; who she’d confessed her love to, entrusted her heart with. Aidan who she’d hesitated to trust, since the beginning, since that first walk to the vending machines. But who had persevered, convinced her, made her fall for him…And beneath all of that, their fragile, tender beginning, a lie that was a life, growing in the belly of another woman.
~*~
“Sam.” Emmie gave her shoulder a gentle shake and got no reaction. She sat there splay-legged like a broken doll. “Shit.”
Management mode. Emmie turned to Erin. “Scramble down and come help your sister. There’s cold drinks in the fridge in the tack room. Get her one.”
Erin, eyes big, nodded and awkwardly dismounted, hopping the fence. Her young voice was high and scared as she said, “Sam. Sam! What’s wrong?” She glanced back at Emmie. “Is she sick? Should we call nine-one-one?”
“No, she’s okay,” Emmie assured. “Take her up to the barn, get some Coke in her, and she’ll snap out of it.” She knew from personal experience that this was the calm before the emotional storm, that initial shock that scraped you clean inside.
Sam had described Erin as “at that age” where she hated every voice of authority, even if those voices belonged to loved ones. There was nothing of hatred in the girl now as she took her sister’s arm and pulled her to her feet. Sam moved like a mannequin, and Erin clenched her hand tight.
“Sam? Sam, come on, we need to go inside.”
How sad that it took a shock to bring a bratty teenager to her sweet side.
Emmie made sure the sisters were well on their way to the barn before she rounded on her star student. “What in the hell did you say to her?” she snapped, surprising herself, surprising Tonya, if the woman’s expression was anything to go by.
“Excuse me?”
Oh yeah. Tonya was used to having her ass kissed. Emmie flushed hot with anger, head-to-toe, and it was nothing like the impotent fury of the majority of her life. This wasn’t the blind, grappling sense that she could say nothing, do nothing, must only nod and say “yes, ma’am.” No, this was clear-edged, focused anger, backed by the knowledge that she half-owned this farm with her husband; knowledge that he would calmly and completely devastate anyone who dared set her off. She’d always had convictions; now she had support, and that was a deadly combo.
“No, Tonya,” she said. “Excuse you. What did you just say to her?”
The air between them crackled with a new electricity. Silence. Then an awareness, a quiet understanding that the balance had shifted.
Tonya collected herself – she always was the picture of decorum, after all – and calmed her tone. “She indicated that she was dating Aidan. I wanted her to understand what she was getting into.”
“And that is?”
“That Aidan got me pregnant.”
Holy fucking shit.
“Clearly,” Tonya continued, sighing like this was all so burdensome, “he hasn’t told her. And according to his sister and stepmother, he wants the baby. So the dumbass was going to bring the damn baby home and then tell her? Fool. The poor girl needed to know she was being lied to. I just did her a favor. Aidan Teague is a disease.”
A dozen thoughts collided in Emmie’s head. Aidan and Tonya? Pregnant? Did Walsh know? Why hadn’t he said anything?
“Tonya,” Emmie said through her teeth. “A little advice. It’s not polite to drop bombs on people like that.”
Tonya shrugged. “It’s not like I set out to. She started it.”
Emmie bit the inside of her cheek to keep her temper in check. She sighed. “So you’re pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And Aidan is the father.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were engaged to that banker guy.”
“I am.”
Was this bitch for real?
“That’s why I came by,” Tonya said. “I wanted to turn in my thirty day notice. I’m going to be moving Chaucer to Glenda’s barn.” That would be Glenda Demarco, the premiere trainer in the greater Knoxville area. “She’s going to keep him fit while I’m unable to ride.�
�� She said the last with obvious irritation.
Emmie should have felt punched. Tonya was her highest level student, the one who made her look good as a trainer. She had plenty of youngsters who would eventually grow into the role, but for the moment, Tonya was the only superstar. Losing her, and her family’s patronage, should have been a real blow.
But in this moment, Emmie was one-hundred-percent a Lean Dogs old lady, and she felt like taking care of her own.
“You aren’t keeping the baby?” she asked, appalled by the notion.
“No. I was going to find an agency to place it, but according to Aidan’s family, he wants it.”
Holy shit again. Emmie didn’t envy Sam right now. Not at all.
~*~
Erin was being so sweet. Sam couldn’t comprehend it. She curled her hand around the cold Coke can and struggled to understand why Erin, of all people, was staring at her with concern and love.
“Sam?” her sister whispered in a small voice. “What’s wrong?”
The room made sense around her, then. Cheap table and chairs, equestrian photos on the walls, fridge and microwave and space heater. She was in the office at Briar Hall Stables, where she’d taken her sister for her first riding lesson. Where Tonya Sinclair had just informed her that…
A raw, ugly sound tore from her throat and Erin jumped.
“Oh God,” Sam whispered, hand tightening on the Coke until the can flexed.
“Are you sick?” Erin asked. “Do I need to call Mom?”
Yes, she was sick alright. Sick enough to think that Aidan had ever loved her, that he’d been honest with her. All those times he’d looked troubled, been stuck in his head – they made sense now. He’d been preoccupied with this. This child he’d kept from her.
Erin stared at her, working her hands together, face screwed up with worry.
Emmie came barreling into the room, curly blonde hair flying loose from her ponytail, expression a photocopy of Erin’s.
“Sam,” she said, voice sorry, appalled, sympathetic. “I had no idea. I swear. She just now told me. I had no idea…”
Sam stared down into her lap.
He hadn’t trusted her with this knowledge, hadn’t told her.
And she loved him…
Twenty-Three
Running the numbers in his head was stressing him. Would she need a wedding? A big party? Would she need a new house? Kitchen shit? Yard shit? Aidan was scrambling in his head, trying to decide what it would take to make Sam his long-term. Forever. He had to tell her about Tonya, sure, but that wasn’t the only concern. There were other domestic things to consider, for his domestic girl. Who loved him.
She loved him.
The thought was a rhythm inside him, driving him through his work day, making him smile for no reason.
He stood leaning against the siding of the bike shop, taking a smoke break, when Walsh appeared, jogging toward him. Something was off about the Englishman’s demeanor, as he drew close.
Aidan pushed away from the wall, body vibrating. “What?”
“Brother,” Walsh said, gravely. “You have a problem.”
~*~
She was going to cry, and she really didn’t want to, which made her eyes sting all the more sharply. Sam sat at the kitchen table, the same table where her father had once sat her down, as a naïve thirteen-year-old, and explained men to her.
“Pick a good one,” he’d told her. “You’ll know him when he looks in your eyes. You can’t hide a false heart, Samantha. Never forget that.”
But love didn’t always differentiate false from true. And it hurt like hell.
It was starting to get dark, the light fading beyond the small square windows in the back door. Erin was upstairs doing her homework, after trudging away with obvious reluctance and concern. Sam wanted to savor this very human response in her sister, but she was too full of needles and ice, too breathless. Mom wasn’t home yet, so for the moment she was alone.
And then she heard the bike approaching.
Her tear ducts reacted straightaway and she clamped down on them hard, forcing her emotions to freeze. No, she thought. Don’t let him see you cry.
Four seconds after his engine shut off, his knock sounded at the back door. Frantic, desperate.
“Come in,” she called.
Aidan entered in a flurry of cold breeze, his eyes dark and wild, his hair mussed from his helmet.
“Baby,” he said, and she almost broke down.
Almost.
Sam stared at the bank of cabinets opposite her.
“Walsh said…I know what happened…” He was gasping. “Tonya…”
The name made her flinch, before she could catch herself.
Aidan saw. “Sam.”
She extended a hand toward him, a staying gesture, with an open palm. “Don’t come over here.” Her voice was frail. “Please. Don’t touch me or I won’t be able…” She couldn’t finish, throat tightening.
He circled the table so he stood on the opposite side, inserting himself into her nice safe view of the cabinets. His face was awful, open and vulnerable and full of grief. He knew. He was going to hash this out with her, but he already knew what she’d decided. “Won’t be able to what?” he asked quietly. “I want to touch you.”
Sam dragged in a breath. “She said you’re going to keep the baby yourself.”
His throat rippled as he swallowed. His eyes glimmered. “I haven’t made any kind of–”
“That’s good. A baby should have a father. God knows Erin might have turned out better if she’d had a chance to know our dad.”
“I–”
“You’ll have to give up your apartment, probably. Unless Tango’s going to help out. That would be nice. Uncle Tango.”
“Samantha.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tears flooded her eyes, blurred his face across from her. “I asked you so many times what was wrong. I knew you were preoccupied and worried.” She sniffed and had to dash at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I…” He struggled for words, his voice clogged and heavy. “I was…shit, Sam, I was afraid. I thought if I told you you’d walk away.”
“What were you going to do?” she asked through her tears. “Wait until it was born and just bring it home one day?”
“I thought you liked kids.”
She bit her lip, pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. “I do. You know I do. That isn’t the point.”
“You don’t want my kid,” he guessed.
Flooded with a burst of anger, she slapped her hands down on the tabletop. “Of course I want your kid. I love you, Aidan. Why wouldn’t I want it?” She needed more air, and it was so hard to pull it into her lungs. “If you’d told me from the beginning, if you’d let me know up front…But you lied to me,” she ended on a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Completely miserable, he dragged out a chair and fell into it. “Sam,” he said helplessly. “I didn’t…I couldn’t…”
“You chased after me when I wanted to run away, but you couldn’t tell me.”
His big dark eyes, always so sharp, mischievous, and cutting, would haunt her for months, the total open devastation in them, the glazing of tears. “It doesn’t change anything that happened with us. I chased you because I wanted you. You, Sam, and nobody else. Everything we did, everything we said, I was there.” He took a big breath. “I’m all in, baby. All the way. I swear to you.”
Sam stared at him a long moment, gathering her spilled tears with her fingertips, getting her breathing under control. “Do you love me?” she asked.
His eye contact never wavered. “Yeah. I love you.”
It gave her a small strange comfort that it had taken a moment of high emotions to bring those words out of him. They hadn’t been said glibly just before a kiss as a way to lure her. She didn’t doubt their sincerity.
But she doubted completely his ability to understand that with love came a responsibility. When someone gave you her h
eart, you couldn’t drop it carelessly in a lint-filled pocket and treat it like something disposable. The lack of consideration cut her to the quick.
One more big breath. She didn’t try to keep the emotion from her voice. “I saw her today. Tonya. I saw her with all her expensive finery, cold as marble, heartless and bitchy and cruel, not caring even a little bit about the baby she’s carrying…and I think about that baby being yours, about a piece of you inside that woman. I don’t care if it’s old fashioned – it breaks my heart to think that she’s the one having your baby. To know that you had to have her before you finally saw me…”
He reached across the table. “Sam.”
She leaned back. “And then you couldn’t even be honest with me. You don’t love me enough to tell me about your child.” She shook her head. “Club life is dangerous, and I know you’re at risk. And you’re having a baby, and I can accept that; I can love it, because it’s yours, and because it’s an innocent in all this. I can take almost anything, Aidan, but I can’t take knowing that you’re going to jerk me around.”
“I’m not doing that. Not on purpose.”
“But don’t you get it? You can’t blunder through life one accident at a time. I won’t let myself be another of your accidents. When are you going to grow up? When the baby comes? After? Never?”
He shoved up from the table and rushed around it to get to her. She tried to leave her chair, but he was on her, lifting her up and enfolding her in his arms, trapping her against his chest. He smelled like the garage and the cold November sky outside, and she almost allowed herself to slump against him.
She stayed stiff, though.
They stood there for what felt like a long time, his ragged breath stirring her hair, his heart pounding against her breasts.
“No,” he whispered. “Sam, no. Don’t do this, baby. Please.”
She started crying again, unable to stop herself. “You have to grow up,” she whispered back. “I love you, and I don’t know how not to love you, but God, you have to straighten yourself out, Aidan. If you can’t do it for me, do it for the baby.”
Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) Page 26