“I’m a bad penny that keeps showing up in your life at odd times, Mattie, and I’m damned sorry I’ve hurt you. You’re the last person who deserves that from me.”
“But you didn’t see your pattern,” she pointed out gently. “For you, abandoning another person was normal.”
“I see it now, Mattie. I really do.”
“So when you said you’re home for good, I believed it when you arrived here after your enlistment was up in the Marine Corps. But later, you suddenly took off again. You quit your wrangling job and you moved without explanation to El Paso.” Her brows drifted downward, her voice lowering. “And now you’re back. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be until you suddenly up and abandon us again.”
Pain drifted through Mark’s chest. “I know I’ve hurt you, Sage, and my friends, Mattie. I never meant to. But something … came up five months ago. I had to go do it. And I can’t tell you anything about it. I’m sorry.” He held her gaze seeing the suffering in her eyes. “It wasn’t planned, believe me. I did intend to stay here after leaving the Corps. I was saving money so someday I could put a down payment on a small house here in Van Horn. I had dreams for the first time in my life, but they got blown away by that job offer.”
“I wish you could tell me what happened, Mark.”
Hearing the pleading in her voice, he winced. “I can’t, Mattie. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Wyatt thinks you were on some black-ops assignment.”
He sat back in the chair. “I can neither confirm nor deny that, Mattie.”
“Now you sound like my big brother,” she muttered defiantly.
“I’ve come home, Mattie. For good. I know you don’t believe it. But I’m out to prove it to you.” He sat forward, elbows on the table, holding her petulant stare. “You have always been the most important part of my life, whether you knew it or not. Will you let me back into your life just one more time?”
CHAPTER 5
When Mattie looked into Mark’s eyes, she felt a surge of hope. The dreamer in her wanted to shout, “Yes!” But the wounded woman who had often been left behind, was cautious. For a few minutes, she said nothing, absorbing his words and the energy between them, now crackling with tension.
At last, she spoke. Her voice was rough with emotion as she whispered, “How can I be sure you’ll stick around this time, Mark?” He gave her a tired smile, recognizing the distance between them and the work he’d have to do to convince her of his intentions.
“Time will show you that, Mattie.”
“But I’m afraid to reach out to you again, Mark,” she admitted, honestly. “We had such big dreams in high school. A year before you left for the Marines, we were discussing marriage. And then you up and left Van Horn out of the blue without ever telling me why. I thought I was your other half, someone you trusted with your darkest, deepest secrets. But when it came right down to it, you left me out of any decisions. What was I to think about that?”
He dragged in a harsh breath, holding her shimmering gaze. “I was just too damned young and immature at the time, Mattie. It’s not an excuse. I own what I chose to tell you then, and I admit that I was wrong. Believe me, no one’s sorrier than I am that I mishandled the situation.”
Mattie sat quietly, watching the play of emotions on his face.
“It wasn’t until I was twenty-one that I saw how thoughtless I’d been where you were concerned. I guess I considered you as collateral damage in my messed-up life.” He grimaced and looked away, frowning. Then, his voice shaking with regret, he added, “My hatred for Jeb spilled over into my attitude towards those around me, and that included you. I didn’t abuse you physically, but I sure as hell hurt you emotionally. I actually abandoned you just like Jeb abandoned Sage and me. The difference was, he didn’t want us—but I did want you.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she sat before Mark and saw how agonizing it was for him to say these words to her.
“Look, the reason I left town at eighteen was because I had to get away from Jeb or I was going to kill him. I had to get away before that day came. And believe me, it was coming.”
Mattie’s eyes widened as he continued opening his heart to her. It was as if he couldn’t stop, once he began. “Mark, you never told me all this before.”
“Hell, Mattie! I was so fed up with Jeb’s beatings, the hatred was eating me alive. I even dreamed of killing him with my bare hands.” He flexed his fist. “I couldn’t take seeing him one more day, Mattie. It wasn’t you who drove me off, it was my fear that I would kill him and be sent to prison to die. His life wasn’t worth my freedom or my own life. So I left.” He gave her a sorrowful look of apology.
“Then, you really didn’t abandon me,” she said thoughtfully. “You left because you were afraid you’d do something terrible to your father. Okay, I can understand that. I just wish you could have told me all of this at the time, Mark. Then, I could have seen your actions differently. You know I always had your back, even when we were two immature teenagers.”
He pushed his fingers through his hair in an aggravated motion. “I’ve had a good ten years to think about what I did to you—to us. For the longest time, I’ve wanted to tell you all this. I did the best I could at eighteen, but obviously, it wasn’t near good enough.”
“When we were together, you never spoke of things like this, Mark. Why not?”
“Because being with you, Mattie, was like God’s gift to me. I didn’t have to be tense, on guard, watching for Jeb, or keeping him away from Sage. With you, I could relax. You made me happy. I needed what you gave me with your smile, your jokes, your laughter. You lightened my load, and I’m not sure you knew that, but I want you to know it now.”
She stood up, pushing the chair back. “This is a lot to take in,” she protested. “I sort of feel overwhelmed by it all, Mark.”
“I guess I’m like a sinner going to confession,” he muttered, giving her a tender look. “I’ve been carrying it around for a long, long time.”
Her fingers tightened on the back of the chair as she stood there staring down at him. How fragile he looked. Mattie realized that he was trying his level best to be honest and vulnerable with her. That was a first. “I need time to feel my way through all of this, Mark.”
“Yeah, I dumped a helluva lot on you tonight,” he admitted sourly, standing and placing the chair beneath the table. “I didn’t mean to drown you with it.” He picked up his Stetson, ready to leave.
“It’s okay. I just need time to let it filter through me. A lot of this I didn’t know.”
Cocking his head, he held her confused gaze. “Take your time. There’s been a lot of water under our bridge, Mattie. I’m sorry I never shared any of this with you before. You have no idea how many times I drafted letters and emails to you trying to explain why I did what I did. I wanted to tell you that you weren’t the reason I ran away.” He snorted softly. “I threw all my efforts away into the waste basket or deleted them because I do better if I can talk to you face-to-face.”
“Okay,” she said, trying to drag in a full breath of air, her heart pumping hard with shock. “Is that why you came here tonight? To confess all this?”
“I guess I did. I honestly wanted to thank you for tending my broken arm, to let you know I was better, and see how you were doing. I didn’t mean to blather.”
“It’s all right.”
He hesitated and then settled the Stetson on his head. “I’m going to call your dad when I get back to my hotel room and see if that job is still open. If it is, I’ll drive out and see Hank about it. If not, I need to start scouring the area for a job of some sort.”
He pulled out a pen and small pad of paper from his shirt pocket. Leaning down, he scribbled out some numbers. Straightening, he said, “That’s my new cell number, Mattie. If and when you want to see me again, please call me, okay?”
Mattie knew just how much courage it took Mark to say that. He was leaving the ball in her court, not his. He
was assuming that she wanted out of their relationship. But she could see in his eyes a small glimmer of hope that his choices hadn’t completely killed their once powerful connection.
“I’ll call you,” she whispered. “I don’t know when, Mark. I just need to process all of this, and it’s not easy … you’re not easy …”
“I know,” he rasped. “I’ll let myself out. Thanks for the great meal and pie. You’ve always taken care of me, Mattie, even when I didn’t deserve it. Goodnight …”
*
January 25
Mattie couldn’t sleep worth a tinker’s damn. She tossed and turned in her old, pink flannel granny gown. It was hardly glamorous, but it did keep her warm on a cold winter’s night. Snuggled in her comfy queen-size bed, covered with a goose-down comforter, her mind raced back and forth over Mark’s many admissions, trying to unearth what was beneath these revelations. Was this all simply an apology? Or something more?
Meanwhile, her heart was bouncing all over the place. First, she felt pure euphoria, then found herself plummeting into the depths of fear.
Mark had seemed so sincere. But his life had been one of undercover work, and she knew from what Wyatt had told her that he also had PTSD. Even her brother had it, so she had some inkling of how it played out.
Worse, Mark’s hatred for his father was so profound that he’d actually thought of killing him! Mark had never indicated that he was capable of taking his father’s life in all the years they’d shared together. That admission had been a shocker to her.
Maybe that was what bothered her the most—the fact that she really didn’t know Mark as well as she’d thought she did. When it came to him sharing his darkest human emotions, he hadn’t confided in her. That was what had hurt her so badly at eighteen, and now, finally, nearly eleven years later, he was finally telling her about them.
But it was too many years too late. Now, Mark was asking for a chance to get to know her again. But what did that mean? Was he talking about forging the same kind of friendship they’d had before? Or something more serious and intimate?
Her mind whirled with so many questions and no answers that it began to ache. Finally, Mattie got up around one a.m. and took two aspirin. She had to ask herself, What do I really want from Mark? Shuffling around in her sheepskin moccasins, she walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.
Turning, she rested her hips against the counter, grateful for the small, electric hurricane lamp in one corner of the living room. It shed just enough light to prevent her from bumping into a piece of furniture.
She stared sightlessly into the grayish cast of the living room. What did she want? Mark was so badly damaged that he could probably never change or get better at communicating with her. Could he? Would he become better at sharing with her the dead serious things that ate at him? Because Mattie needed that kind of openness and trust between them. Tonight he’d suddenly blindsided her with the truth and she was finding that it wasn’t very comforting.
Right now she didn’t trust Mark at all! Words were cheap. Actions spoke louder than words, and she knew it. But with all Mark’s flaws, she loved him. That love had never been uprooted, despite his departures, his harsh childhood, and his secretiveness.
Mattie suspected the reason she had cycles of depression was because of her precarious relationship with him. She knew she had a tendency to stuff her darker emotions into a deep, dark hole. Maybe she was just as guilty of hiding her emotions as he was? And maybe? She needed to come clean herself.
*
January 25
Mark found Hank Lockwood out in one of the big barns, opening up several bales of alfalfa in order to feed his brood mares in their large, roomy box stalls that were nearby. He’d called earlier and driven out at nine in the morning to meet with his friend, trying to tamp down the urgency he felt to get the job that was still available. Mark saw the fifty-one-year-old rancher straighten and walk down the concrete aisle way between the box stalls to where he stood.
“Hey,” Hank boomed, grinning. “Welcome home, Mark!” He thrust his gloved hand forward, gripping Mark’s.
“Thanks,” Mark said. “You’re doing real wrangler work, Hank.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, releasing his hand. “Pepe was indispensable. I miss the hell outta him, but I understand that he’s gotta go home to take care of his ailing parents.” He pushed the tan Stetson up on his short, brown hair peppered with silver. “I’m glad to see you coming home.”
“It’s where I’d rather be,” he said.
“So you’re staying home now, are you?”
“Yes.”
Hank frowned and took off his gloves, stuffing them in the back pocket of his jeans. “I know you’re a hard worker, Mark. And I know you could fill Pepe’s boots around here. What I worry about is you suddenly leaving, like you did five months ago out of the blue. One day you were here, the next day you were gone.” He draped his hands over his hips, his gray eyes narrowing on Mark. “I need someone I can count on all the time. I think you’ll agree, you’d feel the same way.”
Nodding, Mark said, “What I did five months ago wasn’t something I expected to happen, Hank. It’s not going to happen again.” He saw the rancher scowl. Damn! He had always felt close to the man, because Hank had treated him like one of his sons.
“Why aren’t you going back to your family ranch, Mark? Is it because Jeb’s still there?”
“Yes. Sage has him compartmentalized, and she runs the ranch, but I can’t bring myself to go over there, and I think you know why, Hank.”
“Yeah. Sage has been doing a fine job of saving the ranch, no question. And she has a full complement of wranglers over there to help her out.” He eyed him. “I’m sorry things are the way they are with you and Jeb.”
Shrugging, Mark said, “Look, Hank, I have no aspirations about my family ranch. A few years ago I signed over my legal claim to it to Sage. She owns the ranch, lock, stock, and barrel. If and when Jeb finally dies, I won’t go back there, either. Too many memories. No, Sage is the owner now.”
He saw Hank’s thick brows raise in surprise and pressed on. “Here’s the thing. I’m home for good,” he told him. “I want nothing to do with my family ranch. It’s in good hands with Sage and I’m fine with that. I need to make my own way in life, and I’d really like to show you what I can do with Pepe’s old job here at the Rocking L. I’ll work hard, you know that. And I know the place better than most—I practically grew up on your ranch. You won’t regret hiring me, I’ll make sure of that.”
Hank grunted and let his hands drop off his hips. “I’ve actually built a few houses for my employees since you left.” He gestured toward the entranceway to the barn. “You can take Pepe’s house—the one I assigned to him. I got rid of the bunkhouse a long time ago. It’s the dark green house with white shutters, Mark. It’s yours now. I’m not charging any rent, but you can pay the utilities out of your paycheck.”
Relief coursed through Mark, and he broke into a wide smile. “That’s more than fair,” he said, holding out his hand to shake Hank’s. “I swear you won’t regret hiring me.”
“I don’t worry about your work ethic, son,” Hank shook Mark’s hand then clapped him gently on the shoulder. “I worry about you suddenly up and disappearing from our lives again.”
Grimly, Mark said, “It’s not happening again. There are a lot of reasons I want to be home.”
“Is Mattie one of ‘em?” Hank asked, giving him a thoughtful look.
“Yes.”
“You two were closer than close growing up. Daisy and I always thought one day … well … that’s a long time ago.” He removed his hand from Mark’s shoulder. “Get your gear and get settled in. Jake is our foreman now and you’ll probably find him in our tractor and equipment barn. Go see him after you’ve moved things into that house. I’ll let him know I’m hiring you.”
For a moment, Mark found himself fighting back tears. He was so surprised he was temporarily spee
chless. Then, swallowing hard against his tightening throat, he rasped, “I’ll do that. Thanks for giving me this chance, Hank. I won’t let you or your family down.”
Hank smiled a little. “You’ve always been a part of our family, Mark. You know that. Nothing’s changed. You and Sage are like our children.”
Relief avalanched through Mark. “God, it’s been a rough ride,” he admitted thickly, “but you and Daisy have always had our backs. You know how much that means to us.”
Giving a short nod, Hank said, “We’ll always have your backs, Mark. Now why don’t you go get your gear and make yourself at home?”
What a welcome invitation! It felt as if the world had finally, after his twenty-nine years of hardscrabble life, given him an honest-to-God break. “I’ll do that.”
“Mattie know you’re back, son?”
“I saw her last night, explained that I was back for good.” He saw Hank’s expression soften. It was no secret that he and Daisy had always thought they would marry someday. Mark wondered as he turned to leave, if they still expected that of them. As he walked to his silver pickup truck, he wasn’t sure what would happen between them. He hadn’t exactly been PC about a lot of things last night with her. And he’d tossed and turned all night, worried that what he’d shared with Mattie would scare her off. But he had to do it or he was going to lose her forever and he knew it.
Opening the truck door, he climbed in, the gray sky still threatening rain or snow. It was colder this morning than yesterday. As he started the Ford and backed out of the parking space near the ranch house, he had a sudden urge to call Mattie. But he didn’t dare. He’d left it all in her hands as to whether or not she wanted contact with him again.
Even though joy threaded through him, there was a knot of fear, like a huge rock sitting in the pit of his stomach. He had so much to make up for with Mattie—so much. The woman he loved with all his life was the one he’d injured the most. His mouth tightening, he drove out to the highway, heading back to Van Horn and his hotel room where he had his life packed in a duffle bag.
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