by Hannah Skye
His eyes narrowed. “And I thought I didn’t have to take orders from you. Boss. I thought we were a team. Seems I was wrong too.”
Her voice rose in anger. “Don’t you turn this into something it’s not. You don’t work for me—”
“No, but I’m just the ranch hand, that it? A fun fuck but not a partner, that so?”
“It’s not like that.” She raised her hands to her face. “Stop turning it into something it’s not! This is my place.”
“It’s your place,” he agreed, and his voice had grown dangerously soft. “I’ll get my gear and get gone.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Sorry to have mucked up your plans for this tree.”
A hole seemed to open inside her. All her anger fell into it, replaced by icy fear. She wanted to touch him, but if she reached for him she’d lose something. And she couldn’t lose. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad at this. I’m the one with the right to be angry.”
He nodded. “I already admitted you got the right. See it clear as dawn now. Apologies for being so slow on the uptake.”
“That’s not fair, dammit. And you know it.”
“I’m needed back at Snowbrook.” He hesitated, and the anger faded from his expression for a moment. “Best of luck with your place here. I mean that. It’s a damn fine cut of land.”
She heard his words. Knew what they meant. It was over between them. Her heart hammered away in her chest. This couldn’t be happening. Not over some stupid fight like this. All she wanted was for him to respect her wishes. Not try and run everything behind her back. God, why couldn’t he understand that?
She had her pride, but she wasn’t a damn fool either. Their time together…the feverish kisses, the surrender to him in the stable as she let him tie her up and then fuck her. Yes, not make love to her but to fuck her… That passion couldn’t be tossed aside so easily. She wouldn’t let it go. This was a ledge she wasn’t about to hurl herself over.
“This isn’t about your dream for your own land,” she told him, desperately trying to think of the right thing to say. Some way they could both save face and come to an agreement and not burn everything they’d started to build together.
“No,” he replied. “It’s about you and yours. You’re riding your own way. I respect that.”
“There’s no reason why we can’t see each other,” she said, her voice quiet but not disguising the need there. “Even if you want something else eventually. We could be happy for awhile.”
He looked toward the mountains, squinting into the sunlight. For a long time he didn’t answer and she waited. Finally, he said, “I need to bring something to this…to what we might have—”
“Don’t you see that you do? That you bring more than enough for me?”
“But I come here to solve problems, to help you for Heaven’s sake, and you reprimand me as if I’m some greenhorn hired hand who ran the herd off a cliff.”
She flinched, and wavered, not knowing what to say. He had done the wrong thing…but she understood why. She only needed him to realize and accept that she had to have her head on this, to blaze her own trails, to make her own mistakes. She started to apologize, but then the anger flashed back. She had nothing to apologize for, dammit, and was he really willing to sacrifice the spark between them over this?
“This is some stupid male pride thing, isn’t it?” The edge to her voice grew sharper. “Is that worth tossing away our—” She almost said love, then veered wide, because he hadn’t used that word, and she wouldn’t be the first. “—our connection?”
That wasn’t the right word, not by a long shot—but the other, unsaid word hung in the air between them, a weight that they both knew was there, but neither of them had dared mention. Might never be mentioned now…
“I don’t expect you to understand—”
“Damn right I don’t understand! Because it’s stupid. It’s so damn selfish.”
“You have to let me say my peace, Carol.”
“Fine. Say your words. What do they matter anyway? I always knew you were a man of action. Your actions are speaking. Loud and clear. You’d rather have your dream of a ranch than me. Not when I come out and demand a bit of respect and…the ability to make my mistakes, on my own. Is that too hard for you? Maybe I judged you too highly.”
His face tightened. He shook his head. “You hear yourself? You won’t have me as an equal partner. I want to give you a hand. Dammit, that’s all I have to give you—the sweat off my brow and the willingness to put in a hard day’s work. I don’t have anything else. Just a horse. Hell, even that trailer I live in isn’t mine.”
“I’m not rejecting your help,” she said, but as soon as the words were free she knew they weren’t true. That was exactly what she was doing. She faltered, not knowing what to say next. She couldn’t give on this, but if he was ready to bolt the first time she called him out on going against her wishes, then maybe this heat between them never would’ve lasted anyway. Perhaps she’d made another horrible mistake.
“Sounds as if you are, though,” he said. He cocked his head and eyed her as if she were a wild horse that would kick at the slightest provocation. “Would you let go of your dream if our situations had been reversed? If I wanted you to come to my place, have babies and be content with the things I gave you? This has to be even. I have to earn you.”
“I’m not some prize to be won. I’m a person.” You only have to earn me by saying you love me, she thought but could not say. Dared not say.
“You showed me I had to earn you when you came here and smacked my nose for helping out at your ranch. Your. Ranch. As though I was nothing more than some…seasonal ranch hand.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in a half snarl and the words were acidic.
“No. That wasn’t what I meant to do. That’s not how I think of you.” Her vision blurred. A tear tumbled down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily. “Is that how you think of me? That I’m so shallow and mean?”
“I didn’t. But answer me. Would you give everything up for me?”
She hesitated, because the question was so huge. She wanted to believe she would have, if he’d asked. But a man who loved her would never ask. She’d never asked him to abandon his dream of his own ranch for her—though that was hardly fair, because his was still a dream, and she could bend down right now and feel her own soil between her fingers if she wished. She only wanted to be with him. To love him, to explore each other, not just physically, but to understand him better, to know him from soul, to mind, to body, so much that he was a part of her and she a part of him.
But he would shove that all aside for the hope of something in the future he felt he needed so they could be equals. The whole thing left her feeling weak, empty. She closed her eyes, turned her head. Her heart beat hard, thudding, her pulse throbbing in her temples. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
He grew impatient with her silence. “I didn’t think so.”
“It’s not… You don’t understand. That’s not a fair question.” Her voice held a note of pleading.
He shook his head. “Don’t you understand? I want to stake out my own place. Not ride double on someone else’s horse. I never had anyone on my side, handing me opportunities.”
Cold trickled through her like rain off a broken gutter. He must’ve seen how hard his words had hit her because he reached a hand toward her. “That’s not what I meant—”
She moved out of his reach, and he halted, letting his hand fall to his side. His dream. Why couldn’t she be his dream? Why couldn’t she be that important to him? She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep her hurt from seeping out.
“I think we’re done here,” she said, very quietly. “We’ve said all that needed saying.”
If he thought she’d been handed everything on a silver spoon…she couldn’t even wrap her head around that, especially after she’d asked him not to help her with the storm damage, and he’d gone and done so anyway, pro
ving he was a man who would do what he wanted, her wishes be damned.
“Don’t make me choose between two things I want,” he said. For the first time she heard desperation in his voice. “I’d rather run my bare hand down a barbed wire fence.”
“I never made you do anything. You should go. Please.”
“At least let me finish this.” He swept a hand at the damned tree that had crushed her house and somehow crushed her chances with this man. “I want…” He clenched his teeth, turned away for a moment, and then leveled his gaze on her again. “I don’t like to leave a thing unfinished.”
Another tear escaped from her eye and made its icy way down her face. “No.”
The silence between them was so complete it made her think she was caught in a snowstorm, blanketing out all the sounds with whiteness. She could hear herself breathing, faster than usual, as if she’d just run up a flight of stairs, her heart beating hard, ka-thump, ka-thump. But those seemed the only sounds in the world.
He wanted to touch her. She could read it on his face, in the set of his body. Perhaps he’d been as surprised at this careening, disastrous turn in events as she had been. It didn’t matter now. After a moment he turned away, gathered up his tools, and loaded everything in his truck. He tipped his hat to her, and again his expression was grim, almost haggard.
She held her chin up as he drove away. She didn’t let herself cry, though the tears burned behind her eyes, aching to push themselves out and stream down her cheeks. She wouldn’t admit how much he’d hurt her. The worst of it was, she’d known this all along. What a fool she was, thinking any man would give up something he wanted, just to have her. But she didn’t need him. He might make her feel like a goddess in the bedroom, but she didn’t want to hold him back. He’d come to hate her if she got in the way of what he wanted. His dream. And he certainly wasn’t willing to come along for the ride on her dream.
The walk up the path to her damaged trailer was one of the longest of her life.
Chapter Eight
He was a damn fool.
Worse yet, he knew he was a damn fool. What had possessed him to believe it’d be a grand idea to surprise her with the repair work done after she’d been so adamant about pulling her own cart, handling her own problems? Now everything was a mess simply because he’d had the bright idea to surprise her with the hope of making her happy.
He traced an erratic design with his thumb through the condensation forming on the beer bottle in his hand. The campfire crackled and spat at his feet. Heat washed against him. His boot heels were hot where he had them up on one of the rocks forming the circle of stones around the flames. The night was quiet and the sparks danced over the logs. He stared at the coals and replayed their argument in his head. Over and over.
It had been a long, ugly damn day and he was glad to see the sun setting. Much of the snow had melted by late in the afternoon, turning the ground to slushy mud. He’d returned from Carol’s trailer and had immediately set himself to work, moving the herd out to open pasture as he hoped to clear his head a little. Pike was surefooted, but she’d had mud up to the knee by the time he rounded up the cattle and got them home. The cattle were even worse, some of them looking as if they’d been caught in a mudslide. It had taken far longer than usual to get them penned, then get Pike cleaned and the tack settled. Didn’t help that his heart hadn’t been in the work.
He’d eaten alone tonight as well, making his excuses to Mrs. McCreedy. Apparently Carol had her own plans as well, because her truck was still missing. He knew. He’d been watching for it all night while cursing himself for a fool.
But what could he do? She was a woman out of his league. The only thing he had to give her—hard work—had been spurned. He’d only wanted to give her something. Do something for a woman he cared for. He took a swig of beer, found it empty, and set the bottle beside him on a rock. Just one tonight. A comfort beer. But he was working again tomorrow, and he reckoned he was already wallowing enough in self pity after one bottle.
She’d accused him of being selfish. As if having a bit of pride was selfish. She had pride, didn’t she? She’d come down on him like a bale of hale falling on an ant hill when he’d interfered where he hadn’t been wanted. As if he didn’t believe she could handle herself. Why did she have so much to prove?
Why did he have so much to prove?
Still, what kind of man would he be if he simply took a free ride on her success? He should be able to make her life better somehow. He frowned, staring at the flames. If things between them continued down the road they’d been traveling—before things had veered over the cliff—he could easily see them married. A bunch of young ones running around. Sons and daughters to teach how to ride, how to mend a fence, how to care for a horse, the best way to goad a stubborn cow. Maybe other people would’ve found it strange for a man like him to think that way, settling down, raising a family, but they were only buying into some Marlboro man stereotype. For him it had always been simple. You loved someone, you built a life with them.
But the key word had been built. He wanted a role in building it… He snorted and shook his head, because now he was even contradicting himself. A moment ago he’d wanted it already built, his dream realized, and only then he’d feel worthy of Carol’s love. Now he was saying he’d only need a role in building it—the path instead of the end.
So in the end, what did he really want?
He kicked dirt on the fire until it was dead and stood there in the dark, unable to settle on an answer, but every part of him aching for Carol.
That was what he wanted. Carol.
He loved her, and he realized he’d loved her for a long time now.
Chapter Nine
Carol made good time on the long ride back from Boulder, keeping her truck at the speed limit and safely in the slow lane. She was all done with traffic accidents for, hopefully, the foreseeable future. The Rocky Mountains made a stunning line off to the west, but today, instead of inspiring her with their beauty, they merely made her feel insignificant. The radio was off because she needed the silence to think. All her thoughts crashed around in her head, but she was determined to sort them into some kind of order before she returned home.
She couldn’t stay away from Snowbrook forever. Neither could she avoid Harlan forever.
Oh, for the past couple of days she’d stayed with a friend in Boulder while she sorted a few things out, but that had been cowardly. Problems didn’t disappear simply when ignored. Truth in point, the tree that had smashed her trailer. She’d contracted a crew to finish cutting it up and hauling it off, and her head contractor already had people on repairs to the roof and frame. She’d been out to her land twice yesterday. They had the framework cleared and the whole thing protected by tarps from the weather—though another freak snowstorm would put an end to that right quick. Still, she remained hopeful.
Hopeful. And utterly, thoroughly heartbroken.
So here she was, on the road back to Snowbrook to see her aunt…because her aunt was lonely with her uncle off on his extended business trip. No, that wasn’t quite the truth, and she might as well admit it. Carol wanted a shoulder to cry on. Her friend was great, but there was no shoulder in the world for giving comfort that compared to her aunt’s. Then again, she couldn’t say anything to her aunt that might threaten Harlan’s job. They were both adults. They’d both had fun…
A smile curled her lips as she remembered how much fun they’d had. That passionate tumble in his trailer. The naughtiness of the ropes in the stables… Heat pooled deep inside her, coupled with an ache that seemed to go straight to her core.
No, now wasn’t the time for distraction. Their time together had been great, and she cared deeply for him…but all the same they wanted different things. Sometimes life’s road ran parallel. Sometimes it veered off in opposite directions. Sad, but still true.
All the same, with some time and some distance it had been easy to see that she’d overreacted to him heading over
to her place and helping her out, despite her request that he leave it to her to handle. He’d been sincere when he’d told her he’d only wanted to help. She’d been too angry and too hurt to care at the time. So the man had wanted to help. Millions of women would think she deserved a smack for biting a helping hand or not appreciating when a fella went out of his way to do something nice for a girl. She could see that. She was worthy of her share of blame in this fight. Thing was, they could get past the stupid fight easy enough. The real problem was whether Harlan believed he could still be in a relationship with her if the land and the ranch were hers and not his. He’d made it clear he wouldn’t. She wasn’t ready to abandon everything she’d already built because he had some male pride thing that wouldn’t let him realize that dammit, he had plenty to be proud of, and dammit, she didn’t need a rich man. She needed a man who would love her.
There. She said it. Breaking things off with Harlan was the right decision. The trails they rode were branching in opposite directions. She’d done the wise, responsible thing.
So why did it hurt so bad?
The road unfurled in front of her in a long dark ribbon. It was late afternoon and the sun was sinking toward the mountains. She glanced at the time on the radio. She’d be rolling into Snowbrook right about twilight. There was a healthy chance she wouldn’t even see Harlan tonight. Her aunt usually made supper early. She was crossing her fingers that would be the case, and she even eased up on the pedal a little to stretch the time. She didn’t want to see him. It was too soon. How could their words be anything but clumsy, bleeding things full of the hurts they’d done each other?
If not for that damn freak snowstorm, everything would’ve been different.
* * *
Harlan had once overheard a fella in a bar claim that a man only needed a horse to be happy.