I winced.
He wasn’t finished, though. “You’ve had enough time. You’ve—”
“And how is that your decision, Curt?” I asked through my teeth. “I’m sorry for leaving everyone in a lurch, but I’ve—”
“You’re being selfish.”
“You know what? After what I’ve put up with for the last eleven years, I think I can be forgiven for being selfish for a little while. I need this, Curt.”
“What you put up with?” He snorted. “Please, Amy. Without Sam, where the hell would you be? You’d—”
I hung up before I said something that would irreparably damage my already shaky relationship with my brother. I loved him, I really did, but there were times when the man could be nothing short of insufferable. Everything was business and image to him, and quite frankly, I’d had about enough of that for one lifetime.
He was right about one thing, though: this had to be killing my parents. In fact, now that I realized just how long it had been since I’d spoken to anyone but Mariah, I felt even guiltier. If I knew them, they must’ve been beside themselves worrying.
I replaced the ice pack on my elbow with a fresh one and then picked up my phone and scrolled to my parents’ phone number. For the longest time, I just stared at it. I had no doubt Mom was going crazy right now, and I owed it to her to let her hear my voice and hear it from me, not just my sister, that I was all right.
Holding my breath, I hit Send.
It rang once, and then, “Amy? Oh goodness, I’ve been so worried. Where are you, baby?”
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “I’m…just taking some time away.”
“Some time? Honey, it’s been…weeks!”
“I know. And, I’m sorry. I really am. I know this has been hard on everyone—”
“I’m not concerned about that,” she said. “I’ve just been worried sick about you. Your husband dies suddenly, and the next thing I know, you’re gone before he’s even buried.”
I winced. Yeah, that sounded pretty fucked up in hindsight, even if it had made perfect—almost perfect—sense in the moment.
And before I realized I was saying it, I blurted out, “Mom, what did you think of my marriage to Sam?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did we seem happy to you?”
“Sure you did,” she said. “You always looked like you were getting along okay. Marriages always have their ups and downs, but I never thought there was anything wrong.” She paused. “Were you happy with him?”
I held the phone and icepack tighter just to keep my hands from shaking. “I was miserable, Mom.”
“You were?” Surprise laced the edges of her voice. “Oh, honey, I had no idea. What was going on?”
“I was just really, really unhappy,” I said. “And not just with Sam. I was…my whole life. I was so depressed and so miserable, and when he died, I felt so guilty and—”
“Guilty?” she whispered. “Amy, sweetheart, it wasn’t your fault.”
“No, I know. But I blamed myself, and everything at home reminded me of him. And of what my life had become.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What your life had become? You were living out your dream.”
“On paper, yeah.” I exhaled. “Just trust me on this. It wasn’t as great as it looked. And I guess I just needed to leave for a little while to get my head together. After my marriage, Sam’s death, everything.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Is it…is it helping?”
“A little.” My gaze drifted to the icepack on my arm. “I’ve got some things going on here that are keeping me busy. That’s helped.”
“Things keeping you busy?” she asked. “Here? Where is here?”
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “And I’m sorry I left. I promise, I won’t be gone forever, but I just need some more time. Okay?”
“Just promise me you’ll call now and then,” she said. “I worry about you when I don’t hear from you, especially with everything you’re dealing with.”
“I will, I promise.”
“I love you, honey.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
After I’d hung up, I kept the ice against my elbow and stared at my dark, silent phone.
I’d called home. I’d checked in with my parents and eased some—certainly not all—of their worries. They knew I was alive, they knew I’d be back, even if none of us knew when.
And I didn’t feel even a little bit better.
The longer I stayed here, the guiltier I felt about those I’d left behind and the hell I was putting them through. But every time I thought about leaving, about going back to the place I knew damn well I belonged, it hurt a little more. Which meant, if I had any sense at all, I needed to pack up my things and leave. Soon. Tomorrow.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
Not yet.
Chapter Twenty
Dustin
Amy was just finishing up turnout when I came back from town, and we crossed paths as she headed into the barn with a grain bag on her shoulder. She smiled at me from under her baseball cap, probably oblivious to the fact that she sent my pulse out of control every time she did that.
I gestured at the grain bag. “Need help with anything?”
“Nope,” she said. “I’ve got it.” She set it beside the feed-room door. “Man, it is a gorgeous day, isn’t it? And not too hot for once.” She paused. “Still hot though. Jesus.”
“Not used to the heat, yet?”
Amy groaned. “Ugh, do people ever get used to it?”
I took off my hat and wiped my brow with the back of my hand. “Eventually, yes.”
“Great.”
“Well, as long as it’s a nice day”—Dustin, don’t—“I was thinking it’s a perfect day for a trail ride.” Don’t do it. Don’t fucking do it. “You want to go?”
Her eyebrows jumped. “Seriously?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Uh, well, I still have a few things to do around the farm.”
I shrugged. “An hour or two won’t make or break anything. And I’ll help you bring horses in when we get back.”
She mulled the idea over for a moment, then said, “I also don’t have a horse.”
I smiled. “I think we can find one for you.”
Amy returned the smile. “Hell, why not? I haven’t been out on the trails in way too long.”
Since I planned on riding Ransom, I had Amy get on Mesa. Part quarter horse, part God knew what, and the happiest, mellowest old thing I’d ever had. Not that Amy needed a bombproof babysitter, but it was either Mesa or one of the mares, and since every mare I had at the moment either had a foal at her side or was in season—and good God, but those girls got bitchy around Ransom if he wasn’t doing what they expected a stallion to do—I decided a happy old gelding was the way to go.
We saddled the boys and then headed out to the trails. One of the advantages to living out here in the middle of the godforsaken nowhere was the abundance of undeveloped wilderness. Wide-open land, disturbed only by narrow, dirt trails and the occasional road. Narrow creeks meandered across the plains, trickling toward the Snake River. They were usually dry this time of year, but we’d had an unusual—and welcome—amount of rain this summer, so there was plenty of water running down them right now.
As we rode side by side down one of the wider trails, Amy nodded toward Ransom. “So do you compete with him?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Not as much as I used to.”
“Is he your team-penning horse?”
“No, I’ve never done penning with him,” I said. “Mostly reining. He’s got a few western pleasure titles too.”
“I can see that,” she said. “He must be lovely in the show ring.”
“He is.” I smoothed a few stray strands of Ransom’s mane. “But he hates it.”
“Does he?”
“Oh God, yes. The first season, when he was a three-year-old, he was just
kind of confused by the whole thing. His four-year-old season and every one after it, though? Jesus Christ.” I shifted a little to straighten my saddle. “That’s why I only take him to a few shows a year. Just enough to keep his name out there and campaign him without making him miserable.”
“Does it scare him or something?”
“No, I think it just bores him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’s one of those horses that constantly needs to be stimulated.” I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb. “That’s why his stall and pasture are pretty much coated in creosote. He gets bored and chews on anything in sight.” I patted his neck and said with mock exasperation, “If it’s not marinated in creosote, he’ll eat right through it.”
Amy laughed as she adjusted the ponytail she’d laced through her dusty baseball cap. “I had one like that.”
“Did you?”
She nodded. “This mare I showed when I was a teenager. Take her out on a jump course? She was the happiest thing you’ve ever seen. Put her in the arena for a flat class? Pinned ears, swishing tail. The whole time.”
I laughed. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Except Ransom doesn’t pin his ears or swish his tail much, fortunately. Pleasure judges frown on that.”
“Tell me about it.” She smirked. “You know what else they frown on?”
“Hmm?”
“When the pissy, tail-swishing mare snaps at them in the lineup.”
“You’re kidding!”
She shook her head. “Nope. But, I mean, it was one of those shows that was just ridiculously hot, and I’d signed her up for too many classes. She was just done.” Amy rolled her eyes and groaned. “I have never been so embarrassed, let me tell you.”
“I can imagine,” I said, laughing. “I’m guessing you didn’t do so well in that class?”
“Ooh, no. I don’t think we even placed, and it wasn’t that big a class.”
“Ouch.”
“Served me right,” she said with a shrug. “I knew she didn’t like classes like that.”
“Some of them don’t,” I said. “So do you miss it? Competing?”
“I do.” Amy looked down, watching her thumb run along the edge of her reins. “I mean, I sort of do. I…” She sighed and shook her head. “I miss what competing used to be.”
“Which was?”
“Fun,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to win. My mom and sister tease me that I’ve been cutthroat since I was doing walk-trot classes when I was little.”
I chuckled. “You too, huh?”
Amy grinned, meeting my eyes and making me shiver. “Remind me not to race you.”
“Duly noted.”
She laughed. “Anyway, I’ve always been terribly competitive, but somewhere along the line, I just stopped caring. I still gave it my all, I still wanted to win, but it just…”
“Didn’t mean anything anymore?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I was just doing it because it was what I’d always done.” Amy sighed, resting her wrist on the saddle horn and looking out at the trail in front of us. “I used to go nuts during the off-season. As soon as the last competition ended in September or October, I was counting down until the very first one in March.” She laughed softly. “I was probably insufferable during those months.”
“Probably not as bad as you think.”
“You’d be surprised.” She laid her reins behind the saddle horn and reached up with both hands to fix her baseball cap. She took it off, laced her hair through the back of it again, put the cap back on, and then picked up her reins. “I was really bad when it came to not competing. I mean, when Sam and I went on our honeymoon, we were gone for a month, and by the time we got back, I was itching to get back in the show ring. Competing was so deep in my blood I didn’t know what to do without it.” She looked ahead, staring out at the trail in front of us with unfocused eyes. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve missed three competitions. Major ones. And I just…don’t care.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “I got burned out on competing a couple of years ago. I’m showing a couple of Ransom’s babies this year, but they weren’t ready last season.” I grimaced. “Can’t say it exactly broke my heart to have a lighter schedule for a while.”
Amy nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”
The trail wound on, and so did our conversation. It was hard to believe I shared so much common ground with the woman who I’d once thought was icy and apathetic. This business liked to suck the life out of people, and sometimes it was good to know it wasn’t just me. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who could have that competitive itch, that need that was in a person’s blood and never fully went away, and still get queasy at the thought of actually going to a competition. And maybe I wasn’t the only one who could love horses more than I loved some humans and still find myself looking one in the eye and feeling absolutely nothing, which made me feel guiltier about the assumptions I’d made about Amy when she arrived. Hadn’t I been there before myself?
As we loped up hills or let the horses drink from the swollen creeks, I caught myself looking at her the way I knew damn well better than to look at her. What could I do? However she’d been when I met her, something in her had come back to life in the last few weeks. Something she may not have even been aware of that had put a devilish sparkle in her eye that made her suggestion of a race—come on, just one won’t destroy all their training—completely irresistible. Something that made her laugh when Mesa splashed Ransom in the face, and she’d laughed like she didn’t just mean it, she’d felt it.
And my God, especially now that she had some life back in her eyes, she was beautiful. Out in the bright sunlight with her baseball cap putting a dark shadow over her face, under the sun-dappled shade beneath some of the trees that arched over the trail, with dust on her jeans and sweat on her face, she was just beautiful. Damn it. I knew full well she had perfectly good reasons for backing off, but especially lately, it was killing me. What I wouldn’t have given for the two of us to have met in another time or place where she didn’t eventually have to leave and where she wasn’t haunted by an all too recent past.
As the covered arena’s roof came into view, the slightest pang of disappointment hit me. Every ride had to end, especially when the afternoon was threatening to heat up and we didn’t want to exhaust the horses. And there were still chores to be done, other horses to work, things like that. Still, I wouldn’t have minded if this one had gone on just a little while longer.
We stopped in front of the barn, dismounted, and led both horses into the aisle. Once they were unsaddled, groomed and cooled down, we put them back in their stalls.
Amy latched Mesa’s door and hung up his halter. “Would you believe that was the first trail ride I’ve been on in years?”
“Was it?”
She nodded. “Thank you. I think it was exactly what I needed.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I usually trail ride alone, but it was nice to have some company today.”
Smiling, she held my gaze. “Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to ride with.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well,” she said, “if you feel like going riding with company again, let me know.”
How about right now? “I will.”
There were chores to be done. Things to take care of and only so much daylight left. Separate directions to be taken.
But neither of us moved. My heart beat faster as we looked at each other from across a few feet of packed-dirt floor, and I would have sold my soul to be able to read her mind just then.
Especially when she moistened her lips and said, “I should get back to work.” But instead of leaving, she came a little closer.
I mirrored her, closing some of the narrow space between us. “Yeah, we’ve already taken off half the afternoon.”
“Probably won’t have time to finish everything as it is.” Closer.
“Same here.” Closer.
“We really should—”
She stopped when I put my hands on her waist. I wasn’t sure if I’d done it to touch her or to keep us apart until I could make sense of the moment, but once my hands were on her, drawing her to me became a foregone conclusion.
“Amy…”
“We shouldn’t…” she whispered and wrapped her arms around me anyway.
I didn’t even try to speak. I just pulled her all the way to me, pushed her baseball cap out of the way and kissed her.
Leather. Dust. Alfalfa. Every breath I pulled in through my nose smelled just like the last time we’d slept together, and her kiss tasted just like it always did: like pure, irresistible sex.
And there was a reason that was the last time, I told myself as she whimpered into my kiss. Amy needed something I couldn’t be, and I wanted more from her than she could honestly give, and we were only kidding ourselves if we thought this was anything other than a bad idea. A breathless, dizzying bad idea.
Amy broke the kiss and pulled back just enough to look me in the eye.
“We shouldn’t.” Her words echoed in my mind.
What are we doing? I was afraid to ask.
Amy lowered her gaze. I loosened my embrace.
“I should get back to work,” she said.
“Yeah.” I released her completely. “Me too.”
We both moved back enough to restore the gap between us to something platonic, friendly, maybe even professional, hiding all the evidence to the contrary from anyone who might have looked. From ourselves.
Clearing my throat, I gestured toward the office. “I’d…better get some stuff done. Let me know when you’re bringing in the turnouts, and I’ll give you a hand.”
Amy nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
We started to go our separate ways, but when she stopped, curiosity got the best of me and I looked over my shoulder.
She rocked back and forth from her heels to the balls of her feet, and after a moment, turned around. “I was going to go grab a shower. Want to join me?”
Oh, yes. I did.
Hot water ran over both of us, and Amy ran her fingers through my hair. Her kiss was gentle and calm; the desire was still there, but we kissed like we just wanted to enjoy this moment for what it was and not for what it would inevitably lead to. I still couldn’t believe we were here, that we’d broken the unspoken standoff and had made it back to surrendering to the need for each other that hadn’t even begun to cool since the last time, but now that we were here, I couldn’t make myself rush anything.
All the King's Horses Page 21