Coming Home to Mustang Ridge

by Jesse Hayworth

  “I want to be there.” He didn’t promise, though. Couldn’t.

  “I know.” She went up on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and said, “It’s okay. We’re okay. Go find your sister, Ty, or at least sit down with Mac and put together a plan. The girl in that photo needs her big brother.”

  Heart clutching, he nodded, then dipped his head to kiss her. Her arms tightened around his neck, almost strangling him, and he found himself returning the grip, holding on to her too long, too strong.

  He was breathing hard when they separated, and not just because he wanted to sweep her up and carry her to the bedroom. It was more that things felt suddenly out of sync, like there was an undercurrent he wasn’t understanding. “Ashley—”

  Her lips caught his in a fleeting kiss. “I need to get back to the shop. I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow, though, and Saturday. Good luck. I hope you find her.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said, wishing he knew what else to say. Wishing he knew why he wanted to grab onto her, hold her tight, and not let go.

  She nodded. “See you.” There was nothing off about her tone, her smile.

  So why did it feel like she was saying good-bye?

  • • •

  Ashley held it together down the stairs and along the barn aisle, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep back the tears. Don’t be a baby. Don’t freak out. It’s not the end of the world. It wasn’t even the end of her and Ty’s relationship.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Nope. Still not freaking out. He was just going away for a couple of days. He’d be back. They’d be fine. She had the store and a life of her own. She didn’t need his undivided attention.

  But, oh, how she wished she could have it.

  She paused with her hand on the outer door, breath hitching.

  Not now. Not yet. She just had to make it to her car, back to the shop. Her space. She’d be safe there. Alone there.

  “Ashley?”

  The voice came from behind her. Ty’s voice.

  Oh, no. She pressed her forehead to the rough wood of the door. “Not now, Ty. Please. Just let me go.” She was tired and stressed-out. Whatever reserves she might’ve had left over had washed away when the downstairs bathroom flooded and her internal cash register started doing its ca-ching ca-ching ca-ching!

  “Not on your life.” He caught her shoulders and turned her around. “Something isn’t right. What is it? Let me help.”

  A ragged laugh caught in her throat. Of course he would want to fix the problem for her. That was what he did—he came to the rescue. Thing was, he couldn’t rescue her from herself. “You’ve got your own stuff to deal with right now, Ty. Don’t worry about me. I’m good. I’m fine.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because—” Her throat closed on a surge of anger, of grief. Her eyes filled. “Darn it. Let me go. Please. I don’t want to do this right now.”

  “Do what?” His fingers tightened. “Is it about Scilla? Are you mad that I’m leaving?”

  “No.” She hung her head, shook it. “Not mad. Just . . .”

  “Just what? Come on, Ash, talk to me.”

  “Sad.” She exhaled it on a breath. “Jealous. And, yeah, maybe mad, but at myself, because how crappy is it of me to be upset right now?”

  He shook his head. “I’m lost.”

  “Me, too. I jumped off the cliff, started gliding, and lost track of which way was down.”

  “Huh?”

  She caught his hands, peeled them off her shoulders, and lowered them, but didn’t let go, so they were linked by fingers and palms, but he wasn’t holding her up anymore. “I know we said we were going to keep things casual and take it one day at a time. But we also said that what we have is important.”

  “It is.” His eyes went intent. “Ashley, I—”

  “Don’t, please. Because the thing is, it turns out that being important isn’t enough for me, not when it comes to you.” Her throat threatened to close up as new tears stung her eyes. “I want it all, Ty, and I know I can’t have it.”

  He tightened his fingers on hers. “You’re more than important to me, Ashley. You’ve got to know that.” But he didn’t say the words, didn’t make any promises to her.

  She shook her head. “It’s not enough, Ty. Not anymore.”

  “Because of what happened today?”

  “You’ve been waiting most of your life to find Scilla. Short-term contracts, on-property housing, tour buses—you’ve built your world so you could cut loose the moment you found her. You don’t even have a dog to worry about, never mind a house.”

  He shook his head. “You want me to get a dog?”

  “No. I want someone to love me so fiercely that he’d turn his whole life upside down to have me. I want him to argue with me, fight for me, and move heaven and earth to prove that he’s the one for me and that I’m number one for him.” She smiled through her tears. “I’ve never had that, you see. And I deserve it.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Just like you deserve to look for Scilla without feeling guilty about it.” Her voice broke. “The woman in that picture needs you, Ty. Odds are that if you find her—when you find her—she’s going to need a whole lot from you, whether or not she’s willing to admit it at first. I think you’re going to have to fight for her, one way or another.”

  He went very still, save for the agitated pulse at the side of his throat. “What are you saying?”

  Nothing. I’m leaving. We don’t need to do this now, not after the days we’ve both had. “I think this is where the trail forks for us, Ty. I think it’s time for us to cut each other loose.”

  The silence that followed was laced with barn sounds—the rustle of a muzzle in hay, the stomp of a hoof, the bang of a bucket. It was all impossibly normal, as if the world wasn’t in the process of ending.

  Finally, sounding as if the words were being dragged out of him, he said, “If that’s what you want.”

  No, damn you! How can you not see that I want you to argue with me, fight for me, chase me across three states, lasso me, and carry me home tied across the back of your horse?

  He didn’t, though. He wouldn’t. And that was the problem.

  “I wish you hadn’t come after me,” she said softly. Then she went up on her tiptoes, brushed her lips across his, and took a big step back, letting go of his hands as she did so.

  The loss of that contact was wrenching.

  He studied her as he had in the bar that long-ago night, as if trying to figure out how she was supposed to fit into his world. “I’m sorry.”

  Her heart shuddered and broke. “Me, too.”

  He reached past her and rolled open the barn door, letting in the night. “Good luck this weekend.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes, spilled over. “Thanks. You, too.” After that, there didn’t seem to be anything left to say except good-bye, and she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  So she walked away instead. And she didn’t let herself look back.

  • • •

  Ty stood in the doorway while the Beetle’s pinpoint taillights wound up the drive that led away from the ranch, flashed at the top of the hill, and disappeared.

  And she was gone.

  As in gone, gone. Not coming back, at least not to see him. How had that happened? Why hadn’t he stopped her?

  Because she was right. That was why. She deserved everything she had asked for and more—to be loved, chased, courted, won. And he hadn’t done any of that, not even when he’d been free to try it.

  Had he been holding back so he’d be free when Mac’s call came? Maybe. He didn’t know. All he knew was that as much as he wanted to go after her, he couldn’t, because she was right about something else: Scilla needed him.

  But, damn.

&n
bsp; Scrubbing a hand across his chest—which ached like a bull had caught him square in the sternum—he fumbled for his phone and punched a couple of buttons. When the call connected, he cleared his throat. “Mac, it’s Ty.”

  “Yeah, I got that from the ID. I don’t have anything else for you. Told you I’d call when I did.”

  “I want to meet up with you in Rapid City. Tomorrow morning, first thing.”

  There was a pause he didn’t mistake for startled. He got the feeling very little surprised Ian Macaulay. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Didn’t say she wasn’t. Said you don’t have to haul all the way out here to prove that you give a crap. You hired me, didn’t you? Can’t promise when or how, but I’ll find her. When I do, that’s when you need to hit the road. Not now.”

  Ty’s jaw locked up. “I’ll be there at first light. Where should we meet?”

  “Not at dawn, that’s for damn sure.” But Mac sighed. “Suit yourself. Two p.m., outside the cop shop where your sister got pinched. I’ve got a face-to-face with the cop who grabbed her. I’m hoping he’ll give us the where-when-who.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  There was a pause. Then, “Word of advice?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t come. Not yet. Stay home, take care of your business there. Folks like your sister don’t always want to be found. They’re not the trusting type, and maybe don’t think they need family. Maybe don’t even figure they deserve it, or know how to do it right.”

  “Hell.” Ty scowled, hearing an echo of Ashley’s voice.

  “I know. It’s hard to believe that sometimes it takes some doing, getting them ready to come in from the cold. And sometimes it never happens. They’re just too broken. I see it more than you’d think. Anyway, like I said, stay home, deal with your stuff. There’ll be time to mobilize.”

  My stuff? Cold fingers walked down Ty’s spine. “Thanks for the warning, Mac. But I already cleared my schedule for tomorrow. I’ll see you at two.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  When the line went dead, Ty found himself right where he had been a minute ago—standing alone in the barn, with a big, aching hollow in the center of his chest that had less to do with the woman in the pictures than with the one who had just driven away. He couldn’t go after her, though. Not unless he was willing to give her everything she had asked for, and more.

  “Come on, then.” He crossed the barn aisle and ran open Brutus’s door. “Let’s ride.”

  • • •

  The drive home was enough of a blubbering blur that Ashley considered herself lucky she made it back with Bugsy in one piece. But luck was the furthest thing from her mind as she stumbled up the outer stairs, feeling like all of Main Street was watching her fumble for her house key and fight to get it in the lock. “Come on, come on, come on!” She chanted it tonelessly, mindlessly, wanting nothing more than to get inside, where nobody else would see her coming unglued.

  She had done the right thing. She had.

  But, oh, how it hurt.

  Finally, the lock clicked. She practically fell through the door, stumbling on legs gone to water.

  “Reowwwr!” The sharp cry came from ankle level, and was followed by a swat of claws.

  “Ow!” She lurched back, dropping her bag as Tunes shot off the floor, scrambled across the counter, and sent two of her random-stuff jars crashing to the floor, where they detonated like button-and-penny-laden grenades. Then the cat levitated to the top of the cabinet, where she had stuck what was left of her dishes, thinking they would be safe way up there.

  Glaring down at her, the furry fiend tapped the pretty blue creamer close to the edge.

  Her eyes burned with tears. With fury. “Don’t. You. Dare. If you even—”

  Another poke, and the creamer went over. She lunged forward, reached for it. And missed.

  Crash! It broke like sugar glass, into hundreds of pieces.

  Ashley. Snapped.

  Fury roared through her—at herself for falling when she told herself she wasn’t, at Ty for not wanting her enough to fight back, at the investigator for his timing. “Fine!” she shouted. “You want to break things? Let’s break things!” She spun and snatched up a mason jar full to the top with marbles, beads, and pretty rocks.

  The cat shrank back, poising to run, but she turned and hurled it into the bricked-over fireplace, imagining her father’s face.

  CRASH! The shrapnel spray reached the couch and peppered the windows, suffusing her with a rush of satisfaction.

  Tunes’s eyes bugged, but he stayed put, looking transfixed.

  “You liked that? How about this one?” She grabbed a cheap plate, sent it winging like at a Greek restaurant. Her high school nemesis. “Or this!” A coffee mug. A dish full of quarters and old keys. An empty Grey Poupon jar she had saved because she liked the shape. The creepy modeling agent, the art teachers that had told her she could make it, Kenny and his band. Crash, crash, crash! She was making a mess of her apartment, but she didn’t care. It might as well look the way she felt—like a freaking disaster.

  Blood running high, she grabbed the last breakable off the counter and drew back, but then looked down at the little gray ceramic rabbit. “Damn it. I like this one.” And if she broke it, she would never see it again, at least not the way it had been. She’d never again smile at it the same way, never again touch it, never again come to see it there at the breakfast bar.

  Just like that, the fury drained, leaving crushing grief behind. Oh, Ty.

  This wasn’t what she wanted, wasn’t what she had intended when she drove out to Mustang Ridge. Exactly the opposite. She had just wanted to help, wanted to be part of his life.

  Now she was out of his life. For good.

  Breath hitching, she stuck the little statue in the refrigerator, next to the mayo, where her hell cat couldn’t get at it. Then, as her breath hitched and her vision blurred, she stalked out of the kitchen and straight into the bedroom.

  There, she threw herself on the bed. And wept.

  Oh, how it hurt. Inside. Outside. Everywhere. Her eyes burned, her throat tore, and each breath was like inhaling hot needles. Worse were the images that paraded through her mind like an agonizing slideshow, each more painful than the next. Ty plying the paint roller, T-shirt stretching over the body she had come to know so well over the past six weeks. Ty quirking an eyebrow at her, smiling at her, kissing her, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her to his bedroom.

  Ty, sleeping beside her in the bed she was lying in now, alone.

  She let out a low moan, curled herself into a tight ball, and tried to make her mind go blank. Still, the snippets came, twisting the dagger in her wounded heart.

  Tears scalded her eyes and burned her throat, and she let out a broken sob that sounded suddenly loud in the room.

  Bang! The bedroom door bounced suddenly back from the wall like it had been kicked open. For a second—a brief, damning second—she thought that Ty had followed her, that he was going to argue with her, for her. But then a lean, black-furred body thudded onto the bed, a wedge-shaped head with evil yellow eyes appeared in her field of vision, and a low growl vibrated from the beast’s chest.

  Ashley was too stunned to recoil, too caught up in her misery to do anything at all except think that maybe he would rip her throat out and be done with it. Too baffled do to anything other than stare when she realized Tunes wasn’t growling after all—the noise was a rusty, disused-sounding purr. He even went so far as to prod the mattress a couple of times, as if he wanted to knead but didn’t want to get caught acting like a kitten.

  “What the—” The rest of her ragged question got lost when he head butted her in the mouth. She uncurled a little in self-defense, and he settled right in against her, soft and warm enough to spark more t
ears, partly pent up and partly because she had been reduced to snuggling with her mean old cat. And darned if the black devil didn’t stay right there, purring like a generator while she soaked his fur with her tears.

  23

  Ty woke at dawn with a burned-down campfire in the fire pit, Brutus tethered over by the waterfall, and the acoustics of the hollow making the rushing water sound like it was coming from all around him. And damned if he couldn’t smell springtime flowers, even though there wasn’t a bloom within a mile of the falls this time of year.

  As he blinked fully awake, though, the scent faded, leaving an empty ache behind.

  Well, hell. He had ridden too hard and too far before circling back to the waterfall where he’d played for Ashley, made love to her. So much for avoiding places that reminded him of what he hadn’t been able to hang on to.

  He upended his canteen on the cooled-down embers, then kicked dirt on the mess. Untying Brutus, he slung his reins around the gelding’s neck, then went around the back to double-check his bedroll. “Okay, meathead. Time to head back.” He had a meeting to make.

  When he grabbed for the reins, though, the gelding flattened his ears and shuffled back several paces, giving him a look of, You think so, huh?

  “Don’t start,” Ty growled. “I’m in no mood.” He made a grab for the reins, but the horse danced back lightning quick, snaking his head like he was cutting a rank bull. “Brutus, you snotty bastard. Whoa!”

  The chestnut wheeled, trotted away twenty feet or so, then turned back. His ears were pricked now, his eyes gleaming wickedly.

  “Son of a—” Rage hazing his vision, Ty started after the horse, hands balled into fists. “Stop right there. If you move one more hoof, I’ll—” He stopped dead, hearing the ugliness in his own voice. The menace. What the hell was he doing?

  He stood there, fighting down the mean as the dawn got pretty around them. Thing was, the anger didn’t want to fade. It wanted to get bigger and nastier, tearing at his gut and burning in his windpipe, and making him want to lash out and hurt something the way he was hurting inside.