Rancher's Wild Secret & Hold Me, Cowboy (Gold Valley Vineyards Book 1)

by Maisey Yates

  “Because the art has to sell,” he said, his voice flat. Although, that was somewhat disingenuous. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he could sell darker pieces. In fact, he was sure that he could. “I don’t do it for myself. I do it for Chase. I was perfectly content to keep it some kind of weird hobby that I messed around with after hours. Chase was the one who thought that I needed to pursue it full-time. Chase was the one who thought it was the way to save our business. And it started out doing kind of custom artistry for big houses. Gates and the detail work on stairs and decks and things. But then I started making bigger pieces and we started selling them. I say we because without Chase they would just sit in the shop.”

  “So you’re just making what sells. That’s the beginning and end of the story.” Her blue eyes were too sharp, too insightful and far too close to the firelight for him to try to play at any games.

  “I make what I want to let people see.”

  “What happened, Sam? And don’t tell me nothing. You’re talking to somebody who clung to one event in the past for as long as humanly possible. Who let it dictate her entire life. You’re talking to the queen of residual issues here. Don’t try to pretend that you don’t have any. I know what it looks like.” She took a deep breath. “I know what it looks like when somebody uses anger, spite and a whole bunch of unfriendliness to keep the world at a safe distance. I know, because I’ve spent the past ten years doing it. Nobody gets too close to the girl who says unpredictable things. The one who might come out and tell you that your dress does make you look fat and then turn around and say something crude about male anatomy. It’s how you give yourself power in social situations. Act like you don’t care about the rules that everyone else is a slave to.” She laughed. “And why not? I already broke the rules. That’s me. It’s been me for a long time. And it isn’t because I didn’t know better. It’s because I absolutely knew better. You’re smart, Sam. The way that you walk around, the way you present yourself, even here, it’s calculated.”

  Sam didn’t think anyone had ever accused him of being calculated before. But it was true. Truer than most things that had been leveled at him. That he was grumpy, that he was antisocial. He was those things. But for a very specific reason.

  And of course Madison would know. Of course she would see.

  “I’ve never been comfortable sharing my life,” Sam said. “I suppose that comes from having a father who was less than thrilled to have a son who was interested in art. In fact, I think my father considered it a moral failing of his. To have a son who wanted to use materials to create frivolous things. Things that had no use. To have a son who was more interested in that than honest labor. I learned to keep things to myself a long time ago. Which all sounds a whole lot like a sad, cliché story. Except it’s not. It worked. I would have made a relationship with my dad work. But he died. So then it didn’t matter anymore. But still, I just never... I never wanted to keep people up on what was happening with my life. I was kind of trained that way.”

  Hell, a lot of guys were that way, anyway. A lot of men didn’t want to talk about what was happening in their day-to-day existence. Though most of them wouldn’t have gone to the lengths that Sam did to keep everything separate.

  “Most especially when Chase and I were neck-deep in trying to keep the business afloat, I didn’t like him seeing that I was working on anything else. Anything at all.” Sam took a deep breath. “That included any kind of relationships I might have. I didn’t have a lot. But you know Chase never had a problem with people in town knowing that he was spreading it around. He never had a problem sleeping with the women here.”

  “No, he did not,” Maddy said. “Never with me, to be clear.”

  “Considering I’m your first in a decade, I wasn’t exactly that worried about it.”

  “Just making sure.”

  “I didn’t like that. I didn’t want my life to be part of this real-time small-town TV program. I preferred to find women out of town. When I was making deliveries, going to bigger ranches down the coast, that was when I would...”

  “When you would find yourself a buckle bunny for the evening?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Except I met a woman I liked a lot. She was the daughter of one of the big ranchers down near Coos County. And I tried to keep things business oriented. We were actually doing business with her family. But I... I saw her out at a bar one night, and even though I knew she was too young, too nice of a girl for a guy like me... I slept with her. And a few times after. I was pretty obsessed with her, actually.”

  He was downplaying it. But what was the point of doing anything else? Of admitting that for just a little while he’d thought he’d found something. Someone who wanted him. All of him. Someone who knew him.

  The possibility of a future. Like the first hint of spring in the air after a long winter.

  Maddy moved closer to him, looking up at him, and he decided to take a moment to enjoy that for a second. Because after this, she would probably never want to touch him again.

  “Without warning, she cut me off. Completely. Didn’t want to see me anymore. And since she was a few hours down the highway, that really meant not seeing her. I’d had to make an effort to work her into my life. Cutting her out of it was actually a lot easier.”

  “Sure,” Maddy said, obviously not convinced.

  “I got a phone call one night. Late. From the hospital. They told me to come down because Elizabeth was asking for me. They said it wasn’t good.”

  “Oh, Sam,” Maddy said, her tone tinged with sympathy.

  He brush right past that. Continued on. “I white-knuckled it down there. Went as fast as I could. I didn’t tell anyone I was going. When I got there, they wouldn’t let me in. Because I wasn’t family.”

  “But she wanted them to call you.”

  “It didn’t matter.” It was difficult for him to talk about that day. In fact, he never had. He could see it all playing out in his mind as he spoke the words. Could see the image of her father walking out of the double doors, looking harried, older than Sam had ever seen him look during any of their business dealings.

  “I never got to see her,” Sam said. “She died a few minutes after I got there.”

  “Sam, I’m so sorry...”

  “No, don’t misunderstand me. This isn’t a story about me being angry because I lost a woman that I loved. I didn’t love her. That’s the worst part.” He swallowed hard, trying to diffuse the pressure in his throat crushing down, making it hard to breathe. “I mean, maybe I could have. But that’s not the same. You know who loved her? Her family. Her family loved her. I have never seen a man look so destroyed as I did that day. Looking at her father, who clearly wondered why in hell I was sitting down there in the emergency room. Why I had been called to come down. He didn’t have to wonder long. Not when they told him exactly how his daughter died.” Sam took a deep breath. “Elizabeth died of internal bleeding. Complications from an ectopic pregnancy.”

  Maddy’s face paled, her lips looking waxen. “Did you...? You didn’t know she was pregnant.”

  “No. Neither did anyone in her family. But I know it was mine. I know it was mine, and she didn’t want me to know. And that was probably why she didn’t tell me, why she broke things off with me. Nobody knew because she was ashamed. Because it was my baby. Because it was a man that she knew she couldn’t have a future with. Nobody knew, so when she felt tired and lay down for a nap because she was bleeding and feeling discomfort, no one was there.”

  Silence settled around them, the house creaking beneath the weight of it.

  “Did you ever find out why...why she called you then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wanted me there to blame me. Maybe she just needed me. I’ll never know. She was gone before I ever got to see her.”

  “That must have been...” Maddy let that sentence trail off. “That’s horrible.”
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  “It’s nothing but horrible. It’s everything horrible. I know why she got pregnant, Maddy. It’s because... I was so careless with her. I had sex with her once without a condom. And I thought that it would be fine. Hell, I figured if something did happen, I’d be willing to marry her. All of that happened because I didn’t think. Because I lost control. I don’t deserve...”

  “You can’t blame yourself for a death that was some kind of freak medical event.”

  “Tell me you wouldn’t blame yourself, Maddy. Tell me you wouldn’t.” He sat up, and Maddy sat up too. Then he gripped her shoulders, holding her steady, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You, who blame yourself for the affair with your dressage teacher even though you were an underage girl. You could tell me you don’t. You could tell me that you were just hurt by the way everybody treated you, but I know it’s more than that. You blame yourself. So don’t you dare look at me with those wide blue eyes and tell me that I have no business blaming myself.”

  She blinked. “I... I don’t blame myself. I don’t. I mean, I’m not proud of what I did, but I’m not going to take all of the blame. Not for something I couldn’t control. He lied to me. I was dumb, yes. I was naive. But dammit, Sam, my father should have had my back. My friends should have had my back. And my teacher should never have taken advantage of me.”

  He moved away from her then, pushing himself into a standing position and forking his fingers through his hair. She wasn’t blaming him. It was supposed to push her away. She certainly wasn’t supposed to look at him with sympathy. She was supposed to be appalled. Appalled that he had taken the chances he had with Elizabeth’s body. Appalled at his lack of control.

  It was the object lesson. The one that proved that he wasn’t good enough for a woman like her. That he wasn’t good enough for anyone.

  “You don’t blame yourself at all?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s kind of a loaded question. I could have made another decision. And because of that, I guess I share blame. But I’m not going to sit around feeling endless guilt. I’m hurt. I’m wounded. But that’s not the same thing. Like I told you, the sex was the least of it. If it was all guilt, I would have found somebody a long time ago. I would have dealt with it. But it’s more than that. I think it’s more than that with you. Because you’re not an idiot. You know full well that it isn’t like you’re the first man to have unprotected sex with a woman. You know full well you weren’t in control of where an embryo implanted inside a woman. You couldn’t have taken her to the hospital, because you didn’t know she was pregnant. You didn’t know she needed you. She sent you away. She made some choices here, and I don’t really think it’s her fault either, because how could she have known? But still. It isn’t your fault.”

  He drew back, anger roaring through him. “I’m the one...”

  “You’re very dedicated to this. But that doesn’t make it true.”

  “Her father thought it was my fault,” he said. “That matters. I had to look at a man who was going to have to bury his daughter because of me.”

  “Maybe he felt that way,” Maddy said. “I can understand that. People want to blame. I know. Because I’ve been put in that position. Where I was the one that people wanted to blame. Because I wasn’t as well liked. Because I wasn’t as important. I know that David’s wife certainly wanted to blame me, because she wanted to make her marriage work, and if she blamed David, how would she do that? And without blame, your anger is aimless.”

  Those words hit hard, settled somewhere down deep inside him. And he knew that no matter what, no matter that he didn’t want to think about them, no matter that he didn’t want to believe them, they were going to stay with him. Truth had a funny way of doing that.

  “I’m not looking for absolution, Maddy.” He shook his head. “I was never looking for it.”

  “What are you looking for, then?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m not looking for anything. I’m not looking for you to forgive me. I’m not looking to forgive myself.”

  “No,” she said, “you’re just looking to keep punishing yourself. To hold everything inside and keep it buried down deep. I don’t think it’s the rest of the world you’re hiding yourself from. I think you’re hiding from yourself.”

  “You think that you are qualified to talk about my issues? You. The woman who didn’t have a lover for ten years because she’s so mired in the past?”

  “Do you think that’s going to hurt my feelings? I know I’m messed up. I’m well aware. In fact, I would argue that it takes somebody as profoundly screwed up as I am to look at another person and see it. Maybe other people would look at you and see a man who is strong. A man who has it all laid out. A man who has iron control. But I see you for what you are. You’re completely and totally bound up inside. And you’re ready to crack apart. You can’t go on like this.”

  “Watch me,” he said.

  “How long has it been?” she asked, her tone soft.

  “Five years,” he ground out.

  “Well, it’s only half the time I’ve been punishing myself, but it’s pretty good. Where do you see it ending, Sam?”

  “Well, you were part of it for me too.”

  He gritted his teeth, regretting introducing that revelation into the conversation.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t been with a woman in five years. So I guess you could say you are part of me dealing with some of my issues.”

  Maddy looked like she’d been slapped. She did not, in any way, look complimented. “What does that mean? What does that mean?” She repeated the phrase twice, sounding more horrified, more frantic each time.

  “It had to end at some point. The celibacy, I mean. And when you offered yourself, I wasn’t in a position to say no.”

  “After all of your righteous indignation—the accusation that I was using you for sexual healing—it turns out you were using me for the same thing?” she asked.

  “Why does that upset you so much?”

  “Because...because you’re still so completely wrapped up in it. Because you obviously don’t have any intention to really be healed.”

  Unease settled in his chest. “What’s me being healed to you, Maddy? What does that mean? I changed something, didn’t I? Same as you.”

  “But...” Her tone became frantic. “I just... You aren’t planning on letting it change you.”

  “What change are you talking about?” he pressed.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her throat sounding constricted.

  “Like hell, Madison. Don’t give me that. If you’ve changed the rules in your head, that’s hardly my fault.”

  She whirled around, lowering her head, burying her face in her hands. “You’re so infuriating.” She turned back to him, her cheeks crimson. “I don’t know what either of us was thinking. That we were going to go into this and come out the other side without changing anything? We are idiots. We are idiots who didn’t let another human being touch us for years. And somehow we thought we could come together and nothing would change? I mean, it was one thing when it was just me. I assumed that you went around having sex with women you didn’t like all the time.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you don’t like anyone. So, that stands to reason. That you would sleep with women you don’t like. I certainly didn’t figure you didn’t sleep with women at all. That’s ridiculous. You’re... Look at you. Of course you have sex. Who would assume that you didn’t? Not me. That’s who.”

  He gritted his teeth, wanting desperately to redirect the conversation. Because it was going into territory that would end badly for both of them. He wanted to leave the core of the energy arcing between them unspoken. He wanted to make sure that neither of them acknowledged it. He wanted to pretend he had no idea what she was thinking. No idea what she was about to say
.

  The problem was, he knew her. Better than he knew anyone else, maybe. And it had all happened in a week. A week of talking, of being skin to skin. Of being real.

  No wonder he had spent so many years avoiding exactly this. No wonder he had spent so long hiding everything that he was, everything that he wanted. Because the alternative was letting it hang out there, exposed and acting as some kind of all-access pass to anyone who bothered to take a look.

  “Well, you assumed wrong. But it doesn’t have to change anything. We have five more days, Maddy. Why does it have to be like this?”

  “Honest?”

  “Why do we have to fight with each other? We shouldn’t. We don’t have to. We don’t have to continue this discussion. We are not going to come to any kind of understanding, whatever you might think. Whatever you think you’re pushing for here...just don’t.”

  “Are you going to walk away from this and just not change? Are you going to find another woman? Is that all this was? A chance for you to get your sexual mojo back? To prove that you could use a condom every time? Did you want me to sew you a little sexual merit badge for your new Boy Scout vest?” She let out a frustrated growl. “I don’t want you to be a Boy Scout, Sam. I want you to be you.”

  Sam growled, advancing on her. She backed away from him until her shoulder blades hit the wall. Then he pressed his palms to the flat surface on either side of her face. “You don’t want me to be me. Trust me. I don’t know how to give the kinds of things you want.”

  “You don’t want to,” she said, the words soft, penetrating deeper than a shout ever could have.

  “No, you don’t want me to.”

  “Why is that so desperately important for you to make yourself believe?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  She let silence hang between them for a moment. “Why won’t you let yourself feel this?”

  “What?”

  “This is why you do farm animals. That’s what you said. And you said it was because nobody would want to see this. But that isn’t true. Everybody feels grief, Sam. Everybody has lost. Plenty of people would want to see what you would make from this. Why is it that you can’t do it?”