by Maisey Yates
Because that was what the old Maddy would have done. She would have played it off. She would have tried to laugh. She wouldn’t have let herself feel this, not all the way down. She wouldn’t have let her heart feel bruised or tender. Wouldn’t have let a wave of pain roll over her. Wouldn’t have let herself feel it, not really.
And when she walked out of his house, sniffling, her shoulders shaking, and could no longer hold back the sob that was building in her chest by the time she reached her car, she didn’t care. She didn’t feel ashamed.
There was no shame in loving someone.
She opened the driver-side door and sat down. And then the dam burst. She had loved so many people who had never loved her in return. Not the way she loved them. She had made herself hard because of it. She had put the shame on her own shoulders.
That somehow a seventeen-year-old girl should have known that her teacher was lying to her. That somehow a daughter whose father had walked her down Main Street and bought her sweets in a little shop should have known that her father’s affection had its limits.
That a woman who had met a man who had finally reached deep inside her and moved all those defenses she had erected around her heart should have known that in the end he would break it.
No. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t the love that was bad. It was the pride. The shame. The fear. Those were the things that needed to be gotten rid of.
She took a deep, shaking breath. She blinked hard, forcing the rest of her tears to fall, and then she started the car.
She would be okay. Because she had found herself again. Had learned how to love again. Had found a deep certainty and confidence in herself that had been missing for so long.
But as she drove away, she still felt torn in two. Because while she had been made whole, she knew that she was leaving Sam behind, still as broken as she had found him.
Twelve
Sam thought he might be dying. But then, that could easily be alcohol poisoning. He had been drinking and going from his house into his studio for the past two days. And that was it. He hadn’t talked to anyone. He had nothing to say. He had sent Maddy away, and while he was firmly convinced it was the only thing he could have done, it hurt like a son of a bitch.
It shouldn’t. It had been necessary. He couldn’t love her the way that she wanted him to. He couldn’t. There was no way in hell. Not a man like him.
Her words started to crowd in on him unbidden, the exact opposite thing that he wanted to remember right now. About how there was no point blaming himself. About how that wasn’t the real issue. He growled, grabbing hold of the hammer he’d been using and flinging it across the room. It landed in a pile of scrap metal, the sound satisfying, the lack of damage unsatisfying.
He had a fire burning hot, and the room was stifling. He stripped his shirt off, feeling like he couldn’t catch his breath. He felt like he was losing his mind. But then, he wasn’t a stranger to it. He had felt this way after his parents had died. Again after Elizabeth. There was so much inside him, and there was nowhere for it to go.
And just like those other times, he didn’t deserve this pain. Not at all. He was the one who had hurt her. He was the one who couldn’t stand up to that declaration of love. He didn’t deserve this pain.
But no matter how deep he tried to push it down, no matter how he tried to pound it out with a hammer, it still remained. And his brain was blank. He couldn’t even figure out how the hell he might fashion some of this material into another cow.
It was like the thing inside him that told him how to create things had left along with Maddy.
He looked over at the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that was sitting on his workbench. And cursed when he saw that it was empty. He was going to have to get more. But he wasn’t sure he had more in the house. Which meant leaving the house. Maybe going to Chase’s place and seeing if there was anything to take. Between that and sobriety it was a difficult choice.
He looked around, looked at the horse that he had bent Maddy over just three days ago. Everything seemed dead now. Cold. Dark. Usually he felt the life in the things that he made. Something he would never tell anyone, because it sounded stupid. Because it exposed him.
But it was like Maddy had come in here and changed things. Taken everything with her when she left.
He walked over to the horse, braced his hands on the back of it and leaned forward, giving into the wave of pain that crashed over him suddenly, uncontrollably.
“I thought I might find you in here.”
Sam lifted his head at the sound of his brother’s voice. “I’m busy.”
“Right. Which is why there is nothing new in here, but it smells flammable.”
“I had a drink.”
“Or twelve,” Chase said, sounding surprisingly sympathetic. “If you get too close to that forge, you’re going to burst into flame.”
“That might not be so bad.”
“What’s going on? You’re always a grumpy bastard, but this is different. You don’t usually disappear for days at a time. Actually, I can pick up a couple of times that you’ve done that in the past. You usually reemerge worse and even more impossible than you were before. So if that is what’s happening here, I would appreciate a heads-up.”
“It’s nothing. Artistic temper tantrum.”
“I don’t believe that.” Chase crossed his arms and leaned against the back wall of the studio, making it very clear that he intended to stay until Sam told him something.
Fine. The bastard could hang out all day for all he cared. It didn’t mean he had to talk.
“Believe whatever you want,” Sam said. “But it’s not going to make hanging out here any more interesting. I can’t figure out what to make next. Are you happy? I have no idea. I have no inspiration.” Suddenly, everything in him boiled over. “And I hate that. I hate that it matters. I should just be able to think of something to do. Or not care if I don’t want to do it. But somehow, I can’t make it work if I don’t care at least a little bit. I hate caring, Chase. I hate it.”
He hated it for every damn thing. Every damn, fragile thing.
“I know,” Chase said. “And I blame Dad for that. He didn’t understand. That isn’t your fault. And it’s not your flaw that you care. Think about the way he was about ranching. It was ridiculous. Weather that didn’t go his way would send him into some kind of emotional tailspin for weeks. And he felt the same way about iron that you do. It’s just that he felt compelled to shape it into things that had a function. But he took pride in his work. And he was an artist with it—you know he was. If anything, I think he was shocked by what you could do. Maybe even a little bit jealous. And he didn’t know what to do with it.”
Sam resisted those words. And the truth in them. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Because it’s why you can’t talk about what you do. It’s why you don’t take pride in it the way that you should. It’s why you’re sitting here downplaying the fact you’re having some kind of art block when it’s been pretty clear for a few months that you have been.”
“It shouldn’t be a thing.”
Chase shrugged. “Maybe not. But the very thing that makes your work valuable is also what makes it difficult. You’re not a machine.”
Sam wished he was. More than anything, he wished that he was. So that he wouldn’t care about a damn thing. So that he wouldn’t care about Maddy.
Softness, curves, floated to the forefront of his mind. Darkness and grief. All the inspiration he could ever want. Except that he couldn’t take it. It wasn’t his. He didn’t own it. None of it.
He was still trying to pull things out of his own soul, and all he got was dry, hard work that looked downright ugly to him.
“I should be,” he said, stubborn.
“This isn’t about Dad, though. I don’t even think it’s about the art, though I think it’s related. T
here was a woman, wasn’t there?”
Sam snorted. “When?”
“Recently. Like the past week. Mostly I think so because I recognize that all-consuming obsession. Because I recognize this. Because you came and kicked my ass when I was in a very similar position just a year ago. And you know what you told me? With great authority, you told me that iron had to get hot to get shaped into something. You told me that I was in my fire, and I had to let it shape me into the man Anna needed me to be.”
“Yeah, I guess I did tell you that,” Sam said.
“Obviously I’m not privy to all the details of your personal life, Sam, which is your prerogative. But you’re in here actively attempting to drink yourself to death. You say that you can’t find any inspiration for your art. I would say that you’re in a pretty damn bad situation. And maybe you need to pull yourself out of it. If that means grabbing hold of her—whoever she is—then do it.”
Sam felt like the frustration inside him was about to overflow. “I can’t. There’s too much... There’s too much. If you knew, Chase. If you knew everything about me, you wouldn’t think I deserved it.”
“Who deserves it?” Chase asked. “Does anybody? Do you honestly think I deserve Anna? I don’t. But I love her. And I work every day to deserve her. It’s a work in progress, let me tell you. But that’s love. You just kind of keep working for it.”
“There are too many other things in the way,” Sam said, because he didn’t know how else to articulate it. Without having a confessional, here in his studio, he didn’t know how else to have this conversation.
“What things? What are you afraid of, Sam? Having a feeling? Is that what all this is about? The fact you want to protect yourself? The fact that it matters more to you that you get to keep your stoic expression and your who-gives-a-damn attitude intact?”
“It isn’t that. It’s never been that. But how—” He started again. “How was I supposed to grieve for Dad when you lost your mentor? How was I supposed to grieve for Mom when you were so young? It wasn’t fair.” And how the hell was he supposed to grieve for Elizabeth, for the child he didn’t even know she had been carrying, when her own family was left with nothing.
“Of course you could grieve for them. They were your parents.”
“Somebody has to be strong, Chase.”
“And you thought I was weak? You think somehow grieving for my parents was weak?”
“Of course not. But... I was never the man that Dad wanted me to be. Now when he was alive. I didn’t do what he wanted me to do. I didn’t want the things that he wanted.”
“Neither did I. And we both just about killed ourselves working this place the way that he wanted us to while it slowly sank into the ground. Then we had to do things on our terms. Because actually, we did know what we were talking about. And who we are, the gifts that we have, those mattered. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a business mind, if it wasn’t for the fact that you could do the artwork, the ranch wouldn’t be here. McCormack Ironworks wouldn’t exist. And if Dad had lived, he would be proud of us. Because in the end we saved this place.”
“I just don’t... I had a girlfriend who died.” He didn’t know why he had spoken the words. He hadn’t intended to. “She wasn’t my girlfriend when she died. But she bled to death. At the hospital. She had been pregnant. And it was mine.”
Chase cursed and fell back against the wall, bracing himself. “Seriously?”
“Yes. And I want... I want to do something with that feeling. But her family is devastated, Chase. They lost so much more than I did. And I don’t know how... I don’t know what to do with all of this. I don’t know what to do with all of these feelings. I don’t feel like I deserve them. I don’t feel like I deserve the pain. Not in the way that I deserve to walk away from it unscathed. But I feel like it isn’t mine. Like I’m taking something from them, or making something about me that just shouldn’t be. But it’s there all the same. And it follows me around. And Maddy loves me. She said she loves me. And I don’t know how to take that either.”
“Bullshit,” Chase said, his voice rough. “That’s not it.”
“Don’t tell me how it is, Chase, not when you don’t know.”
“Of course I know, Sam. Loss is hell. And I didn’t lose half of what you did.”
“It was just the possibility of something. Elizabeth. It wasn’t... It was just...”
“Sam. You lost your parents. And a woman you were involved with who was carrying your baby. Of course you’re screwed up. But walking around pretending you’re just grumpy, pretending you don’t want anything, that you don’t care about anything, doesn’t protect you from pain. It’s just letting fear poison you from the inside.”
Sam felt like he was staring down into an abyss that had no end. A yawning, bottomless cavern that was just full of need. All the need he had ever felt his entire life. The words ricocheted back at him, hit him like shrapnel, damaging, wounding. They were the truth. That it was what drove him, that it was what stopped him.
Fear.
That it was why he had spent so many years hiding.
And as blindingly clear as it was, it was also clear that Maddy was right about him. More right about him than he’d ever been about himself.
That confession made him think of Maddy too. Of the situation she was in with her father. Of those broken words she had spoken to him about how if her own father didn’t think she was worth defending, who would? And he had sent her away, like he didn’t think she was worth it either. Like he didn’t think she was worth the pain or the risk.
Except he did. He thought she was worth defending. That she was worth loving. That she was worth everything.
Sam felt... Well, nothing on this earth had ever made him feel small before. But this did it. He felt scared. He felt weak. Mostly he felt a kind of overwhelming sadness for everything he’d lost. For all the words that were left unsaid. The years of grief that had built up.
It had never been about control. It had never been based in reality. Or about whether or not he deserved something. Not really. He was afraid of feeling. Of loss. More loss after years and years of it.
But his father had died without knowing. Without knowing that even though things weren’t always the best between them, Sam had loved him. Elizabeth had died without knowing Sam had cared.
Protecting himself meant hurting other people. And it damn well hurt him.
Maddy had been brave enough to show him. And he had rejected it. Utterly. Completely. She had been so brave, and he had remained shut down as he’d been for years.
She had removed any risk of rejection and still he had been afraid. He had been willing to lose her this time.
“Do you know why the art is hard?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Because. If I make what I really want to, then I actually have to feel it.”
He hated saying it. Hated admitting it. But he knew, somehow, that this was essential to his soul. That if he was ever going to move on from this place, from this dry, drunken place that produced nothing but anguish, he had to start saying these things. He had to start committing to these things.
“I had a lot behind this idea that I wasn’t good enough. That I didn’t deserve to feel. Because...the alternative is feeling it. It’s caring when it’s easier to be mad at everything. Hoping for things when so much is already dead.”
“What’s the alternative?” Chase asked.
He looked around his studio. At all the lifeless things. Hard and sharp. Just like he was. The alternative was living without hope. The alternative was acting like he was dead too.
“This,” he said finally. “And life without Maddy. I’d rather risk everything than live without her.”
Thirteen
Madison looked around the beautifully appointed room. The grand party facility at the ranch was decorated in evergreen b
oughs and white Christmas lights, the trays of glittering champagne moving by somehow adding to the motif. Sparkling. Pristine.
Maddy herself was dressed in a gown that could be described in much the same manner. A pale yellow that caught the lights and glimmered like sun on new-fallen snow.
However, it was a prime example of how appearances can be deceiving. She felt horrible. Much more like snow that had been mixed up with gravel. Gritty. Gray.
Hopefully no one was any the wiser. She was good at putting on a brave face. Good at pretending everything was fine. Something she had perfected over the years. Not just at these kinds of public events but at family events too.
Self-protection was her favorite accessory. It went with everything.
She looked outside, at the terrace, which was lit by a thatch of Christmas lights, heated by a few freestanding heaters. However, no one was out there. She took a deep breath, seeing her opportunity for escape. And she took it. She just needed a few minutes. A few minutes to feel a little bit less like her face would crack beneath the weight of her fake smile.
A few minutes to take a deep breath and not worry so much that it would turn into a sob.
She grabbed hold of a glass of champagne, then moved quickly to the door, slipping out into the chilly night air. She went over near one of the heaters, wrapping her arms around herself and simply standing for a moment, looking out into the inky blackness, looking at nothing. It felt good. It was a relief to her burning eyes. A relief to her scorched soul.
All of this feelings business was rough. She wasn’t entirely certain she could recommend it.
“What’s going on, Maddy?”
She turned around, trying to force a smile when she saw her brother Gage standing there.