Broken Lies

by Rachel Branton

She climbed out of the truck, leaving the door open for a quick retreat. He stepped forward tentatively, and they embraced in a loose, impersonal hug, the kind people used when they weren’t close. Or perhaps the kind of hug exchanged when one of them was holding a secret. If there had been no secret, Mercedes would have been excited and pleased to see him, and the hug would have been real.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” Brandon said as she drew quickly away. “I mean, you have, but you haven’t. Your hair is the same, and your eyes are still dark enough to be black. But I don’t remember the freckles.”

  “They’re from the sun. I didn’t get much sun back in the old days. Too much bookwork.”

  “Life must have treated you well. You look great!”

  “Thanks. You too. So what brings you to Riverton?”

  “Oh, a seminar at the hospital. You know, giving back. I’m staying at the Alpine House for a few weeks. Thought I’d look up some old friends.”

  Old friends. She remembered her thoughts in the store. Friends did not begin to describe what they had been to each other. “That’s nice. Is anyone you know still at the hospital?”

  “Not many. Old Dustbottom is, though. He’ll probably outlive us all.”

  Mercedes smiled. “He still in charge of the morgue?”

  “Yep. And the backside of his coat is still just as speckled with dirt or ink or whatever it was. Have you ever seen him around?”

  “I don’t get into town much. Especially to the hospital.” Only to give birth to her children. But she wasn’t going there.

  “So what are you doing these days? Practicing psychiatry? Psychology?”

  She shook her head. “Neither. I’m married now. Raising a family. We’re running my family’s farm.”

  He blinked. “Married—of course you are. I’d heard that. I was married for four years myself. It didn’t work out.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “That’s the way it goes.”

  Not in Mercedes’ book. Marriage was a commitment you didn’t walk out on. But then, Brandon was good at walking out on commitments.

  “So you have children. I mean, you’d have to if you’re raising a family.” His eyes seemed intent as he spoke, and Mercedes felt a tremor of fear.

  “Yeah, three boys. Good kids. In fact”—she looked at her watch—“I’d better get back to them. They’re helping their dad with the planting today, since it’s Saturday. But the younger ones don’t have as much endurance, and sometimes they can be more of a hindrance, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t have children, but I can imagine. How old are they?”

  “Eight and nine. Their daddy’s patient and a good teacher, but there’s a limit. And believe me, they like to push it.” She forced a laugh.

  “And your other boy? Didn’t you say you have three?”

  “He’s two years older.” Not exactly a lie because Joseph would be ten in three months, and then he would be two years younger than Darrel’s twelve. But since Joseph was still only nine, Brandon would assume Darrel was eleven. Eleven kept him safely out of reach. “He’s not very tall or big, but he’s got a good head.”

  “I’d love to meet them. I bet they look like you.”

  “Two of them do. The other one looks like his dad, even down to his red hair and blue eyes.”

  “I’ll bet they’re great. Oh, I wanted to tell you, I saw your brother four or five weeks ago.”

  This surprised her. “Where?”

  “At the hospital in San Diego where I work. His company was updating some of our electronics.”

  “That’s funny. Austin didn’t mention it. He was here helping with the planting last weekend.” What she wouldn’t add was that the farm hadn’t done well last year, and with the purchase of a new tractor, they’d had to forego hiring help until the harvest. Austin’s willingness to pitch in had been a godsend.

  “Well, I only saw him briefly, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t even sure he remembered me. We only met a few times when I lived here.”

  Mercedes let herself relax. Even if Austin had recognized Brandon, he wouldn’t have betrayed her secret. He knew the stakes as much as she did. This was only one more secret in their shared past. A past where their father drank and treated his children like worthless chattel. A past where their mother had let him. “He was concentrating on college in those days. He’s become quite successful, though.”

  “I see he left the farm.”

  Mercedes wasn’t quite sure, but she thought she sensed a question there. Did he wonder why she was still at the farm she’d vowed never to return to after her mother’s tragedy? She doubted he could ever understand. “Actually, Austin comes back quite often. We even keep a room for him. He took over my grandmother’s charity when she died a few years back. Runs it part-time with his wife, Liana. He got married four months ago.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  She knew it was only something said to fill the empty space between them. Thirteen years was too long to feel comfortable.

  “Do you have time for a quick drink?” he asked.

  “Not really. My husband and the boys are waiting. Some other time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” she echoed. There really wasn’t much else to say, was there?

  “Mercedes . . .”

  “Yes?” She put a hand on the truck door.

  “The way we left it. I didn’t mean . . .” He looked up at the sky. “Time passed so fast. I didn’t mean for things to work out that way. It’s one of my biggest regrets.”

  What does he regret? she wondered. The relationship? Leaving? Or not keeping in contact? None of it really mattered now.

  “It’s okay,” she said with more gentleness than she felt. “We both moved on. That’s just the way it is.” She thought it was particularly poetic to use his own terminology against him. In her heart, though, her fury mounted. He’d given up so much.

  Worse, he’d made the choice for both of them, a choice she’d had to live with for thirteen years. He’d broken more than her heart; for a time, she’d lost even her will to live. Only Wayne had saved her. Wayne, with his quiet, unassuming love. With his constant support and refusal to judge. Though she had deserved his scorn, he’d given her back her life. In return, she’d given him that life.

  And I’m happy, she thought fiercely. Turning, she climbed into the truck.

  “Mercedes,” Brandon said again.

  She gazed at him from behind the wheel, simply waiting. “I’d like to drop by, if I may. Meet your husband, talk about old times.”

  “You’ve met Wayne before. He worked for my father.”

  He looked puzzled. Likely he remembered Wayne as old enough to be her father, though he was only fifty-two to her thirty-nine.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “you’re welcome to come out, but we’re still getting in the spring wheat.” What she wanted to tell him was to go back to wherever he’d come from and leave her family alone. The way he pushed told her he wanted something from her. She could only pray it didn’t involve Darrel. Yet what else could it be? “That means we’re not at the house much.” Or at least Wayne wasn’t.

  He nodded. “Well, it was nice to see you.”

  Mercedes shut her door, put the truck into gear, and drove away. She could see him in the rearview mirror watching her leave. The scene brought back memories of when he had left and she had stayed behind. Her heart felt tight.

  Thirty miles outside Riverton, she pulled off the highway and leaned her head on the steering wheel. She was shaking so badly that she felt ill. “Wayne,” she whispered. She needed Wayne.

  Forty minutes later, she was in the barn saddling Windwalker, her white stallion. Di and Thunder, her red retrievers, watched patiently, wagging their tails with excitement. But only Thunder followed as she galloped from the barn, Di choosing to stay back with her new litter of puppies. Always the good mother, watching over her babies. That’s what good mothers did.


  Wind beat into her face, flattening the tears down and over her cheeks until they seemed more like a sheen of sweat than tears at all. Windwalker, a surprise present from Wayne last year, was her most prized animal. He had traded three calves to their neighbors down the road for the young horse, and Mercedes believed he was worth far more. She loved the power in his stride and the elation of moving so fast over the ground that time didn’t seem to matter. Today was no exception. Hunching over his mane, she urged him onward. He flew like the wind. And for those few minutes, she was safe.

  She came upon the west fields too quickly for her state of mind, but seeing Wayne and Darrel on the tractor and the younger boys, Joseph and Scott, playing in the back of the seed truck gave her a rush of belonging. These were her men, her place, and even the heartrending mound of dirt in the family cemetery past their small fruit orchard was a part of who she had become.

  “Hi, Mom.” Joseph and Scott waved her over.

  “Can I have a ride back?” Scott added. “I’m bored.”

  “I’ll take you both home in a minute. First I need to talk to your father.”

  Wayne had spotted her and opened the tractor cab, leaping down and leaving Darrel to operate the machine alone. He loped toward her in his customary gait, which was strangely graceful. Wayne was a tall man, built as strong as an old tree. At fifty-two, he had the strength of a much younger man, but his face was worn and weathered by the sun, and his red hair had gone an orangey white. His blue eyes were kind, and the wrinkles in his face were as much a part of him as the furrows were a part of the fields. Not for the first time, Mercedes understood that Wayne was the farm. He was as constant as the earth, as tender as the plants he coaxed out of the soil, as forgiving as a thirsty stalk of wheat after a spring rain.

  “What’s wrong?” he said as they met halfway.

  She looked to the right and to the left, unwilling to meet his eyes.

  “Mercedes.” He spoke in almost the same way as Brandon had, but then he added, “Honey, I’m here.”

  She dragged in a breath and looked up into his eyes. “I was at Safeway. He’s back in Riverton. He came to teach a seminar or something. At least that’s what he says. But it’s too much of a coincidence. I-I’m afraid.”

  He didn’t ask her who “he” was. “He” was the only person who had stood between them all these long years, the one with the power to change their safe world.

  Wayne made a noise of dismay in his throat and pulled her into his arms. Besides galloping on Windwalker’s back, this was the only other place she felt completely safe, where nothing could touch her. Even as a child when he’d protected her from her father’s wrath or her mother’s indifference, she had felt safe with Wayne.

  “I love you,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  She dropped her head to his shoulder, wiping her wet cheek against his dusty shirt. “He wants to come by. What if he knows?”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  She pulled back slightly to look up into his face. “Then why come? After all these years? It’s not like the hospital here has anything to offer him.”

  “Maybe he’s finally realizing what he lost.” Wayne’s eyes were sorrowful, and Mercedes wondered if he thought such a thing would change her life—knowing that Brandon might have come back for her.

  It wouldn’t, of course. Yet just for an instant, she remembered how she’d felt the day Brandon left. The certainty that he would be back for her, the belief that he couldn’t live without her as she couldn’t live without him.

  He hadn’t come back. Until now.

  Mercedes swallowed hard. “He never loved me, not the way you do.” She said this with a surety born of long years of knowing. Sometimes Wayne’s love weighed heavily on her, as though it were a burden, because she knew everything she could give him would never begin to equal all that he gave her.

  END OF SAMPLE. If you would like to purchase All That I Love on Smashwords, please click here. Or continue to the next page to learn more about Rachel Branton and her books.

  About the Author

  Rachel Branton has worked in publishing for over twenty years. She loves writing women’s fiction and traveling, and she hopes to write and travel a lot more. As a mother of seven, it’s not easy to find time to write, but the semi-ordered chaos gives her a constant source of writing material. She grabs any snatch of free time from her hectic life to write. She’s been known to wear pajamas all day when working on a deadline, and she is often distracted enough to burn dinner. (Okay, pretty much 90% of the time.) A sign on her office door reads: Danger. Enter at Your Own Risk. Writer at Work. Under the name Rachel Branton, she writes romance, romantic suspense, and women’s fiction. Rachel also writes urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and science fiction under the name Teyla Branton. For more information or to sign up to hear about new releases, please visit RachelBranton.com.

  You can also write to Rachel at Rachel@RachelBranton.com.

  BOOKS BY RACHEL BRANTON

  Lily’s House Series

  House Without Lies

  Tell Me No Lies

  Your Eyes Don’t Lie

  Hearts Never Lie

  Broken Lies

  Lily’s House Novellas

  Cowboys Can’t Lie

  Finding Home Series

  Take Me Home

  All That I Love

  Then I Found You

  Noble Hearts

  Royal Quest

  Royal Dance

  Lisbon's Misadventures (Picture Books)

  I Don't Want To Eat Bugs

  I Don’t Want to Have Hot Toes

  UNDER THE NAME TEYLA BRANTON

  Unbounded Series

  The Change

  The Cure

  The Escape

  The Reckoning

  The Takeover

  Unbounded Novellas

  Ava’s Revenge

  Mortal Brother

  Lethal Engagement

  Set Ablaze

  Colony Six

  Sketches

  Short Stories

  Times Nine