“You know…” His eyes narrowed with thought. “Winter won’t last forever. If she gets into school, she’ll only be there a few weeks if you’re intending to leave in spring.”
My spine slouched.
I hadn’t thought of that.
Here I was planning a future for Della that would end the moment the thaw came. She wanted to leave, but if we did…she’d never have what she deserved.
She’d never read and write properly. She’d never grow up with the skills to make her dreams come true.
I looked out the window at the silver moon on white snow and the silhouettes of trees beckoning me back into their depths.
The urge to run crippled me.
But my love for Della broke me.
She wouldn’t like it.
I would hate it.
But this was about more than what we wanted. This was about what she needed, and any sacrifice was worth that.
Inhaling with steely resolve, I asked, “Do you need a farmhand for summer?”
A half-smile tilted his lips. “A kid with your skills and work ethic? I could use for multiple summers.”
I looked once more out the window, toward the waving boughs of forests and promises of vacant untouched land, and then turned my back on it.
The rivers and forest would still be there.
For now, my role was to give Della everything I had to give.
Holding out my hand, I said, “You have a deal. Help me give Della things I can’t on my own, and I’ll stay for however long you need me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
REN
* * * * * *
2006
“YOU DIDN’T COME to the house last night.”
My head shot up from where I was checking the blades on the hay cutter.
Cassie leaned over the tractor’s front wheel, uncaring that dried mud and horse manure wedged in its big tread. “Where were you?”
I frowned. “Where was I?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, licking her lower lip, dragging my attention to places it shouldn’t go.
Clearing my throat, I grabbed the rag in my waistband and wiped away the grease on my hands. “In bed. Where I normally am once I’ve finished for the day.”
“You do realise it was New Year’s Eve, right? Dad said he invited you and Della to the house to watch the ball dropping in Times Square on TV.”
“He did invite us.”
“So why didn’t you come?”
I glanced at the door leading toward the room I shared with Della. She’d been helping me all day—sweeping out the tack room, sorting out old bags of feed, and generally doing a tidy up. Poor thing was knackered. I’d found her having a nap face down on the bed when I went for a glass of water, and she hadn’t emerged since.
Moving my attention back to Cassie, I brushed past her to grab another tube of piston grease resting on the tool chest. “Tired, I guess.”
“You guess?” She followed me, crossing her arms and cocking her head in that annoying but somehow attractive way. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
What did she want me to say? That I’d declined their invitation because, although Christmas had been amazing, it had drained me of all my reserves? That I’d reached my people quota and so had Della?
We’d spent the evening chatting about old campsites and wondering what the New Year would bring—both of us nostalgic for open air and cool streams.
When I didn’t respond to her question, she tried another one. “Do you have any New Year resolutions?”
I shook my head, once again moving past her to return to the tractor and its hay cutter. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“It’s a thing.”
“To make resolutions?”
“To have goals you want to do differently this year than last.” She moved back to where she’d leaned against the huge wheel, watching my every move. “What did you guys do last year? Was my dad right when he said you’d been living rough for a while?”
I pursed my lips, pretending to be absorbed with using the squirting gun to apply grease.
“Silent treatment again, huh?” She rolled her eyes. “One of these days, I’ll learn more about you, Ren Wild.”
I flashed her half a smile. “Nothing to know.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that.” Pushing off from the wheel, she pointed at the floor in front of her. “If you won’t answer my questions, you better do something for me instead.”
It was my turn to cock my eyebrow. “Do what exactly?”
“Come and stand here.” She waggled her finger. “It will only take a second.”
Doing my best to see a trap and unwilling to participate in whatever she wanted, I took my time to place the grease gun on the hood of the tractor and reluctantly moved to where she pointed. “What do you want?”
“I want what all girls want on New Year’s Eve.”
“And what’s that?”
She waited until I stopped a few steps away from her. She licked her lips nervously, her cheeks pinking and feet fidgeting. “You honestly don’t know?”
I jammed my hands into my jeans pockets, rocking backward on my heels. “Know what?”
“What happens at midnight on New Year’s?”
“The clock switches to a new year. That’s why it’s called New Year.” I frowned, wondering if I’d assessed her wrong, and her intelligence level was lacking instead of above par.
She sighed heavily as if I tried her patience. “No.” She raked both hands through her hair, the brown strands cascading over her shoulders. “God, you’re not making this easy.” She laughed suddenly. “Normally, it’s the boy making these moves.”
My heart quickened. “What moves?”
A long pause, then an explosion of speed as she closed the distance between us, stood on her tiptoes, and breathed, “This.”
Her lips landed on mine, freezing both of us to the spot.
I didn’t know what the hell she was doing. All I knew was if her father caught us, I’d be fired and Della wouldn’t be allowed to go to school anymore.
Tripping backward, I wiped my mouth from hers. “What the hell was that?”
“A kiss. But not a very good one.” Her eyes locked on my lips. “Want to try again?”
I wanted to scold her like I’d scold Della for doing something I wasn’t comfortable with. Instead, common-sense drowned beneath hot, hard need and my silence answered for me.
My brain emptied of reasons and rationality, and even the fear of ruining the bargain I’d made for Della’s benefit didn’t entice me to run.
Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped toward me again. Her hands fluttered by her sides, and my heart winged like a trapped bird. We didn’t speak as she stopped with her shoes touching mine.
I wanted to stop her.
I wanted to grab her.
I stayed locked in stone as she once again balanced on her toes and pressed her lips to mine.
This time, I didn’t stumble away, and she didn’t disappear.
She smelled sweet and young and innocent. My eyes hooded, wanting to close, but I kept them open. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do and didn’t want to insult her by shutting her out.
With a soft breath, she moved closer, her chest brushing mine, twin roundness so different to my flat hardness. My arms twitched to encircle her, but I couldn’t move.
My jeans hurt as my body swelled beyond normal. I wanted to readjust myself but daren’t move in case she stopped whatever magic this was.
And then, the softest sweep of warm wetness and my eyes snapped shut on their own accord. Her tongue came again, and I gasped, opening my lips, letting her tentative quest go deeper.
My first kiss.
And hell, it was better than anything I’d experienced.
Cassie moaned as my tongue moved to meet hers—testing, learning, tasting. We stood there, hidden behind the tractor and kissed awkwardly, but somehow, that awkwardness only added to the blistering awarenes
s and want.
My fingers curled to push her against the wall and kiss her harder.
My lungs gulped air to stop from going light-headed.
We slowly learned the other, and when it was over, Cassie smiled softer, happier than I’d seen. Her eyes were dewy. Her mouth wet from mine. Her steps floaty as she nodded once and whispered, “Thanks for my New Year’s kiss, Ren.”
With a lingering look, she left me to pick up my brain from the hay-dusted floor, wrangle the unbearable ache in my jeans, and somehow remember how to work.
* * * * *
That night, Della was subdued and not her usual self.
It took everything I had to lavish her with attention and be as supportive as I could when the only thing on my mind was a repeat of the kiss this afternoon.
When Della threw aside one of the few books we’d brought with us from Polcart Farm and curled into a tight ball, shutting me out and not responding to any of my suggestions to play, I lost my temper a little.
She wasn’t sick. She didn’t have a fever. She was just being a spoiled little brat, and I didn’t have time to offer her stories or promises to do anything she wanted when all I earned was her skinny back and a savage little growl.
Leaving her to pout and deal with whatever mood she was in, I returned to the barn and found solace in Cassie’s horses.
I didn’t know their names, but they stuck their heads over the partition, nickering in the night for treats.
Stroking their velvet muzzles, I allowed the urge to spill my annoyance about Della’s attitude to blend with the amazement of indulging in my first kiss.
The two extremes kept me standing there long into the night.
Confused.
Elated.
Frustrated.
And most of all, wary of what other surprises this New Year would bring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
DELLA
* * * * * *
Present Day
SO YEAH, I’VE been dreading writing this next part.
I’ve kind of been putting it off if I’m honest. Even knowing I’m never going to show you this assignment, it doesn’t make typing it any easier.
I suppose there is no easy way to say this, so I’ll ask a question instead.
How many times do you think a person can survive a broken heart?
Any ideas?
I would like to know because Ren has successfully broken mine, repaired it, shattered mine, fixed it, crushed mine, and somehow glued it back together again and again.
Then again, I don’t need an answer to that question.
I’m living proof that a heart can be broken a thousand times and still function, still keep you alive—desperately hoping that it won’t happen again, all the while knowing it will.
That cracking pain. That nicking, awful slicing has become horribly familiar to me now. I suppose my predicament could be seen as terribly romantic or horrendously stupid.
You’d think, after almost two decades of agony, I would’ve outgrown it by now…turns out, I’m stupid because I can’t stop it.
Anyway, let’s get on with the story…
The first time I caught him kissing her, I thought my chest would explode, and I’d plop dead right there where I hid in the barn shadows.
He didn’t see me.
But, holy ouch, did I see him.
I saw his lips touch hers, his body tighten and breath catch, and I wanted to pelt toward them, scratch out her eyes, then kick him in the shins. I wanted them both to understand how much they’d wronged me.
But that was the thing…they didn’t do anything wrong.
Ren was more man than boy, and I, as much as I despised it, was still a child.
I was trapped and hurting and ran back to our one bedroom with my heart gasping and insides smarting, curling around my agony with no clue how to stop it.
He got mad at me that night.
When he came to bed after kissing her, I couldn’t bear to look at him. I couldn’t let him see the depth of emptiness and loneliness he’d caused.
Instead, I ignored him.
He stormed off when I refused to uncurl and look at him. It took everything I had to hold in my aching tears, but once he’d vanished into the stables, I let loose the crushing agony and sobbed into my pillow.
I think back now and know my pain wasn’t from seeing him kiss Cassie. It wasn’t the fact I’d woken from my nap, bounced from our bedroom, and couldn’t wait to help him with his chores again. It wasn’t because, even though we lived across the driveway from the Wilsons, we were still separate, still us. And it wasn’t because I knew that a kiss meant more was to come and as bodies grew closer so too do minds and hearts.
I was too young, you see.
I didn’t know what kissing meant.
But the pain he injected into my heart? That was real and I felt betrayed, forgotten, and so terribly lost.
I was jealous that he was close to another when I was supposed to be the only one. I was angry that he turned to another for comfort and didn’t come to me. But most of all, I was in shattered pieces because I wasn’t enough anymore.
Crazy, right?
Such complex emotions for such a silly girl. I’ve read enough on the subject of unrequited love—especially when there are factors like age and experience separating two parties like they do with me and Ren—to understand my first broken heart wasn’t about lust or sex or even understanding that a kiss like that eventually led to more.
All I knew was the one person who meant the world to me—the boy who kissed my cheeks and cuddled me close and kept all the monsters at bay—had betrayed me by liking another.
At least, I’m not unusual in my pain. Apparently, lots of children have issues with their parental figures when they start dating again after a failed marriage or other life situation. But that knowledge didn’t help my fractured little heart, and it didn’t help glue me back together again.
Funny enough…Cassie did that.
Remember how I said I both hated and loved her?
Well, I hated her for stealing Ren, but I loved her because she didn’t just want his company.
She wanted mine, too.
I wish I could fill this assignment with slurs like she was a slut, a bitch, and a conniving little witch.
But…and this pains me to say…she wasn’t.
She was reserved and protective of her family—just like Ren.
She was generous and attentive of her loved ones—just like Ren.
She was patient and kind, and little by little, she wore down my hate until I no longer hissed at her when she came into the barn to find Ren but ran out to meet her just as eager as him.
I can probably skip ahead a little because Cherry River Farm wasn’t just a snippet of my life. It wasn’t our home for just one winter like Ren had promised. It turned out to be my childhood playground until most of my earlier memories of tents and trees were overshadowed by barns, horses, and school.
Ah, school.
I almost forgot.
See, this is how Ren systematically broke and repaired my heart, time after time again. He broke it by kissing Cassie Wilson. He fixed it by sitting me down a few days later, while I still moped and sulked, and instead of scolding me for the fiftieth time about my unusual surly attitude, he held my hands, swept hair off my face, and told me I would be going to school.
Amazing how when you’re a kid, you can switch from pain to elation so fast.
I didn’t see it as bribery or search for an ulterior motive—not that there was one. I just threw my arms around his neck and squeezed as hard as I could. He still loved me. He still cared.
That first day of school, he helped me dress in a baby blue and navy striped uniform. John Wilson drove, and Ren sat in the back seat of the Land Rover with me as I bounced with barely contained energy. Instead of like the last school where my attendance was strictly temporary and based on people not asking questions, this time, it was legitimate.
&nbs
p; Ren guided me down massive corridors and spoke proudly of me as we met the principal. And when it came time for Ren to leave me in my new classroom and return to work, I didn’t mind in the slightest that he was going back to a girl called Cassie who I wouldn’t be able to monitor or stalk whenever she spent time with Ren.
All I cared about was learning.
And I threw myself into it with a feverish addiction that comes from never knowing how long something good will last.
Every day, I woke up, tore around to get ready, and leapt on the school bus that stopped to pick me up. Every evening, I would do my homework and hang with Ren, and it was the happiest times of my life.
It wasn’t until I finished an entire semester there and ice melted and snow turned to sun that the enjoyment faded a little thanks to the incessant urge to return to our camping way of life.
Ren had promised when the world thawed, we would be just us again.
But when the birds chirped at night and woodland creatures woke from hibernation and I asked when we would be leaving, Ren told me the second part of his bargain.
He’d agreed to stay working for John Wilson in return to sending me to school.
I’m embarrassed to say, I screamed at him for that. Here he was sacrificing everything for me, and all I could do was complain that the almost fairy-tale way of life before Cherry River was now forbidden to me for a regular one.
Even though I loved our regular one where he had a job and I had school and together we made friends with Cassie and Liam.
I’m making myself sound like an ungrateful cow, but I have to make you see the topsy-turvy world I lived in to understand how fragile my heart was.
How one moment I was queen of everything good and happy, and the next I was princess of everything bad and painful.
So much happened at that farm.
For me and for Ren.
And along the way, I lost count how many broken hearts I endured.
CHAPTER THIRTY
REN
* * * * * *
2006
Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3) Page 18