Meanwhile, I’m here being blackmailed by my ex-fiancé, a selfish asshole who only wants to further his career and control me for the sake of controlling me and nothing else. He didn’t like the fact that I left him, so he’s devised some plan to keep me tethered to him.
“She’s not going to tell us, Channing, let’s go. But I just want to say, whatever the reason you’re walking away from him, if you just told him about it, he would help you fight those demons, whatever they are.”
“He can’t fight my battles for me,” I whisper.
Exeter shakes her head, opening her mouth, but it’s Channing who speaks first. “You underestimate these men, you underestimate Ford. That’s exactly what he can do and he will if you let him, just like Rylan did for me and Wyatt did for Exeter.”
Without another word, I watch as they turn and walk away from me, leaving three burgers and three orders of fries sitting right in front of me.
I do something that I haven’t done in at least fifteen years. I sit down at the dining room table and I binge on all three burgers and fries as I cry. Because I know, without a doubt, that they’re right.
Ford would chase, fight, and end any fucking battle for me, gladly. I’m just not allowing him to. And I won’t. Not because I’m being overly stubborn, which let’s face it, I know that I can be, but also because this is something that I need to deal with myself.
FORD
I don’t even bother driving to town to check for myself. I already know that she’s gone, I can feel it. It’s been days since I’ve seen her or heard from her. Wyatt reported the donation truck at her parents’ house this morning and the real estate sign that went up shortly afterward.
As I ride Starlight out toward the fence that I should be finished mending, but I’m not, I try not to think about Stephanie, my Stevie, leaving me once again. With a heavy sigh, I dismount her and get to work.
I spend the rest of the afternoon and too far into the evening working. It’s better to be out here than it is sitting inside of my empty house. It’s goddamn depressing.
When the sun completely sets and the darkness takes over to the point where I can’t see a fucking thing, only then do I pack up my shit and head back home. I left all of my supplies out here the last time I was here, only taking my tool bag with me.
Climbing up on Starlight, I don’t take off for the house immediately. Instead, I look up at the moon as it shines down.
How have I let my life come to this? Thirty-five years old and completely alone. Everyone around me has their shit together and I’m still fucking nameless women in bars. Tugging on Starlight’s reins, I guide her home slowly. I’m in no rush. I’ll probably just take a shower and climb into bed right before I pass out.
Work is the only thing keeping me from finding my way to Stephanie and begging her to come back to me. I don’t mind humbling myself, but I’m not going to make a fool out of myself, not when she obviously doesn’t want anything more to do with me.
“Fuck,” I shout into the still air around me.
When I’m close to the barn, I notice the truck waiting in the drive. It doesn’t surprise me. I figured he’d be by to talk to me, to make sure that I’m not on the verge of losing my shit totally. There’s no doubt that I am indeed, on the verge, but I don’t have time to actually lose it right now.
The cattle auction that keeps me fed and pays my bills is coming up. I have to focus on that and forget the other shit. I can’t think about Stephanie, not when she obviously doesn’t want anything to do with me. If she changes her mind, I’m here, I’ll be here—as pathetic as that shit sounds.
“Ford,” Wyatt grunts after I’ve put Starlight away for the night and approach the front porch of my house.
“Wyatt,” I drawl.
There’s a moment of silence as I climb the wooden steps of my front porch. “Brought over a six-pack, figured you could use one,” he murmurs.
He’s got his forearms resting against the railing and the beer next to him. Walking up beside the beer, I take one and crack it open. Without a word, I bring the can to my lips, downing half of it in one gulp.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asks.
“Talk about what?”
He doesn’t say anything. “Talk about the fact that I told her I wanted her, told her we’d make it work, that I’d make it work. All after the best sex of my life, she completely shut down, walked away, and I haven’t heard from her since?”
“Ford,” he sighs.
Shaking my head, I tilt my head back, finishing the can, then toss it into the flower bed. “Doesn’t matter. She’s gone, back to her life in Hollywood. Back to him, a man she admitted she doesn’t even like. She was always bigger than Gallup, bigger than some rancher.”
“Beaumont and Louis are bigger than Gallup, too, and they fit in just fuckin’ fine,” Wyatt snaps.
Nodding my head, I reach for another can of beer and drink it a bit slower, but still too quickly for not having eaten anything all day. I stare out toward the barn, seeing absolutely fucking nothing.
“Why is it guys like us?”
“Guys like us?”
Licking my lips, I shrug a shoulder. “Nice guys. Why does everything get fucked for us? I mean, in your case it all worked out for the best. Exeter is more you than Sammi ever was. But you still had to go through years of hell. Why?”
Wyatt doesn’t say anything, he probably doesn’t have much to fucking say because he doesn’t know how to make this better, how to make me feel better. He found what he needed, what he wanted and I’m still staring aimlessly into an abyss.
“It’ll work out,” he rasps.
Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything else. We sit there in silence as I drink the entire six-pack, then he leaves. I don’t know what I did to deserve friends like him, like his cousin, and Beau, like Louis, but I’m grateful for them.
I’m not sure I would have survived without them, but now that they’ve found their happiness, now that I’ve had a taste of what mine could have been, I’ve never felt more alone. Completely and totally fucking alone.
Chapter Sixteen
STEPHANIE
Home.
It’s never felt less like home than it does right at this moment. Glancing around my house in Malibu, I can’t help but feel… depressed. This doesn’t feel like home, not in the slightest. I never thought that Gallup could feel like home ever again. It does, or maybe the people make it feel that way.
I’m only home for a few minutes when my doorbell rings. I already know who it is, I texted him when I was getting off of the plane to meet me here. I want to get this shit over with. Whatever he wants, I just want it done.
“Hey, baby,” he murmurs as soon as I open the door.
Sebastian breezes past me, not even glancing down at me as he makes his way toward the kitchen. I have no doubt what he’s in search of, but he won’t find it, not here, not anymore.
“The fuck?” he asks, walking back into the living room.
I sink down into my comfortable chair and a half, arching my brow toward him. “Hello to you too.”
“Where’s my Bling?”
I roll my eyes at the mention of his expensive water. It’s forty dollars a bottle and as soon as I dumped his ass, I poured the remains of his stupid assed overpriced water down the drain. It was like throwing away my own money, since I’m the one who bought it, but I didn’t care—still don’t.
“Trashed it,” I state simply as I look down at my nails.
Honestly, I can’t be bothered. Whatever he wants, I need him to just tell me and get on with it. I am so over him, so over his bullshit.
“Just tell me what you want to say. I came back here, I’m talking to you, what do you want?” I snap.
He shakes his head as he sits down in the corner of the sofa, spreading his legs and reaching his arm across the back. His eyes find mine and he grins as he licks his lips.
“I didn’t know you were such a fucking slut,” he mutters. “Things w
ould have worked out much better for us had I known.”
Sebastian’s words don’t shock me, he’s an asshole, but they do anger me. Fortunately, I’ve been trained in acting, so I refuse to show him any kind of reaction.
“If I knew what you were referencing, maybe I could be offended. I don’t, so I’m not,” I say, keeping my voice even and calm.
Cool, calm, and collected. That’s exactly what I aim to be until I know what he’s up to.
“Had your little visit to Hillbilly, Texas documented. My private detective got quite an eye full, and thankfully video,” he says, lifting his brows with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Narrowing my eyes on him, I don’t give him any other response to his claim. “Why would you do that? Why do you care? Did all your offers for roles dry up as soon as I dumped your ass? Is that what this is about?”
He growls but doesn’t move anywhere. I tilt my head to the side, watching him. He’s handsome, really, he’s a beautiful man. There is no denying that he won the looks lottery, he’s just plain pretty. But he’s a fucking jackass.
“You don’t get to win,” he snaps. “Whatever you did, it fucked me over. Paparazzi don’t follow me around anymore; nobody has offered me shit. Even the women are drying up.”
Pressing my lips together, I try really hard not to laugh at him, but I fail. Shaking my head, I shrug a shoulder.
“That’s why you released those photographs? Pictures, I might add, that damaged my reputation, which means even the illusion of getting back together with me won’t make the offers flow again.”
“They’ll come back, if we’re together, the offers will come,” he says, shifting forward in his seat, resting his forearms on his knees.
Wetting my bottom lip, it hits me. It’s not just the women and the paparazzi, it’s the money. He’s broke, has to be. “How much are you in debt?” I ask.
His head flies up, his eyes are wide and wild, and that’s when I know that I’ve hit the nail right on the head. He’s not just broke, he’s in debt.
“I took out a loan,” he mutters. “Not even selling your pictures touched the interest, let alone the principal. The tape would probably do the same. Except that one of you and the cowboy just might chip away at a little principal. Maybe.”
“What are you talking about?” I demand.
He lifts his hand and runs his fingers through his hair, and it’s then that I notice his hand is trembling. He’s scared. Fucking terrified. Scooting a little forward in my chair, I lean in and look into his eyes, really look. They’re bloodshot and he’s got makeup on, but I can see the dark circles and bags beneath his eyes that have never been there before.
“Tell me what is going on, Sebastian.”
He nods, gulping, then he inhales a deep breath. “All I needed was one really great role to pay it back, one big payday.”
“Who did you borrow money from?”
He licks his lips, tilting his head to the side. “The Russians,” he whispers.
I blink, unsure of what that means exactly. I’ve heard rumors that there is a Russian mafia presence here in Los Angeles, but I’ve never actually seen it before or heard anything more than just rumors.
“Sebastian,” I whisper. “I don’t know exactly what that means.”
He stands abruptly and shakes his head as he begins to pace. “It means that I borrowed an extremely large amount of money from the Russian Bratva and they want their fucking money back. I don’t even have enough to pay the interest, but they want it in full or I’m dead.”
FORD
I work.
It’s what I do.
Every day I get up before the sun and work until the sun sets. I hardly eat, sleep even less and drink more than I should. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen Stephanie. I would be a liar if I said that I didn’t miss her. I do. I’m not sure why, she flew into town for just days and then bounced right the hell back out.
Finding the number in my phone, I let out a groan, knowing that I need to call this person and dreading it all at the same time.
“What’s up, cuz?”
Rolling my eyes to the sky, I let out a sigh. “You and Bubba down to help me out?”
He waits for a moment, not saying anything. He likes to make me sweat, the bastard. He does this every goddamn season and he always, always comes and helps me out—always. Because if there’s one thing my cousin Jimmy likes, it’s cash and I pay in cash.
“Bubba can’t make it, you didn’t hear?”
“What happened?”
He lets out a low whistle. “He got locked up, got caught poaching.”
“Fuck, what’d he poach?”
Jimmy chuckles. “The fuckin’ idiot. Went on one of them big game ranches, got a huge fuckin’ prized buck. Don’t know what the shit he was thinkin’.”
“Wasn’t,” I mutter.
He laughs. “’Suppose not. Anyway, my wife’ll come and help us out. She needs outta the house. Been bitchin’ that the kids are drivin’ her crazy. You still got that little house up there?”
Images of the little house pop into my head, flashes of what I did there, with and to Stephanie. My cock twitches at the thought, then immediately deflates when I remember that she’s gone and she’s not coming back, not ever.
“Yeah. Y’all come down. Help me out and you can stay there free of charge.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I give him the dates and he promises he’ll be here. My cousin Jimmy may be kind of lazy, but he’s always true to his word and his wife is nice. I haven’t seen her since they had their third baby and it’ll be good to be around a little family, especially with the way I’ve been feeling lately.
My phone rings a few minutes later. I’ve been avoiding this call for longer than I should, not wanting to really think or hear any more about Stephanie, but considering I can’t get her out of my fucking head, I’m done pussyfooting around.
“Yeah,” I sigh.
“He lives,” the voice on the other end chuckles.
“What’s up?”
He doesn’t say anything right away, then he clears his throat. “You’re good, right?”
I hum, not wishing to commit to an answer. Am I breathing? Sure. Am I living? I haven’t been for seventeen years. Am I okay? Not really.
“I’m going to be heading out to do some radio shit and a late-night show. Taking Hutton and the baby with me, having a little get-together tonight before we leave in a couple of days. You’ll come?”
“What time?”
“Five.”
“I’ll be there,” I promise.
He doesn’t say anything else right away and I think that he’s hung up, but then he speaks. “I’ll be in Los Angeles. You want me to look her up? Talk to her?”
His words cause my heart to squeeze inside of my chest. I should tell him, fuck no. I can’t. I need to know if she’s as miserable as I am.
I’ve been pretty good about staying away from my phone, not wanting to see if she’s been out and about, just to see a grainy image of her, I’d take that. But I don’t torture myself more than I need to.
“Yeah, make sure she’s okay? I know that packing up her parents’ place had to have been hard.”
Beaumont chuckles, but it’s not out of humor, it sounds sad and it fits the mood I’m in, it fits my life. I’m fucking sad. My existence is sad as fuck too. Work, work, eat, sleep, and start all over again, every fucking day over and over until I die. That’s my future.
“I can do that for you, brother. See you in a few hours?”
“I’ll be there.”
Ending the call, I look around the property. I have one more board to replace and the fence is finished. Next week I’ll be heading down to Fort Worth to sell my cattle. I should be pleased, not only with myself, but with what’s coming ahead. I’m not.
What’s the point of any of it, when I’m alone?
Maybe the time has come for me to find someone and settle down. I can’t wait for Stephan
ie, and the idea of this life continuing on repeat makes me want to end it all. This can’t be what is in store for me.
I need to give up the dream that there is someone out there who makes me feel anything near what Stephanie does and settle with someone nice. Someone that wants to be a rancher’s wife, that wants to live in an old farmhouse, wants to have a few kids and just live a peaceful life.
My mind is made up.
Inhaling a deep breath, I decide that tonight I’m going to enlist the wives’ help in finding me someone from town. They have to know a pretty, nice girl. Someone who looks nothing like Stephanie. A brunette, a redhead, I don’t care. Just no blondes.
Chapter Seventeen
FORD
“You want us to, what?” Tulip asks, her lips parting in awe.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I shrug a shoulder. “Find me a nice girl, one who doesn’t look anything like Stephanie. I’m ready to settle down.”
“What about, I don’t know… Stephanie?” Hutton asks, emphasizing her name.
I shake my head a couple of times. “She’s gone. I haven’t heard from her since before she left. It’s clear she doesn’t want anything to do with me,” I mutter.
Hutton frowns. Channing, Exeter, and Tulip share her expression, equally. I watch them, wondering if they know something that I don’t know. They don’t. Can’t. Stephanie walked away, didn’t even bother saying goodbye, again.
“But I thought you guys reconciled? I mean, I figured she’d be back,” Channing mutters. “She seemed really conflicted when I saw her last.”
Shaking my head, I lift my hand and run my fingers through my hair, wishing I would have worn my hat tonight. I don’t know why, but I feel more comfortable in uncomfortable situations when I have my straw hat on, and this shit is uncomfortable.
“Don’t matter,” I mutter. “I’m givin’ y’all free rein on setting me up on blind dates, figured you’d be more than happy to do that.”
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