Riled by the Rider

by Ana Lewin

  “Oh, we’re not denying that. But the fact of the matter is that quality of life is more important than rolling in cash. I’m sure Maeve understands that considering the low quality of life she must have had with you.”

  Tense silence descended over the kitchen and dining room, everyone holding a collective breath as George’s face went from a faint pink to a beet red. The fact that those words had come out of Finn’s mouth added to the shock. As the man’s mouth was opening to curse or yell or do whatever it was that rich men did when they were angry, the front door opened and closed with an audible slam. There was the sound of someone slipping their shoes off by the front door (reminding him of the fact that George Marsh was still wearing his dusty shoes in their dining room) and then bare footsteps padded towards them.

  When Maeve entered the room the first thing he noticed was that she had been crying, her eyes puffy and nose red. The second was that she looked downright shocked to see her father sitting in their dining room, right where she’d left him an hour and a half prior. Clearly, she hadn’t gotten a single one of the missed calls or messages. “Dad? What the hell are you still doing here?”

  “You walked off in the middle of our conversation,” George was huffy. “I can’t stand for such rudeness from my daughter.”

  “What you can stand for doesn’t matter!” Maeve went over to him and gestured for him to get up. “I’m an adult. Twenty-one years old. An adult. I can be as rude to you as I damn well want.”

  He could barely hold in a chuckle at the look of pure rage that crossed his features and he locked eyes with Finn, who was grinning. “Maeve May Marsh!” he bellowed, finally standing up. “You will be coming back to New York and doing that interview I set up for you immediately, and that’s final! I have a room at that horrible inn in town and I expect you to meet me there when you’re ready to head out.”

  The way Maeve’s features deflated… Levi knew what she was going to do. She was going to do exactly what he wanted and what they had would be over. He tried to tell himself that it was all the better. He’d already pushed her away this morning, her father had served to finish the job. They never would have worked out in the first place. Abruptly standing from his spot on the bench, he pushed open the door to the deck and stepped out into the mid-morning sun. Watching her cave and tell her father that she would be coming back to New York with him wasn’t something that he needed to do.

  His pocket started buzzing as he heard the front door slam. Fishing it out of his pocket, he saw that it was an unknown number. Not uncommon considering how many riding students he had. “Hey, this is Levi from Honeydew Ranch. What’s up?”

  Silence from the other end of the line. “Hello, is anyone there?”

  More silence. He was about to hang up with a solid roll of his eyes when a throat cleared. “Sorry, I just couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.”

  The woman’s voice was oddly familiar, stroking a memory in the back of his mind but not able to pull it to the forefront. “Sorry, ma’am, I’m not sure who this is. I vaguely recognize your voice, have I been teaching you to ride horses?”

  Over the line, he could hear the woman sucking in a deep breath. “Levi, it’s your mother.”

  All the air left him in one breath, his heart starting to pound as his lungs strained to keep him breathing. His first thought was that it wasn’t possible. How had she found his number? How had she found him at all? Why would she even care? But the second thought was that it didn’t matter because as far as he was concerned he didn’t have a mother. Never had. “Look, Levi, I know you have a lot of things you want to say to me, and I want to hear them. Take down my number and call me when you feel ready to talk.”

  Her voice was slightly different than that hint of a memory. She sounded happy instead of hollow. Did that mean she was off drugs? He couldn’t help the resentment bubbling up inside him. How could she spend eighteen years of his childhood on drugs and then get clean once he’d taken off? “I have nothing to say to you. My mother is dead to me.”

  She started to say something but he hung up before he could hear it. There was a part of him that wondered about why she’d wanted to reconcile, but he pushed it away. Getting into her orbit again was too risky. He’d spent years trying to fix himself after his childhood and he wasn’t about to put himself through that again.

  “Levi?” Maeve stuck her head out onto the deck, her whole body following after.

  He wished she’d picked a different time to talk to him. His mood had dropped even lower than it had been after talking to her father. Then again, if he pushed her away by being an asshole maybe it would hurt less when she left. “What?” his tone was sharp enough to make her flinch.

  “I wanted to apologize for my father. He’s a real douche. If I’d known he was going to stick around the house as an unwelcome guest when I left, I would have escorted him out myself,” she cringed.

  Waving a hand in the air, he settled back in the chair facing away from her. “It’s fine.”

  “Are you… We need to talk about last night and this morning.”

  When he looked at her again he noticed the set of her jaw and the way her eyes glinted with determination. She had something to say. If he was being honest, he didn’t want to hear it. Levi wanted to stop hearing her voice as soon as possible so that he could get used to not having that sassy tone in his head. “Honestly Maeve, what does it matter?” he asked, shrugging. “You’re going back to New York, I’m staying here. Simple as that. We had some good sex while it lasted but we can’t have anything more than that.”

  “You’re telling me that you don’t want anything more.”

  He couldn’t look at her. She would be able to see straight through the lies. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Alright then, I guess I have my answers.”

  The door slammed on the deck with an intensity that he worried would shatter the windows. What did she have to be upset about? She’d already decided that she had to go back with her father. They couldn’t do long distance indefinitely, it wasn’t sustainable. But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he should have given her a chance to say what she wanted to say.

  ***

  “My mom called me,” Grant startled and dropped the bucket of food, spilling some across the barn floor.

  His boss shot him a glare over his shoulder and Levi came to help save as much of the food as possible. “You haven’t spoken to your mother in over fifteen years,” Grant said as if trying to remember if that was true.

  Levi didn’t often talk about his family. He was certain that the only time he’d mentioned his parents to Grant was when drunk, right after he’d moved onto the ranch. “Yeah. I took off the day I turned eighteen and never looked back.”

  “But you blame her for your marriage to Jeanine.”

  “A lot of it was her fault. I felt trapped because I had so little money and barely any education, but I had to get out. I don’t know how the hell Derek managed to get out, but he probably had to go through some shit too.”

  Grant didn’t say anything as he finished gathering up the food and took it over to Daisy’s stall. The horse looked happy to see her meal and Levi instinctively reached out to pet her nose. Even though she was the horse he started most new riders on, all he could think of when he looked at her was Maeve. The stubborn woman who’d insisted on riding a horse for a second time after she’d had a panic attack during round one. He wasn’t sure if he knew anyone quite like her. “Look, Levi, I’m not saying I know how it was for you back then because I don’t,” he ran a hand through his hair, not wearing a cowboy hat today. “But I think you blame your parents for too much. I’m not just saying that because she called you today, I’ve been thinking it for a while. Especially since Maeve showed up.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, it was obvious that Grant had a vague idea of the fact that they were over. Hell, the man probably knew more about Maeve’s feelings about everything than he did considerin
g Liv was Maeve’s best friend. “Nothing changed when Maeve showed up.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Nothing changed,” he insisted, starting to pace the barn. A few of the horses watched him. “She’s just another woman.”

  “Is that actually what you’re telling yourself?”

  It wasn’t. It was what he was trying to convince himself, but he knew different. Maeve was better than any woman he’d ever met. Despite their differences, their different views, they fit. But they didn’t fit well enough because she was going back to New York to follow in her father’s footsteps. He was here, selling the photos he took of horses and teaching people how to ride.

  “Levi, I’m going to come off like a dick with what I’m about to say here, but you need to hear it,” Grant waited until he was looking at him. “You let your past define you too much. Like I did before I got my shit together and went to get Liv from New York. Your parents were bad parents. Jeanine was a bad choice that you let go on for way too long. But not everyone you bring into your heart is going to be bad for you. Maeve would be good for you.”

  He was right, he did sound like a dick. And as much as the words rang true with him, they made anger churn in his stomach. “Fuck you, Grant,” he bit out. “On what planet is Maeve good for me? She’ll always care more about money than people because that’s how she was raised, and she’s going back to New York because that’s where she damn well belongs. We’re too different to even think about making it work.”

  “If you believe that then fine. Go ahead and ruin the best thing that’s happened to you since coming to the ranch.”

  Grant stalked out of the barn. At this point, what he believed didn’t matter because he’d already ruined it either way. But as he was about to walk out of the barn Maeve appeared in the large doorway, backlit by the sun. He couldn’t see her face but he could imagine her expression. She’d heard everything he’d said. Every word. Her heels clicked on the cement as she walked up to him. The biting sting of her hand slapping him across the face surprised him. It shouldn’t have, but it did. “You’re a sleazy asshole,” she said, her voice like ice sliding over his skin. “I’ll always care about money more than people? Can you even fucking hear yourself?”

  The hand that had slapped him across the face slid down his jawline and to his neck, waking up every nerve ending in his body. His cock twitched in his jeans even as he tried to inform it that this was not a good time. “You know, I was thinking of staying in Pelmsemet,” she murmured and goosebumps rose on his skin. That hand slid underneath the collar of his shirt as he stood frozen. “For a lot of reasons, but you were one of them.”

  Her other hand reached out and cupped the growing bulge in his jeans and his breath hitched. What the hell was she doing? What was her point? It would have been easier if she’d been yelling, but this touching… it made him want to take everything back, and not because he missed the sex. He missed the closeness, the cuddling. The way it would have felt to wake up with her in his arms if he hadn’t been interrupted by his damn past and his damn insecurities. “You wouldn’t have done it,” his voice was huskier than he wanted it to be. She must know that she was getting to him.

  “Well that’s the thing, I guess. You’ll never know. You made your judgments and that’s that,” finally her hands left his skin and his bulge, leaving him feeling painfully empty. “Although part of me wants to stay in town for the sole purpose of watching you desperately fuck everything with legs trying to find sex as good as what you had with me. Have fun living in the past, asshole.”

  There was a cocky grin on her face but it lacked the usual laid-back look. It was tense like she was forcing it to be there. The thought of ever fucking anyone else disgusted him. He realized that he’d felt like that since the second he saw her. When the rest of the world had faded away to reveal the gorgeous out of town woman sitting up on that barstool, completely out of place, he’d been a goner. Before he could open his mouth to say anything at all, though, the click of her heels took her out of the barn and out of his life. For good.

  Chapter 11

  Maeve

  Giving up seemed like the best option when she walked out of that barn, but it wasn’t an option at all. She wasn’t going to be forced into giving up by Levi.

  That last week on the ranch was the most awkward and painful week of her life. Every time she saw Levi she glared, trying not to let him see that all she wanted to do was cry. Meals were tense, usually resulting in Levi bringing his food upstairs to eat alone. She was glad he gave in first because she was certain if she gave in to the urge to give up… well, it would be a complete and utter mental breakdown. That wasn’t something she was ready for.

  It didn’t help that her father refused to leave town until she did. The man came down to the ranch every day. He made everyone who lived there uncomfortable, talking shit about operations and trying to insist she head out early. As much as she told him off, he refused to leave before he was ready. By the time the week was up and she hopped into her rental car to drive back to New York, Grant had started threatening to call the cops to have him removed from the property. While it would have been hilarious, she didn’t need to deal with his fury at that.

  “Yeah, mom, I’m heading out,” she tried to smile even though her mom couldn’t hear her. Maybe it would make her sound happy. “Dad’s grabbed a cab to Knoxville to catch his plane.”

  “Sweetheart…” her mom paused and she glanced down at the touchscreen display to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Your dad shouldn’t have come to Tennessee. I’m sorry about him.”

  Her mother never spoke up against her father. Hell, her mother never spoke up in an argument one way or the other. Maeve was surprised to hear her say anything about this. “You’re not responsible for his actions.”

  Laughing, she could imagine her mom was sitting out on their porch in the sun, staring out at the immaculately landscaped gardens in their backyard. It was her favorite place to sit and take calls in the summer. “Maeve, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed that your father and I have been having trouble.”

  Unable to help herself, she snorted. “Mom, that’s been obvious since grandma died. He turned into a different person and you didn’t.”

  “You knew the whole time?”

  “Yeah, I knew.”

  Her parents had thought they were hiding their differences well. They hadn’t been. Though, even if they had been she still would have noticed. The problems in their relationship were too numerous to be hidden from someone who lived with them. “I feel responsible for his actions,” her mother admitted. “I never told him that he was being horrible to you.”

  “They’re still his actions. And really, him coming here might have had a positive impact.”

  It was hard for her to admit it, but her father had brought out Levi’s true colors. Maybe they would have been able to work out their differences if it hadn’t been for her father’s untimely arrival, maybe not. But regardless, Levi had told everyone what he thought of her. And he thought that she was some kind of money slut as if she hadn’t been proving otherwise her entire time on the ranch. “I doubt that, honey. You don’t seem happy.”

  “I’ll be happy again,” she said. “Look, mom, I’ve got to go. I’ll need to focus on navigating so that I get on the right highway. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK? Love you.”

  “Love you too, Maeve.”

  Her mom ended the call and she was left in silence, listening only to the ever-present hum of the tires on the pavement.

  ***

  Fake smile stretching across her face, she tried not to fidget as the recruiter’s gaze scanned her form. She wasn’t wearing anything suggestive, having settled on a red blouse with a blazer and a pair of slacks. That didn’t stop him from looking. His hand held onto hers for too long when she reached out to shake it. She was reminded of why she’d given this company her alternate phone number. It wasn’t even the same man interviewing her. Technically it wasn’t even for a pos
ition in the same department that she’d interviewed for the first time. It was the company culture that allowed men to be as sleazy as this and not get called out.

  Of course, the thought of sleazy reminded her of what she’d said to Levi. How she’d touched him, gotten him riled up before leaving him hanging. A dream scenario flitted through her mind, one where she could go home to a cozy cottage and have Levi pull her into his lap on the couch. He’d tell her that it was fine that she didn’t take the job, that he didn’t want her working for people who didn’t respect women. She snorted. As if that could happen. “Miss Marsh?” the recruiter was talking to her, confusion marring his features. “Did I say something that upset you?”

  She was sure that he had, but she upped the wattage on her fake grin. “Not that I can think of.”

  Explaining the snort didn’t seem very relevant. Her short heels didn’t make a sound on the thin carpet that lined the hallways. She was led to the room where the interview was going to take place. Another man sat inside, this one short and fat while the other was tall and twig-thin. “Miss Marsh, a pleasure to meet you,” the look was still there, but not as obvious as with the first man. When she was done shaking his sweaty hand, she dropped it like it was on fire. “I’ve been great friends with your father for quite some time.”

  That was just perfect. Not only had this been how her father had found out in the first place, but this man was going to be reporting straight back to him about her behavior. She didn’t even know what she was doing at this damn interview. Liv’s advice in the diner had been more than right and she should be standing up to her father. Doing what she wanted to do. If it meant getting cut off she didn’t care and never had. But since the argument with Levi, hearing him say that she cared more about money than people even though she’d cared about him more than anything else… she’d been living on autopilot. Her father had given her the time and address of the interview when she got home last night. She hadn’t thought twice about going.