I shook my head. "You know what? I don't care.You can both fuck off."
I spoke loud enough for the entire ranch to hear. Let them. It wasn't me who cheated.
Fuck, I was an idiot. I thought I could trust both of them. Clearly, I couldn't have been more wrong. They fooled me. Not anymore.
"Paisley." She reached her hand out to me.
I jerked away, tugged the flowers out of her hand, threw them on the ground and stepped on them.
"Is that clear enough?" I snapped. Without waiting for an answer, I grabbed up my skirt and ran for the parking lot.
I unlocked my car, slid inside and threw it into reverse.
"Paisley!" Kevin's shout came through the open window beside me. "Where are you going?"
My response was to drive away from the ranch in a squeal of tires and dust, while sticking my hand out the window to flip him off.
In the rearview mirror, I saw him waving away the dust and staring after me, his arms stretched out to the sides. As if he had no idea what he did.
Asshole.
I hit the main road. Where was I going and why wasn't I as devastated as I should have been? I was angry at being played, sure, but at the same time, I was relieved.
Spending the rest of my life with him seemed appealing. Sort of.
In retrospect, I dodged a huge bullet. I could see that since the blinders were now all the way off.
When it came down to it, he and Alena did me a favour. The pair of them, they deserved each other.
For the longest time, I drove without having any idea where I was going. Without caring. I needed to be away. Anywhere else in the country. The farther, the better.
My phone rang a bunch of times. I ignored it. If they wanted an explanation, Kevin could give them one. Missing everyone's reaction was almost a shame. Almost, because I had a little bit of pride left. At some point, I'd have to face all those people, but not today.
Today I wanted to lick my wounds and get my head back together. I'd have to sit down and make some kind of plan for the rest of my life. A life that didn't include Kevin or Alena.
I spent the last six years trying to please him and make him happy. I lived where he wanted to live, even at the detriment ofmy own career. All of our friends were his friends. Whenever we vacationed, we went where he wanted to go.
I'd put myself aside. Not anymore. Now I was going to look out for me.
At a whim, because I could, I took a side road and headed up into the mountains. As if somehow the higher I got, the farther away from him I was. A mountain break sounded like what I needed right now. The opposite of anywhere he would have taken me.
The trees seemed to grow taller the higher I went. The signs of life, fewer and farther between. The air rushing through the open window was cooler and fresher. Sweeter.
I took a deep, cleansing breath right before my car started to slow. I pulled off onto the side of the road before the engine cut out completely.
“Shit.”
2
MORGAN
I scrubbeda hand over the stubble on my chin and took another bend in the road.
When I was a kid, these bends would have had me begging my parents to pull over so I could be sick. One time, my mother gave me a barf bag, so we didn't have to stop. Only then, my brothers were sick along with me. She didn't offer again.
Now, these winding mountain roads meant something different. Freedom. A break from the relentless pressure of touring. Don't get me wrong, I love every moment of it. But a guy needs a break once in a while. A chance to flee into the Rockies and disappear for a while.
Time to just be.
