“He told me he’s tried giving you Quitter’s a couple of times and you turned him down.”
I’m already groaning halfway through his sentence because I can practically see how this is going to play out as clear as if I was Raven Baxter herself. “Let me guess: Dale asked you to convince me?”
He tilts his head side to side, chewing a bit quicker, refusing to talk with his mouth full as though his mama’s gonna pop up out of nowhere and smack him upside the head for it. “Sort of,” he settles on and I can’t believe I had to wait half a minute for that.
“Right. Let’s save both of us some time then and just get to the end of the argument. I’m leaving Cedar Creek. I don’t have any use for a bar locatedinCedar Creek.”
Really wish I could cross my arms right now.
He pops the last bit of his sandwich in his mouth and chugs the rest of his bottle of water immediately afterward, standing from his stool and tossing his paper towel. I stay stuck in fight mode for an argument he doesn’t even seem to be taking part in.
“I’ve gotta go back. We’ll finish this conversation tonight,” he says, pressing a kiss to my lips and turning away to leave. I grab his jaw and twist him back around, brushing the crumbs from his mustache before giving him another, firmer kiss. It’s unnecessarily domestic.
He grins when we part, probably thinking the same thing, but whereas I’m an anxious mess over it, he’s pleased as punch. “Thank you, baby. I’ll see you tonight.”
FORTY-NINE
MADDOX
Cash’s earsflick away flies as I walk the fence line in the Western pasture. The sun’s setting and I need to start heading back before I put us both at risk of becoming grizzly supper, but I’m putting off going home like time apart will change Austin’s mind about Quitter’s. Like I’m not still going to hand her what she needs to leave me on a silver platter.
Hearing Austin felt trapped, like I was telling her what she could and couldn’t do, gutted me, especially now that I knew what she’d lived through her whole life. I never wanted to make any woman feel like I was lording over her, whether that was one of my sisters or a woman I was sleeping with or a total stranger.
I was starting to think I might’ve made a lot of people I cared about feel that way. In an effort to make them feel happy and safe and cared for, I’d been undermining their ability to make their own choices and take care of themselves.
I’m sure they didn’t always mind. Hell, Kenny and Tate especially were more than happy to take my card and wreak havoc at the mall. And I’m sure they appreciated never having to worry about their trucks being properly maintained or dealing with a chilly house in the mornings.
But there was a difference, I think, between having theI know you can do it, but you shouldn’t have to because you have memindset and steamrolling people to make sure things were taken care of the way I wanted because I thought I knew best.
Signing that paperwork had been a mistake. Austin had turned Dale down countless times and just because I thought leaving Cedar Creek was pointless now that her dad was in prison didn’t mean it was to her. Giving her the bar would be cruel. A gift in my eyes, but a manacle in hers. She’d feel obligated to stay, and even if she did eventually come around to the idea that Cedar Creek wasn’t so bad without her dad here to bully her, that was a choice she needed to make on her own, not one I could make for her.
With a sigh, I tug at Cash’s reins, clicking my tongue and turning him around. I’m not in a rush to get back to the barn, but he seems to be. “Greedy bastard,” I grumble as he nibbles at my pockets while I de-tack him. “Tatum’s spoiling you.”
He huffs like he understands me, or maybe it’s just because he’s given up on finding treats in my pockets. When I put up his saddle and reins in the tack room, I pour a couple of treats out in my hand. “Don’t say I never did anything for you,” I tell him, smiling despite myself when he lets out a pleased nicker, his velvety mouth tickling my palm as he scarfs them down.
Tatum’s lying bareback on Jasper in the East Paddock, watching the stars. She drives me batshit when she does this. It’s riskier than she’s willing to listen to me gripe about, but I have to admit that horse of hers defies odds.
It’d been wild as hell when it got here. No one could gentle it—not Dad or either of us boys, not even the trainer at the time, Phil. It bucked and kicked and bit, used every bit of its body to fight, angry as hell.
Mama had only reluctantly allowed Jameson and I near it because by then we were twenty and twenty-two so she really couldn’t put her foot down about what we were and weren’t allowed to do, but the rest of the kids were chased away fromthe pen with a wooden spoon time and time again. Especially Tate.
We didn’t find out until she’d already gentled him. It was about four in the morning when Dad got up to start on the pre-breakfast chores, checking beds to make sure all of his kids were accounted for.
I remember waking up to Dad hollering. Tate was the youngest, so of course she was babied, but even more than that, she was Mama’s little miracle. Born at 23 weeks with only a thirty percent chance of survival, when she finally made it home after almost four months in the hospital, Mama and Daddy hovered over her constantly. I don’t think they even came outside with her until she was a year old, damn near.
Even then, she’d been obsessed with the horses.
That morning, her bed being empty… Mama’s only screamed like that one other time and I’ll never forget the sound.
Dad flipped every light in the house on, screamed until we were all awake. Every one of us was out looking for her and Mama called the cops the second Bailey pointed out that the kitchen door was open.
I was the first one out the door, shoving Bailey back. To this day, I have no idea what called my attention to the East Paddock, but I remember how fast my brain seemed to catalog what I was seeing—quick enough that I had the sense to throw up my hand behind me to slow my dad and whoever else before we could scare the mustang.
Tate was lying on his back, forward this time, arms and legs draped over the sides. She was a small girl anyway, growth stunted by being born so prematurely, but I remember thinking howtinyshe was compared to this massive, dangerous creature beneath her.
Getting her off his back is a bit of a blur. My brain stored flashes of actions, but not the moments that tied them together. I remember creeping forward, slower than I’d ever walked, keeping my hands up and talking to him like he couldunderstand me. I was terrified to wake Tate up, scared she’d roll off the horse and it’d trample her in its attempt to flee.
I swear the horse knew I was there to get Tate off of him. Dad used to laugh at me when I’d say that, but I specifically remember him looking at me, bored as hell and flicking his tail when he dropped his head back down to graze like I didn’t concern him at all. It was the complete opposite of how he’d acted around me for the months he’d been at the ranch by then. I snatched Tate off of him and he huffed, stomping his front foot against the ground, showing the first signs of anger since I’d approached.
