We found out over breakfast that Tate had been sneaking out to see the horse for months, almost as long as it’d been here. Mama chasing her away with the spoon had only made her even more obsessed with him.
The horse was never fully gentled. It still didn’t fuck with most of us and only truly cared about Tate. Mustangs couldn’t be broken like most horses. Youmightbe able to train one, but it’d never be made domestic, only cooperative.
I’ve compared Austin to a mustang countless times in my mind, but somewhere along the line, I’d forgotten all of the reasons why.
Austin Taylor was wild. It was the most beautiful thing about her. I’d tamed her a bit: earned her submission in the bedroom, gotten her used to kisses that didn’t come with expectations, and saddled her with a pet name. But that didn’t change the fact that she was wild, and what was wild could not be bought or sold.
I could give Austin the bar and guilt her into staying here with me, try to break her like the thousands of men before me who thought breaking a mustang was doable, but I’d be smothering the thing I loved most about her. I refused to do that.
FIFTY
AUSTIN
It’s laterthan usual when Maddox gets back. That terrified me and provided me relief in equal measure. On one hand, maybe he’d be too tired to discuss the bar. On the other hand, maybe he was late because he’d been putting off coming home to me.
One of the reasons I hated being stuck in this cabin alone was because it allowed my mind to wander. No job to go to, no shows to stream, no father to listen for and worry about. Just endless silence in my mind that filled itself with doubt, and nighttime was its favorite time to do it.
I can’t imagine it’s easy putting up with me. I don’t envy Kenny, but I imagine I’ve desensitized her by now. For Maddox though, the newness was probably starting to wear off, leaving behind a brat he had to walk on eggshells around. One he couldn’t get away from because she lived in his house now.
I didn’t mean to constantly start fights. Like he’d said weeks ago, being a brat was one thing, but being mean and combative was entirely different, and more often than not, I’d been that way with Maddox. I could hear it in the words when they spewed from my lips, like I was standing outside my body, listening to myself be Wayne Jr. from across the room, butcouldn’t slap my hand over my mouth in time to keep the words inside.
He looks so exhausted when he steps through the door that I’m scared something bad happened, and I feel selfish for being hopeful he’d be too tired to argue. He hangs his hat by the door, kicks off his boots, and then looks up at me. One side of his lips curves into the most fond grin, it melts all of my anxiety away.
For a second at least.
“Hey, everything okay?” I ask him as he bends down to press his lips to my forehead.
“Yeah, baby. Everything’s fine. Gonna shower real quick.”
I’m alone in the living room again before I can make sense of it.
It’s not odd for him to go straight to the shower by any means. He’s filthy and probably sore. I only have a vague idea of what he does all day, mostly just classified in my mind as cowboying, but I figure most of it makes him excited to shower when he gets home.
It’s just sort of odd that he didn’t flirt with me, or invite me to join him, or grope my ass and pull me in for a deeper kiss like normal. He might not have been willing to have sex with me right now, but that hadn’t affected his handsiness.
I get up from the couch and pace around the kitchen, checking the fridge and cabinets for something I can whip up for him one-handed and quickly. He’s never made me feel like I had to have supper on the table for him, or anything as misogynistic as that, but I still felt like I wasn’t contributing—just sort of freeloading while he worked all day.
My anxiety is back in full force by the time he’s out, toweling his hanging, wet hair and dressed in plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt. I hadn’t been able to find anything to make for him, so I just grabbed a half-empty bag of chips from the pantry and slapped them against his chest. “Think you’re gonna be cold tonight or something?”
He grunts, barely catching the bag with one hand while hetosses the towel through the open door of the laundry room with the other. I sidle closer, tucking his wet hair behind his ear for him while he unrolls the bag of chips and pops one in his mouth.
“Thanks,” he says, pulling away to grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it with tap water. “I was fucking starving and this hit the spot.”
“They’re Doritos.”
He takes a sip of water and lets out a sigh like it’s the most refreshing thing he’s had today and not just chilly tap water from the ranch’s well, nodding. “Cool Ranch.”
I snort and roll my eyes at him and he holds an arm out for a hug as he leans back against the counter.
“Nope.”
“Why?” Poor guy looks heartbroken.
“Because you put a shirt on after your shower.”
“And?”
“And you know how much I like looking at your hairy chest, so I think you did it to be intentionally mean,” I tell him.
