Too many to count.
They both knew it.
Just as they both knew she’d meant to hurt him.
Benji and Maverick had been inseparable since first grade, which was surprising given that they had not one thing in common. Benji was the result of a mean drunk and a woman who was stuck in the cycle and could never summon the courage to leave. Mav was the result of a happy marriage, plenty of food on the table, and thousands of acres to run wild across. And, still, the boys had bonded in the way of brothers, and Benji had spent every minute that he could at Hunt Ranch. Sierra’s own father had taught him how to ride and rope and run barrels – just as he had taught her and Mav.
So, Sierra had meant to hurt him. And she was woman enough to admit it. At least to herself.
She wasn’t even entirely sure why she did it anymore.
In those first few weeks after Baby Girl, she’d been so lost and confused that she’d simply shut down. She’d stopped. She couldn’t even remember most of it. But as she’d started to come out of the stupor, every kind, caring word from Benji had only added weight to that suffocating pressure she’d tried so hard to pretend wasn’t there. Every touch was a reminder of what they’d created together and what she alone had let die.
So, she had ended things. And, despite his protests, despite his insistence that she only needed time, needed help, Sierra had been resolute. When he’d argued, she’d become comparatively cool. When he’d begged and said he loved her, she’d said she didn’t feel the same way anymore. And it hadn’t been a lie. She hadn’t feltanythinganymore. She’d needed to survive, to move on, and she couldn’t do that with him constantlythere, touching her, comforting her … Reminding her of everything that she’d lost when she’d rather pretend that none of it had happened.
But that didn’t mean that Sierra wasn’t self-aware. She was. And she understood, as only the truly miserable could, that she was the problem.
She’d gone too far, and she should apologize because despite their past, Benji had done nothing except show up to help.
Still, because she hated apologizing, she took her time driving the golf cart from her office, down the dirt road to the barn, made sure to paste a cheery smile on her face and wave at the guests she passed – the Smythes, a family of four, on vacation from New York; the Johnsons, a newly married couple who held hands constantly; and Norma Beauden, a retired actress and colleague of Nina’s, who was at Hunt Ranch to recover from the strain of divorce number seven.
She pulled up to the barn and turned off the golf cart, stepped one Louboutin heel out and then the other as she rehearsed what she would say.I wanted to apologize for what I said the other day. I was out of line. I’m sorry.Short, simple, to the point. No emotion. No conversation.
She looked around, took in the huge wooden barn with its gorgeous custom stalls and tack room. She inhaled that familiar smell – hay and horse and manure – like the last breath of air before the ship went down.
She paused at the big entryway for a long moment and stared inside the cool, dark barn. Strange, though she almost never went inside anymore, she could still so viscerally recount all those little barn nuances. The way the stall shavings tangled in a horse’s mane and tail. The exact cadence of her Western riding boots on the floor of the concrete breezeway. The warmth of her horse, Ty’s big body beneath her palm and his big, trusting eyes looking deeply into hers. The rhythm of his hooves on the ground as they galloped through the valley. The heart-stopping excitement of turning a barrel, watching it tip, and only just managing to right it before she lurched in the saddle as Ty increased his stride for the straight.
For a single moment, the urge to just walk inside and go to him was overwhelming. All consuming. Sierra even took one hesitant step towards the barn before the memories rose.
Four months pregnant and barely showing, sitting on Ty as they walked around the barn because Benji had drawn the line on anything faster.
Six months pregnant and standing in the centre of the round pen as Ty circled her at liberty, getting the exercise she could no longer give him from in the saddle.
Eight months pregnant, doing nothing but lying on her horse’s bare back while he grazed, and talking to him about all the things they would teach Baby Girl.
After, when every time she looked at Ty she wondered if something she’d done on horseback had taken Baby Girl before she’d even come into the world.
After, when that familiar barn smell had turned taunting, reminding her that she’d never teach Baby Girl how to ride or watch her daughter fall in love with horses or get to see Benji gifting their child her first horse.
When the grief inside that permanent well began to rise, Sierra refused to acknowledge it. She pushed all thought of it from her mind, tugged once at the lapels of her jacket, and turned and walked to where Benji lunged Diablo.
He had stopped what he was doing to wait for her. He leaned both forearms against the pen, his green eyes taking her in as she approached.
Sierra hated that he still made her want. Even after everything, all she had to do was look at him – tall and lean, big hands slack through the piped pen, burnt gold hair sticking out beneath his ball cap – and she felt it. That slow roll of yearning, of need.
Of loss.
He saw the golf cart pull up outside the barn.
‘Woah,’ he said and, stepping backwards with one hand raised, brought Diablo to a stop before calling him in.
He thought Sierra looked like a model who’d stepped off the cover of Vogue to slum it for the day. She was dressed for her job in the resort office, and wore an oversized, pinstriped pantsuit with the sleeves bunched at the elbows. It should have looked ridiculous – but didn’t. Despite her height, almost five-ten, a pair of her coveted heels adorned her feet. She’d pulled her hair back and up, leaving her gorgeous face on display, and although he knew she wore makeup and had spent a good forty minutes doing it that morning, it somehow looked completely natural.
She stopped to look inside the barn to where her own horse, Ty, was stalled, and Benji wondered how she could live without him. There had been a time when she’d been the first person up and on horseback in the morning, a time when she’d leave her office early at the end of the day to sneak in a ride. She was still the only woman he’d ever met who could so seamlessly straddle two worlds – one full cowgirl, one that cool, corporate princess.
As she approached, her dark eyes flickered to Diablo and then back to him, assessing. ‘Good morning.’
‘Morning.’
