Conflicted

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked around—the stable was empty of ranch workers, though she’d given specific orders that M.C. not be left alone. No one deserved to go through labor alone—horse or human—and that went double for the Triple H’s best hope for the future.

  Striding purposefully over to M.C.’s stall, she reached for the walkie-talkie she kept clipped to her belt at all times and prepared to blast Don, her stable manager, out of the water.

  But as her finger went to depress the button, she stopped abruptly. A deep and gentle crooning came from the stall, a sound she knew well, as it was one she’d heard her husband make innumerable times.

  M.C. wasn’t alone. Jesse was with her.

  Jesse was here.

  She swallowed, concentrated on breathing through the chaos of too many emotions. She wasn’t ready yet, didn’t know what to say, what to do. She’d known she’d have to face him, but she’d figured it would be later—when her makeup and hair were flawless, when she was dressed for the wedding and her armor was firmly in place.

  She’d never imagined that it would be here, that it would be now. Should she walk away or stay and ride things out?

  Her shoulders squared suddenly and anger burned in the pit of her stomach. She was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a coward. And she had no reason to fear this confrontation. He was the one who’d been low enough to ask for a divorce on their daughter’s wedding day. He was the one who’d lived with her for days and weeks, maybe even months, while he plotted to divorce her without bringing the subject up even once.

  No, she wouldn’t run and she wouldn’t cry. She’d shed enough tears today, more than she’d thought she was capable of crying. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how completely he’d leveled her.

  “How is she?” Her voice wasn’t as strong as she might have liked, but it was steady.

  He didn’t look up. “Ready to go into labor. I’m pretty sure it’ll be tomorrow if it isn’t later today.”

  “You’ve arranged for someone to be with her, right? When you and I are at the wedding?”

  His head jerked up. For a moment she saw pain and hostility move in the depths of his eyes before the increasingly familiar shutters came down, hiding everything inside him.

  “Yes, Desiree.” His voice was ice-cold. “I know what you have riding on this colt. And even if you hadn’t pinned your hopes on it, I’m still trainer enough to know not to leave a laboring mare alone.”

  She flushed, embarrassed despite herself. “I didn’t mean—”

  He snorted as he rose to his feet, stepping lithely around the bulky mare. “I know exactly what you meant, darlin’.”

  Her spine stiffened at the sarcastic endearment. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is—”

  “As of two hours ago, I don’t have any problems.” He shrugged. “Things are definitely looking up.”

  For a moment shock held her mind and body immobile. Desiree stared at him, slack-jawed, as his words echoed through her. She tried to speak, but his contempt froze every part of her, including her tongue.

  “Excuse me. I’ve got work to do.” Jesse headed for the door.

  It was his movement that unfroze her, his ability to ignore her that had her going after him before she could think better of it. “You bastard! You no-good, unbelievable bastard!”

  “Don’t start, Desiree,” he said as he continued walking.

  “What do you expect me to do, Jesse? Just stand here with my mouth shut like a good little girl? Just sign the papers without any discussion, any explanation?”

  He stopped, pinned her with those obsidian eyes. “I thought things were pretty clear.”

  “Clear? You throw an envelope at me, tell me to sign what’s inside and head for the door? What’s clear about that, Jesse? What’s honest or decent or right about it?”

  “You’re going to talk to me about decency? I’ve spent thirty-three years of my life on this ranch, taking your shit, cleaning up your messes. I’m done with it, Desiree. Finished.”

  “Thirty-three years? The first five I was too young to do anything but follow you around like a puppy dog! And for the last twenty-seven I’ve been your wife.”

  “You’ve been my boss. From the moment your father died, something changed in you. Something fundamental. And it’s continued to change, continued to warp until I hardly recognize you. Until I hardly recognize us!”

  She actually saw red, his words causing a fine red mist to float in front of her eyes. “Your boss? Are we back to that again? My God, Jesse. We’re partners. We’ve always been partners.”

  His laugh was harsh and painful to hear. “You don’t know what partnership is, darlin’. You never have. It’s all or nothing with you and it always has been. And I’m tired of being nothing in your eyes.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth as shock rocked through her. “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I know.” His hands clenched into fists. “You want to do everything, you want everything your own way. You don’t listen to anyone with a different opinion, including me. That’s not a partnership, Desiree. That’s a dictatorship.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “You’re good at game-playing, good at acting like you care what I think, what Don and Roman and Jo think. But the truth is, you do what you want and to hell with anyone else.”

  “That’s not true!” Fear and horror battered her from the inside, but her eyes were dry as she faced him down. “I make decisions because I have to. It’s my ranch, Jesse. My responsibility.”

  “Exactly. Your ranch.” He nodded, even as a look of loathing crossed his face. “And if you read the papers I gave you, you know I don’t want a damn thing from you or this ranch except my freedom. Then you won’t even have to pretend to share.”

  “Why are you doing this? Saying those things to me when—” Her voice broke as she sucked air into her suddenly starved lungs.

  “Are you even listening to yourself? I’m not doing this to you, Desiree. I’m doing it for us. We’ve lived in our sham of a marriage long enough. It’s time to move on.”

  “Now our marriage is a sham? Twenty-seven years and three kids later you’re telling me this?” she snapped before she could stop herself. “You’ve got nerve.”

  “And you’ve got a chip on your shoulder a mile wide. It’s gotten so big that I can’t even find you under it anymore, let alone find a way to walk around it.” He grabbed her by the arms, pulled her up on tiptoe until her eyes were nearly level with his.

  He was so close she could see the ring of black surrounding the dark coffee of his eyes, could feel his breath mingling with hers. Her heart beat erratically, but before she could do anything but blink, he said, “I can’t do this anymore. I want out.”

  He set her back on her feet and turned away without another word.

  She called after him, but he didn’t respond, didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge that he heard her even as she screamed his name.

  Her sorrow—and the journal in her pocket—weighed her down more than she’d ever thought possible.

  I spent the next two years following Jesse around, waiting for him to notice me, to remember that one brief kiss that had changed my life. In my single-mindedness, I was blind to so much around me—the young men who wanted more than friendship, the excitement of the world outside of the Triple H, the sickness my mother tried desperately to keep hidden. I was so self-absorbed that I missed it all—until the October of my nineteenth year.

  Two months before I turned twenty, my eyes were finally opened. Too soon to escape unscathed. Too late to do any good. I woke from my self-indulgent trance in time to watch my mother die.

  She died on October twenty-seventh. Two days before, I stood over her bed and searched for some remnant of the woman I had known. Some small spark that told me this was my mama, the woman who loved me more than anyone on earth.

  I couldn’t find her. Not in the pain-filled eyes or the dull and lifeless hair. No
t in the cloying smell of the sick room that had long since overpowered the scent of Mama’s favorite perfume. And no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find my mother in the skeleton on the bed. She had shrunk and shrunk until there was nothing left of her, nothing but a shell that was totally unrecognizable.

  I often wondered if she’d made such a big deal of my prom because she’d known she wouldn’t be around for my wedding. Had she known, even then, that she would lose the battle with cancer? Had she suffered through round after round of the chemotherapy my father insisted upon, knowing the entire time that the treatment wasn’t working? Had she listened to my father’s words of encouragement, to my own words, and kept her pain to herself so as not to disappoint us?

  I held her hand, gently, until she fell asleep then I ran out into the inky darkness of the midnight ranch. I ran from the rage, from the wild grief that seared me. I ran from my impotence, from my inability to change anything that mattered. I ran from the past. I ran from the future. I ran and ran and ran.

  LEFT, RIGHT. LEFT, RIGHT. Desiree focused on the rhythmic pounding of her feet as she ran, focused on the task of putting one foot in front of the other. Focused on the cement, gravel and grass that she passed over. Focused on the wildflowers and trees that she ran through as she struggled to leave the house and everything inside it far behind.

  Left, right. Left, right. The Rolling Stones blasted from her Walkman, beat in her head as she continued to put one foot in front of the other. She covered miles in the darkness—ignoring the stitch in her side and the hitch in her breath—heading blindly toward the only sanctuary she had left. Panic and pain crawled though her, leaving her so weak that when she finally reached the watering hole she could barely stand. Falling to her knees, she pressed her forehead into the ground as her fingers clawed at the rich, brown earth. Her heart beat fiercely, throbbing in her chest and her ears and her veins, drowning out everything but the knowledge that this really was the end.

  Curling into a ball, she wrapped her arms around herself and held on tight. If she let go, even for one second, she knew that she would shatter into so many pieces that she might never be whole again.

  Burrowing her face into the crook of her elbow, Desiree stifled the screams, refusing to give in to the hot tears beating against her closed eyes. Hoarse sounds wrenched from her throat as she rocked back and forth, praying for the control her parents had always expected. As she prayed for acceptance and a miracle that she knew wouldn’t come.

  Mama’s dead. Mama’s dead. Mama’s dead. The mantra beat in her head. Though Mama had yet to take her last breath, Desiree knew the time she had left could be measured in hours instead of days. Desiree choked on the sobs she refused to release. She ripped off her headphones, for the first time in her life choosing silence over the music that consumed her waking minutes.

  Suddenly he was there. Jesse dropped to his knees next to her, folding her into his arms, holding her against his hard chest. His beloved scent—a combination of horses, heat and rain—enveloped her, stealing past the last of her defenses. After the days and years of waiting, his embrace was so unexpected that it shattered her control.

  “Mama’s gone,” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as tightly as she could. “She’s gone, Jesse. And I can’t get her back.”

  His arms cradled her and his hands stroked her back as he rocked her.

  “Shh, darlin’,” he murmured softly into her hair. “Shh, I know.”

  “Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I know?” She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, keeping her tear-soaked face pressed against him.

  “It’s not your fault, Desiree.”

  “I should have spent more time with her. I should have seen how bad she was.” Her grief made her voice and the words she said nearly unrecognizable.

  “She didn’t want you to see, darlin’. I don’t think she wanted you to know until after she was gone.”

  “She is gone, Jesse! She is. That poor shell isn’t Mama.” Completely hysterical now, she never questioned how Jesse had found her, how he’d known that she needed him. She just held tight and poured all of her anger and grief and impotence into him.

  And he took it. He held her through the onslaught, stroking her hair and rubbing her back in soothing circles. Murmuring gentle words of comfort in her ear. Sheltering her close to his chest, protecting her from herself and her out-of-control emotions.

  When the storm passed, she lay against him, his heartbeat steady and comforting beneath her cheek. It was a long time before Desiree blocked the sorrow enough to become aware of where she was and who she was with.

  As reality slowly intruded, she stiffened against Jesse, embarrassed and confused. She tried to pull away, but his arms held her in place. “Don’t,” he murmured.

  “Don’t what?” she asked, looking up at him through her lashes.

  “Don’t leave. Let me hold you a little longer.”

  His words startled her, mixed with the rage and love that warred within. She escaped while she still had the strength. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “They didn’t want you to know.”

  “Why?” she demanded, her hands fisting. “Why could everyone else know and not me? There I am at school, going to classes and parties, hanging out with my friends, thinking everything is fine. I called home almost every day, damn you! I talked to you, to Daddy, to her. None of you said a damn word to me about her getting sicker. None of you told me anything!” Her voice was too loud, but she couldn’t lower it, just as she couldn’t stop the pain-filled words spewing forth.

  “It wasn’t up to me to tell you.” His voice was low and firm, but he reached a hand out to her.

  She felt him grab her hand as if from far away, felt his long, hard fingers smooth gently over her wrist, over her palm. “That’s a cop-out, Jesse, and you know it. A pathetic excuse that doesn’t mean anything. You don’t care about me at all. You couldn’t care and lie to me the way you did.”

  He stiffened, withdrew his hand. She couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but she heard his indrawn breath, saw his shoulders tense and straighten against her assault. “You would have come home and sat with her and cared for her. And you would have died a little bit each day as you watched her fade. Your father didn’t want that for you.”

  “It wasn’t his choice.”

  He inclined his head. “Maybe not. But it was her choice. She made it very clear to your father, and Big John made it very clear to me. She didn’t want you to know.”

  “She’s my mother, Jesse. She’s my mother!”

  He sighed, reached for her again. She struggled, tried to evade him, but his hands remained on her arms. “Have you ever thought of it from her point of view? Ever considered that maybe she couldn’t stand for you to see her like that? Couldn’t stand to know that your last memory of her would be a painwracked shell of her former self?

  “She loved you, Desiree, loved you enough to live without you these last few months, though you would have brought her comfort. Can’t you love her enough to understand? To forgive her?”

  The words hit with the force of a sledgehammer. Shame nearly leveled her, making her flush and turn away from Jesse.

  “I didn’t—” Her voice broke and she steadied it. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” He wrapped her slight, cold body inside the shelter of his large, warm one. “Just as she didn’t think of it from your point of view. Whether she was right or wrong, it’s done, Desiree. We can’t go back from here.”

  “I’m not ready to lose her, Jesse.”

  “I know, darlin’.”

  She tried to hold herself away from him, to stay tense and removed. But his warmth was insidious, winding itself around and inside of her until she melted against him.

  They stayed that way for a long time—Jesse sheltering her against the fierce emotions ripping through her. Beneath his touch, h
er riotous emotions finally quieted, giving her a chance to think, to reason.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t.”

  She sighed. “Jesse.”

  “No.” He shook his head, his voice firm. “Don’t apologize and don’t be embarrassed. There’s nothing for you to be ashamed of here.”

  “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to say those things—”

  “I said, don’t.” He shifted enough to look her in the eyes. “Desiree, you have a right to grieve for your mother. You don’t ever need to apologize for that.”

  “I wasn’t.” The words came out stiff and formal. “I was apologizing for—” She searched desperately for the right word. “For saying those things. For treating you badly. For…inconveniencing you.” Her voice trailed away as she saw felt him tense against her.

  “Inconveniencing? That’s what you call this?”

  She shrank from his anger, suddenly defenseless. “I just thought—”

  “What?” He grasped her chin in his hand, forced her to look at him. “Desiree, don’t you know what you mean to me?”

  For one blinding moment, everything else disappeared. “No.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  His eyes narrowed. “No what? You don’t know? Or you don’t want to know?”

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. She wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. As she stared into them, she saw something she’d never seen before. It sent shivers down her spine and created a strange heat between her thighs. She lifted one trembling hand to his face and ran her thumb over his mouth before she could stop herself. “Jesse.”

  It was a plea and he knew it, though she barely understood what she was asking for. He cupped her face, his touch soothing and arousing at the same time. She closed her eyes, nervous, excited, determined to savor every second of contact.

  “Look at me, Desiree.” Though his voice was low, it was no less an order. “I want to see your eyes when I do this.”