Chapter Seventeen
Lark walked up the steps and into her house, every step heavy. She refused to feel ashamed. She refused to feel guilty. But she still kind of did.
She heard footsteps coming from the kitchen and looked up. Cade was standing there with a beer in his hand.
And her resolve broke. “Oh, Cade,” she said, throwing her arms around him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please don’t make me feel stupid. Please don’t tell me you warned me.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “No. I won’t. Lark, I won’t.”
They stood like that for a while, then he pulled away, his arm still around her shoulders. “You know, I was all ready to be really pissed at you.”
She nodded and wiped the tears from her face. “I don’t blame you.”
“I’m not though,” he said. “Come sit down.”
She let him lead her to the couch and she sat, her knees drawn up to her chest. “I left. Obviously.”
“Yeah, you did. Finally get sick of him?”
“He got sick of me.”
“He’s a damned idiot.”
“I . . . I just . . .”
“You’re not the first person to be stupid over sex. You won’t be the last. Hell, I’ve been stupid over it plenty of times. And I can’t hold it against you. Even though part of me wishes I could.”
Her teeth chattered. “Yeah, well, I wish it were just sex.”
He stiffened next to her. “You aren’t . . . I mean you used . . .”
“Not pregnant,” she said. “Just in love.”
“How did you manage to fall in love with a guy like that?”
She looked down at her hands. “Because I know for a fact he’s not a guy like that. I know you don’t believe me. I know you don’t. He doesn’t either, if it helps.”
“Nothing helps. He hurt you.”
“And you really aren’t mad at me?”
“No.” He shifted. “Like I said, you’re hardly the first person to make an ass of yourself for love. Cole made a way bigger ass out of himself than you did. Seriously. Shawna?”
“True.”
“But look, he found Kelsey later. And everything is . . . well, it’s not my thing, but he’s happy. You’ll be happy again someday too.”
“Why isn’t it your thing, Cade?”
“I’m not the kind of guy who’s up for something like that. I’m more of a temporary man. Itchy feet.”
“Cade, I think you have the same problem Quinn has. You don’t really see yourself.” Lark leaned her head back against the couch. “Listen to me; I’m full of advice tonight.”
“Yeah, me too. We could write a book and fill it with our wisdom.” Cade put his hands behind his head. “You can talk about your incredible insight into psychologically damaged men, after one love affair, and I’ll talk about moving on and finding functional relationships. I’ll write most of it from a hotel the next town over while in bed with a woman whose name I don’t know.”
“Sounds legit.”
“As much as most self-help books.”
Silence fell between them, and Lark leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. “Tell me about dad.”
“Now?”
“My heart’s broken, Cadence,” she said. “Might as well throw another brick on the pile. You can’t break it more. And you can’t protect me from the truth either. That’s how all this started.”
Cade ran a hand over his face. “I know. But I wanted to. I wish you knew.”
“I do. I got . . . I got upset because I felt like . . . like I believed this silly story. Like you were laughing at me, maybe.”
“No. Never that. Nothing about this is funny. But when I found out about dad . . . I was sixteen. And I wished that I could un-know it. You have no idea how much. I just wanted to spare you from that.”
“So . . . it was a long time ago. She’s . . . how old is she?”
“I think probably twenty-five now.”
“So, she’s older than me.” Lark looked down at her hands, expecting more misery. But it didn’t come. It was just a kind of cold, sick calm. Acceptance. “It just sucks.”
“I know.”
“It’s not her fault though.”
He nodded. “I know that too.”
Lark let out a slow breath. “So . . . so maybe instead of protecting me, and protecting the guy who made the mistake, and who is dead, by the way, we protect the sister who’s here?”
Cade smiled, slow, sad and more genuine than any smile she’d seen on his face in a while. “What was I protecting you from? You’re a lot more grown-up than I am.”
She stood up. “I’m glad you think so. Now, if you could please ignore the very teenage angst coming from my bedroom and think of me fondly as an adult. Look the other way if you hear me crying like a child.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I think you need me, I’m going to be there.”
She sighed. “So annoying. And I love you for it.”
“I love you too.”
“That’s the first time it’s been said back to me all day.” Cade winced. “Yeah, I know, right?”
“Do you want me to kill him? I have to offer. But you know, I’d do it anyway. That he hurt you is just a bonus.”
She shook her head. “I appreciate the offer. I really do. But he has to live with his issues. I think that’s punishment enough.”
***
Why the hell had he quit drinking? He couldn’t remember now. Not now, when he felt like his entrails had been pulled out and exposed. When he felt scrubbed raw inside, his eyes so dry and gritty it was laughable. Especially when he was pretty sure he wanted to cry, but that he’d lost the ability to do it.
If he got drunk, he could probably cry. Probably release the hideous pressure that was building in his chest. Yeah, he could wail like a drunken idiot. An emotionally crippled, drunken idiot. He could curl up on his bed with all those panties Lark had left him and bawl his eyes out.
But he wasn’t going to. Because he had to work today. Because he wasn’t going to let the boys down when he’d promised them more riding demonstrations. Because Lark would be pissed if he drank because of her. Because she would be really pissed if he let the boys down.
And he would be pissed at himself. So drinking in the middle of the day was out of the question. Dammit.
“Quinn . . .”
Quinn turned around and saw Jake standing by the fence, his hand gripping the top rail like it was his support system.
“Yeah?”
He wasn’t in the mood to deal with teenage issues. Even the admittedly real issues these guys were dealing with. He had his own issues, and they were eclipsing everything and everyone at the moment.
He couldn’t say that, but it was true.
“I need to talk to you.”
Great. “Sure. What’s up?”
“You said that stuff about rock bottom. And I talked to Sam for a while . . . and . . . and I have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” he said, privately wishing he could just tune out whatever talk the kid thought was so important.
“I told you that I used to help at the rodeo. And I did. That day, the day of Cade Mitchell’s accident, I got approached by a guy. I didn’t know his name. He wasn’t one of the riders, and he sure as hell wasn’t you. He asked me if I would do something for him. He offered me a lot of money. Like . . . it was a lot. To me, anyway. He said if, when I was inspecting the gear on Cade’s horse, I would put a spike under the saddle, I’d get paid. So I did it.” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. He was just . . . I guess he was just supposed to lose, and I thought, it sucks for him to lose, but I needed the money. But if I could take anything back . . . any of the dumb shit I’ve done. That would be the one thing.” He shook his head. “I need to put it right. That’s . . . that’s why I chose to come here. There were a few options open to me and I saw this one and . . . I knew I had to see you because . . . I have to fix this.”
Quinn felt like he’d been punched in the head again. “You did it?” he asked, his heart pounding, his palms slick with sweat.
He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that his ticket back was here. That it had just been handed to him.
“Yes,” Jake said. “And I’ll testify before the board or . . . court. Whatever you need. I don’t really want to get arrested, but I understand that . . . whether I meant to hurt him or not, I did.”
“If he presses charges, you could go to jail,” Quinn said, reiterating the point.
“I know.”
“And you’re still ready to confess?”
“You made all this happen,” Jake said, “because you got it together and worked hard. Because you hit rock bottom and took a hand up. And I’m taking something from you by not doing the same. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
And right then, Quinn realized something. He hadn’t hit rock bottom before. Not truly. Not before today.
Because when a hand had been reached down to him, when help and salvation was within his grasp, he’d turned away.
He looked down at the boy. So young. So much braver than he was. “You’ll really confess?”
“Yes. I have dreams about it. About how it looked when he fell. When his boot got caught and . . . and how he got dragged around like a rag doll. That was my fault. I did that. I’ve done . . . things. Stolen stuff and vandalized . . . stuff. But I never did anything to people. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
The things that hit Quinn surprised him. Concern for Jake. Because the kid could get in major trouble. Because this was something he had to live with. A consequence Quinn had been spared. He’d never hurt anyone seriously, even when he’d been at his worst.
“And I’ll be reinstated.” He said that last part out loud. To try and make himself feel that. To make himself feel elation, excitement. Some sense of accomplishment. Vindication. It was here. He had it. Right in his hands.
And he didn’t feel anything. Nothing but this strange, hollow ache that permeated everything. All of him.
He didn’t feel a drive to punish Jake. To pursue the man who’d put Jake up to it. He didn’t feel a damn thing.
It didn’t change when he called his lawyer. Didn’t change when he got his notice of appointment to stand before the board. For Jake to go and confess.
It didn’t change, four days later, when he got the call telling him he was absolved. That he was cleared to compete in the circuit again, since he was innocent of any wrongdoing in the incident involving Cade Mitchell.
He walked into the barn and sat down in front of the stall. Why couldn’t he feel anything? Why didn’t he care?
The words of the chairman still echoed in his head.
You’re cleared to begin competition at the beginning of next season . . .
No apology. But he hadn’t expected that. Never in a million years. But the speed at which they’d disbarred him had been amazing. Still, with Jake’s confession, his knowledge of details Quinn certainly hadn’t been privy to, plus a deposit slip showing the money he’d been paid going into a personal account the day of the accident, they’d had enough reasonable doubt that they’d felt obligated to allow him back.
***
And he was waiting now. Waiting to feel like everything in his life was back the way it should be. Waiting to feel . . .
He didn’t even know. He didn’t know what he’d thought he would feel. Satisfied. Whole. Like he was someone. Someone more than a bastard forced on a man too dignified to turn him out onto the streets. A bastard who put an irrevocable crack in a marriage.
A bastard who had never fit. Who had never been wanted.
He knew what he’d been expecting. He’d been expecting to get reinstated and find the kind of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d first started riding. Purpose, a sense of focus that had pulled him out of the fog he’d been living in.
But it wasn’t working now.
And he didn’t know why. It had been enough. It had been enough before Lark.
He closed his eyes and put his head down. Yeah. It had been enough because he’d been so used to the emptiness inside of him that it had made him feel full.
Lark had brought him something bigger than purpose. Something richer than drive. She’d brought something into his life no one else in his life ever had.
I love you.
No one else had ever said that. No one else had ever felt it. No one else had ever given him love. And Lark had done it regardless of his actions. When he’d been too angry to let go of revenge, too afraid to give her the words in return. Even though he wasn’t some famous bronco rider. She’d loved him regardless of his position.
She’d loved him even with all the broken pieces inside of him. She hadn’t waited for him to change before offering it. Hadn’t held it up out of reach.
She’d held out her hand, her love, to him where he was at, at the bottom of that pit. That rock bottom hole he’d been living in for so long.
And he’d turned her down. A dying man in the desert refusing water.
He was a fool. And he was a coward.
It had been easier to want the rodeo, because at the end, even if he didn’t have the circuit, it wouldn’t destroy him. But acknowledging his love for Lark . . . and damn, but he loved her . . . if he lost it, it would destroy him. Utterly. Completely.
Except he was a dumbass. He’d thought he could stop it. That if he sent her away, if he didn’t let himself think it, if he didn’t acknowledge that the feeling of peace, of being full, was love, that he would be protected from it.
Even now, with his heart cracked open and bleeding, with the loss of Lark so real and painful, he was afraid of what it would mean to say the words. To want a future with her.
From the time he was a kid, he’d been made to feel like he wasn’t good enough. And the biggest lie he’d ever told himself was that he didn’t care. That he didn’t need to fit. That he didn’t want to fit.
That he didn’t want the love that had been denied him.
Well, he didn’t want his mother’s love. He didn’t want love from either of the men he could call father. Not now.
But he wanted Lark’s love. And he was sure that he wasn’t worthy of it. That was his real fear. That he would reach his hand out, and find she was still out of his reach. That no amount of wanting her, of wanting to be the man she deserved, would make him good enough.
Not even with the rodeo. Not even if he gave her every bit of his bruised and damaged heart.
But he would ask for it anyway. Because his pride could go to hell.
He had lived afraid, and he had lived angry. But as he sat there with the ground hard under his butt and his chest feeling empty, he realized that until Lark, he’d never actually lived.