6. Draven
Draven
T he back of the saddle was foreign, too fresh, not even close to broken in yet.
The curve of the leather pushed up against my thighs, an ache I slowly started to ignore as I took Ember out around the fresh path I’d finally carved out around the rim of the property.
It was different.
Tennessee wasn’t Montana.
Ember wasn’t Veil.
But the moment the steady clop of her hooves started to pick up, and the breeze could do more work along the ridge of my hat, everything began to settle into place.
The sky was hazy blue all around me, with thin, low clouds brushed over the atmosphere like a wash of white paint.
And I was riding again.
It had only been about ten days, all told, since I’d last been able to ride, but I’d needed it like a fucking cold glass of water on a burning hot day.
Finally getting a horse was the final piece I’d needed. All week, I’d been in between working on getting a bed into the house and getting all of the old shit out. The house would be a little sparse for a while, but mostly, I just needed a place to sleep and come and fuck.
I’d also been keeping tabs on Max.
Mostly, his life was simple. He worked late at the bar, and slept fairly late, because of it. He ran a lap around his parents’ property each morning, and he looked hot while doing it.
A couple of times I’d managed to slip into the Hard Spot without him spotting me, and I sat in a booth near the back, just observing.
He loved mixing drinks. He still had a lot of friends from college.
He never seemed to catch on to the fact that I was watching. Each time, I expected him to spot me, but he had a trusting personality and didn’t know when he was being watched.
I saw him taking care of the stray white cat that lived around his property, too.
He gave her little bits of food and sometimes came out with a little cat toy feather on a stick, playing around with her on his porch.
He had dinner with his parents a couple of nights a week, before heading off to shifts at the bar.
He got along with them. They were kind, loving, and supportive. Nothing like mine.
So.
Fucking.
Easy.
His life was also nothing like mine.
The wind started to whip past my face as I steered Ember’s reins in the direction of the breeze. As I looked out over the endless green of Tennessee, with all its trees, hills, and far-off mountains, I missed the mountain ranges north of Big Sky like I had a fucking split thorn in my heart.
It wasn’t that Tennessee wasn’t beautiful.
It was gorgeous.
But Montana was more like me. Harder. More stone, more rock. I missed my carefully pruned rose bushes, and while there were a few around my new property here, too, they would need a bit of TLC just like the whole house did.
The only advantage of Tennessee was that at least here, it was just me. No prospect of my father coming onto my land while I was riding.
Just me and the earth. And Ember, below me, slowly starting to trust me.
When I watched over Max, I felt like I was seeing what it must be like to be a normal person. Kind, sweet, and loved.
I couldn’t be envious, because I craved my old life. Or… parts of it.
But I did envy the way people seemed to love him.
He’d been out at lunch with Lily earlier this week, too, which was good because it meant he wasn’t alone , but bad because the Red Fox Diner didn’t have anyone like Kane around to put up a proper fight if one of Max’s stalkers showed up.
One in particular had worried me when I checked out a few suspicious profiles online.
Rex67 in particular had a criminal history that was at least slightly bad.
He had priors, and a history of harassment.
He liked men who looked like Max—in their early twenties, clean, athletic and boyish.
His name was Reggie Sandlefield, and he wasn’t too far away, within about eight hours driving distance of exactly where Max worked and lived.
Whether Max was truly in danger or not, I was going to keep tabs on the situation.
Ember’s breaths quickened a little as I turned her reins. We rounded one edge of my property, and I urged her to go a little faster.
I needed more breeze.
More air on my skin.
I wanted to feel like I was flying , the way Veil and I used to.
But as we rounded the back of the property Ember’s hoof landed at the edge of a rock that was a little too big. She stopped short and reared a little, and for a split second, my veins went cold.
“ Whoa , there, girl,” I said. “Whoa, there.”
She nearly bucked enough that I slid off the saddle. But I changed my position and leaned downward a little, and she settled just long enough for me to slide off and check her hoof.
“You’re okay. Just a bad rock, Ember.”
She was clearly upset. Riding wasn’t going to be a good idea for the rest of today. I stroked her mane a few times, trying to get her to regain trust in me after the bad experience.
I walked alongside her, slowly, as she trotted the rest of the way back around to the stables. I got her in, comfortable, fed and watered, and headed back in toward the little house.
I opened up the two paned back doors that led to my new bedroom, kicking off my boots before stepping inside. I left the doors open wide, allowing air to come in.
The cool mattress hit my back as I lay down. I didn’t have much right now, but I finally had a good bed. Like a slice of fucking heaven.
I took out my phone, navigating to my messages with Max.
Draven Lyons
Where are you?
Max Baby Blue
Home.
Yeah, I knew that already.
Where are you?
In a hell of my own making.
How very emo of you.
I laughed softly, pulling in a long breath.
I moved the phone upward to snap a photo of myself, lying back on my bed. My shirt was half unbuttoned, revealing one of the tattoos that snaked out over my chest, and I thought Max might like a little look at that.
I sent it over.
Max Baby Blue
What’s the tattoo?
Draven Lyons
Knew you’d like it.
Didn’t say I liked it. But… I do. It’s gorgeous art.
It’s the edge of a Luna moth’s wing. Symbolizes newness, transformation. Change.
I hate change. Getting a little tired of it lately.
I just got done riding. You know, that thing you didn’t believe I really knew how to do.
Bravo, cowboy.
You ready to admit we’re going to fuck, yet?
You ready to finally tell me the real reason you’re in Tennessee now?
That’s third date material at least, Max.
If you think I’d ever date you, you’re crazier than I thought. Answer me. Why are you really in Tennessee?
I pulled in a slow breath.
There were too many things to explain to Max, even if I wanted to tell him my secrets. The truth was that I fucking hated having secrets.
They burned inside me.
It felt like carrying hot coals along with me, every moment.
I wanted to scream out the truth to him. To everyone.
To make the whole world know who my father really was—both how he’d cheated on my mother, and the darker stuff, too.
How he abused me and my brother as kids, only sparing the girls. Finally laying off of Xander when he became my dad’s mini-me.
But he never laid off of me.
I knew that wasn’t what Max really wanted to hear.
He wanted some salacious story, some piece of gossip.
He didn’t want to hear that I spent a good portion of my time as a young teenager bruised up.
That I learned to hide a black eye, then eventually stopped hiding them—but I never admitted who had given them to me.
I hated those secrets back then, too.
Because secrets were only a hard fucking burden on my back. On my soul.
The scar along my face wasn’t from my dad—but it was because of him. I’d fought someone I shouldn’t have, and I’d slipped up, because I was seeing red after an argument with my father.
The worst scars were all internal.
There was also gossip, though.
The kind of gossip that other Montana families would have loved to know about mine.
That night, after I found Dad’s second cell phone?
Dad knew that I knew.
I’d proudly confronted him the moment he was sober the next morning. He’d kept a stiff upper lip, ignoring me until…
Until what happened a couple of months ago. I fucked up again, and almost ruined everything.
If it wasn’t for another one of Dad’s petty fucking business deals, everything would have been fine.
Maybe not fine. But better .
Draven Lyons
You’re a nice person. You have a nice life here. Just keep living it. And for the love of God, install a security system.
Max Baby Blue
Don’t need one. Just need you to be honest with me.
Thoughts swirled inside me like a brewing storm.
All the things I wasn’t going to say to him.
Lyons Agriculture had been about to score a merger with Franklin Cooperative.
But Bill Franklin’s son had ended up in the hospital after a night at one of my parties.
Devvy Franklin was 20, apparently, not 22 like he’d said to everyone before coming into my house party.
He seemed a little green, maybe even naive, but eager to get his hands on a drink.
That 20-year-old had watched, wide-eyed, as my friend Griffin grappled with another guy and then he quickly wanted to show us he could do it, too.
When Griffin got in close to him, our mistake was obvious immediately. Devvy didn’t know how to fight. Didn’t even know how to defend. He ended up with a black eye and two broken fingers pretty quickly and gave up the fight.
He said no when I offered an ice pack, downplayed the injuries, and insisted he wanted to stick around for a good time. And when my other very beautiful friend Heidi arrived, Devvy ignored his fractured metacarpals and shared a bottle of rum with her in one of my hot tubs instead.
Then he cracked another bottle.
Then he ended up with acute alcohol poisoning at age 20 in addition to broken bones and a black eye… and a latent concussion that nobody knew about until he was in a hospital bed.