20. Draven
Draven
V eil wasn’t like she used to be.
She was fucking better .
The light was clear and pure as I walked with Max out onto the land the next morning. Neither of us got enough sleep, because…
Because I was fucking certifiably screwed the moment I kissed him last night.
I couldn’t stop kissing him, after that.
My beautiful, sexy, goddamn frustrating and perfect Tennessee boy kept me up all night, both of us drifting in and out of sleep in between touching and kissing each other in ways we both hadn’t been able to control.
The thing about me was that I never did anything lightly.
Never half-assed things.
And once I’d fucked up and gone in to kiss Max, everything had changed, forever. It was strange how love worked. I still didn’t think I was capable of it, didn’t think that I was anywhere near worthy of love or giving it to anyone around me.
But it had crept up on me. Taken hold.
And I’d heard myself telling Max that I loved him like it was coming from a dormant part of me, some part I’d kept neglected in the dark for a long, long time.
I hated keeping secrets, although I’d been forced to become good at it.
And that’s why it’s time to tell him.
Tell.
Him.
But lying?
I was almost incapable of lying.
The moment the realization had crested inside me, that I loved him, a new, fresh love that didn’t have any business coming from a person like me…
I couldn’t lie about it.
I knew Max could still get hurt. I knew I was bound to be hurt, too.
But I could no longer hide from the truth.
It was a little past eight in the morning, already walking out onto the land as the sun bathed the rock and grass in a dewy white sheen.
I stayed close to Max as we walked along the carefully manicured gravel path. After being away from the mountains for even a short while, their height seemed endless. The snow caps on each of them reached up to the sky, and we crossed the valley below.
Birds sang. Butterflies floated through the air, little and gold.
You’d almost think this place was paradise.
It was a shame that I knew better than that.
Another reason it’s time to tell him.
“There she is,” I told Max as I saw Veil.
Veil was visible even from far off, out on the far end of the stables and poking her head through the opening on the west edge of the structure.
“Wow,” he said as we approached her. “She seems… mystical. Like she belongs in a fantasy movie instead of real life.”
“Doesn’t she?” I agreed as we walked into the stables and crossed over to her stall. “Dominic used to say she looked like she should be in Lord of the Rings .”
Max hummed, smiling softly at me. I never thought I could see a face as sweet as his here , but a lot had changed in my life recently.
I’d given him a pale brown cowboy hat to wear and while it wasn’t his usual look, it was so goddamned adorable it almost crushed my heart.
What does this man do to me?
“Can’t picture you watching Lord of the Rings ,” Max said.
“Excuse me?” I protested. “I love those movies.”
“But have you ever read the books?”
“Well, no. But I would .”
“I haven’t either. Maybe you should read them to me each night before bed.”
I ran my hand along his back. “I’ll be too busy fucking you to read you stories about hobbits and elves.”
Every alarm bell inside me still went off as I discussed anything relating to the future with Max. I was just ignoring them, now.
Maybe a bad idea, but I’ve always been full of those.
I’ll tell him.
I just don’t know when.
I was pretty sure I’d ignore any good common sense now if it meant that I could have more of Max.
But there was still one more thing he had to know about me… and it needed to happen today.
“I’ll take Veil, because she can be… particular,” I said.
“Just like you?”
“Exactly like me. Over in the far corner, you’ll find a gelding with a red coat. That’s Jasper. You can take him, because he loves everyone.”
I headed over with Max and helped gather Jasper, his equipment and saddle.
“They seem like they’ve been under good care,” Max said.
“Money doesn’t fix everything, but it does mean I have the best care for them if I ever need to be gone,” I told him. “I still hate being away from them, but they are always safe.”
Veil’s black coat shone under the morning light as I took her out of the stables, walking her out onto one of the dirt paths alongside Max and Jasper.
I helped him saddle up Jasper and get prepped to ride, and then I spent some time with Veil, who seemed to miss me as much as I’d missed her.
It was a deep ache I couldn’t get rid of.
Everything felt a little softer, after last night, but it still didn’t sit right with me that all of this was mine—the land, the horses, the house—but I never felt like I could enjoy any of it without the looming spectre of my family hovering through the air in Montana.
I felt safe, because so far my father didn’t know I was back and I wasn’t in immediate danger.
But it was almost as if my own land didn’t quite feel like mine anymore.
It was Lyons land.
I thought of my little plot of earth in Tennessee. How small it had seemed, and how small it still was, in comparison to this.
But I realized, with a growing disbelief, that it was the most independent I’d ever felt in my life.
“You ready?” I asked Max.
He nodded, going for the stirrup.
I reached out, stopping him, grasping one of his belt loops.
And I pulled him close, catching his mouth in a kiss.
The breeze blew past us as the heat of my lips touched his. This still felt so forbidden that something in my stomach went molten.
Kissing him, here, on this land. In this air that smelled like granite and wet earth.
“Let’s ride,” he said.
Knew he was my fucking favorite .
As soon as we’d gotten on the horses, it was obvious to me that Veil was even better than I’d remembered her.
I knew her well, and she happily went into a slow trot as Max started to get a feel for riding Jasper.
“Doing okay?” I asked him.
“I think so,” he said. “Not as natural of a rider as you are. But Jasper is forgiving.”
“Keep it slow. He shouldn’t give you any issues.”
I led us out down the long, curving path across the land. From here, it looked like we were riding toward the endless mountains, but that we could never reach them. Their height framed the land, but we never seemed to get any closer.
It was a part of the trail I’d always loved. It made the property seem almost infinitely vast.
Always approaching the mountain, but never reaching it.
Almost ready to tell him everything, but not quite yet.
The path was lined with spruce, hemlock, and juniper. The air smelled more like pine the further down you went, and before long we couldn’t see the house anymore.
As if we were explorers, out here all on our own. It could have been any year, any time.
I pulled in a lungful of air, glancing back toward Max on Jasper, the slow clop of his hooves never too far away.
Each intake of breath felt like a question: was it time to tell him the final things he needed to know about me, or not? But each time, I breathed out, not starting the conversation. Not feeling ready, and knowing I never would.
The bitter truth was that I knew Max would never have been afraid to tell me a goddamned thing.
The first night I met Max, I thought he was terrified of me, but I realized now that Max Burnett wasn’t afraid of fucking anything. Not like I was. Being in a plane made him nervous, and finding a stranger trying to break into his house definitely wasn’t his favorite thing.
But Max had the courage to say what he felt. He didn’t hide between the cracks of the world, the way I had for years. The way the whole goddamn Lyons family always had. Like it was a tradition.
Like it was written in our blood.
“Mind if I ride?” I called out to Max.
When I looked back he gave me a slightly confused look, but he nodded, his gaze looking so kind from under the brim of his hat.
My heart felt so full it threatened to burst.
I needed to ride. Just for a bit. Just to feel the air on my skin.
I got Veil into a canter, softened in my seat, and leaned a little forward, using my legs to signal her to gallop.
And soon, she took to the air like she was flying.
She went on down the path, carrying me through the land, past the ridges of rock and shrub that I’d had memorized for years.
As I rode, I paid attention to the sound of her gallop and her breath, and each time she pounded the dirt I felt it with more and more certainty.
It had to be now.
I had to tell him, now.
Everything was about to change, or it had already changed. I looked over the grey and green of my land, knowing one thing for sure: it truly didn’t feel like home, anymore.
Things were about to be vastly different than I’d ever known.
And I couldn’t go forward without knowing that Max knew who I was.
Whether he left, or stayed.
He had to know.
I pulled the reins and directed Veil to head down one of the back-looping paths that would take me back around to Max and Jasper. The sky was pure blue and only getting bluer, as the sun rose, but I knew how things could work, up here.
It was the calm before the storm.
That small, low strip of white-grey at the corner of the world could roll through and become a storm within hours, and I always had to know that. Always had to be ready.
I found Max and Jasper as Veil galloped back around, and I turned her, bringing her to a slow again.
Looking at Max’s eyes felt different now.
Those eyes that held so much.
Those eyes that might look at me differently very soon, but I had to face that possibility.
“You have to know me,” I told him. “I have more to tell you, Max.”
I guided us back to the spot in the dirt where it had happened.
We’d put away Jasper and Veil, made sure they were fed and watered, and walked over to the place I still remembered, from that day.
We weren’t far off from the house.