Chapter Twenty-Three
I KNOW EXACTLY where he is.
Even though I’m not looking at him. Instead, I’m staring at the bonfire that’s set up in the center of the large rolling field behind the Grayson mansion.
It’s for a party. If someone had said to me a few days ago, or even yesterday when I arrived at the ranch, that tonight I’d be attending a party at Rawhide, I probably would’ve called them crazy.
But it doesn’t seem too crazy now. Because it’s a homecoming party.
His homecoming party.
Even though I’m staring at the flames, I know he’s all the way across from where I am standing, and he has a group of guys—all ranch hands I think—around him. His back is to the field beyond and I know he’s tensed.
He’s uncomfortable.
His stance is wide, and his shoulders are unusually rigid. And his Stetson sits low on his head, hiding his eyes. I think that’s the sign, his brim being too low, of his discomfort. When he doesn’t want anyone to see his eyes or gauge his thoughts.
I know he hates this. He hates all these people around him.
He hated when one of them wanted to hug him.
He backed off and offered his hand. Probably because he can’t stand being touched after being imprisoned for eight years.
Just like he can’t find sleep easily. He hates that they’re all flocking around him, and he hasn’t had a moment’s peace since this thing started.
He hates the music, too, cowboys playing guitars around the fire.
He hates that it doesn’t look like this is going to end any time soon so he can be alone.
I don’t want to feel sympathy for him, but I do.
I also want to go over there and punch him in the face.
Then I want to fist that denim shirt of his and demand that he call me by my name.
He did that on purpose, didn’t he? He called me friend on purpose.
Probably to take revenge on the fact that I didn’t call him by his name for so long.
Because he’s that twisted. Because that’s all he thinks about: revenge and getting even and everything that’s evil.
“What’s his name?”
Peyton’s voice gets me out of my musings, and I come back to the moment.
She’s asked this question of Haven, who’s following her orders and keeping an eye on us.
Axton is around, too, somewhere, keeping us all in his line of vision, even though from what I saw before he has some friends from his school attending the party.
Apparently, he’ll be a senior in high school when they open after summer and is quite popular from what Haven’s been telling us; Peyton asked.
Right now, though, Peyton’s focused on the group over to our left that consists of Marsden, a bunch of suit-wearing, important-looking men, and that pretty cowboy. To be specific, though, she’s solely focused on the pretty cowboy, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.
Haven follows her gaze and smiles. “Radisson. Radisson King. But everyone calls him Rad.”
Peyton takes a sip of her beer. “Does he work for you all?”
“Well, he is the foreman but he’s family,” Haven explains. “He’s their aunt’s son. They all grew up together.”
“Why doesn’t he talk to me?” Peyton asks next.
Haven chuckles. “Because he doesn’t talk to anyone. Well…”
She trails off because at that very moment, he does begin speaking, and I think he talks for about half a minute if not more, with all of us watching him. Which, thank God, he doesn’t notice because it would make anyone uncomfortable.
When he’s done, Haven continues, “He was in a car accident when he was young. Hit his head really bad and suffered from TBI. Traumatic brain injury. It affected his speech. Took him a really long time to be able to talk again, a couple of years at least and… They were hard, those years. He struggled a lot. The bullying in town, at school…” She shakes her head.
“You know how kids are. They can be so cruel. Plus his scar didn’t help either.
He was the town’s monster, a beast. He still is to some and he just… I guess, he got used to not talking.”
Peyton swallows thickly, her features stricken and eyes misty.
I probably look the same. Because when he told me about the Quiet Mustang, he didn’t put it this way.
I know he brought him up to scare me—and I did get scared—but I couldn’t have imagined, not even in my wildest nightmares, that Radisson’s story would be so tragic.
It’s their parents’ death all over again.
It was just a simple fact to me until I got a glimpse behind the curtain.
No, actually it’s everything about Rawhide.
All my life I heard so many horror stories about the family that I never considered them to be anything other than the monsters we were told they were.
But just look at them. They’re truly a family, all these brothers and Haven.
They care about one another. Or at the very least, they don’t hit children or abuse women like Peyton’s and my father did.
“And you know, he’s really gentle. I know he looks all big and fierce and of course, he kidnapped you and all that,” Haven says to Peyton, drinking her own beer and wrinkling her nose.
“But he really is the sweetest. He detests violence; he really does. He’s the only one among them who won’t go hunting.
He refuses, says killing animals for food is enough, doesn’t want to kill them for sport too. He hates guns. He—”
“What?”
That’s me. So far, I’ve been really quiet.
I’ve been given a lemonade, my drink of choice, but I’ve yet to take a sip.
All I’ve done ever since we arrived at the party is stand in this very spot, staring at the fire and not at him, and occasionally murmuring a noncommittal sound as Peyton and Haven talk about things.
So I get that both of them are a little shocked at my sudden interruption. Plus, I was a little loud, too, but I can’t help it. Not at what I just found out. “He doesn’t like guns?”
“Uh, yeah, no,” Haven says, overcoming her shock quickly and smiling. “I don’t think he’s ever shot one. Or maybe once or twice but—”
“Can you hold my drink?” I turn to Peyton, cutting Haven off.
I know it’s rude, but again, no helping that. I thrust the drink at Peyton, and she has no choice but to take it as she asks, “Riri, you okay? What—”
“I’ll just be a second,” I say to them both and take off.
Toward him.
Toward that asshole who lied to me. Again. And again and fucking again.
Halfway through my journey, I realize he isn’t there anymore and I come to a halt.
Frantically, I look around and see a flash of his Stetson disappearing around the barn.
The one just by the corral where Axton was trying to break the bronco.
I make a beeline for it, and soon I’m rounding the corner of the barn.
I don’t care if Axton or Haven or their entire Grayson clan follows me and then locks me up in his stupid room after I’m done with him; I’m not going to let him get away with this, with lying. He doesn’t—
I scream the moment an arm wraps around my waist. Or I try to, but the sound gets muffled because simultaneously, a hand wraps around my mouth, too, and I’m picked up off the ground.
And then I’m being taken somewhere. All of this happens so suddenly and in under two seconds that I should be reeling.
I should be confused and panicked out of my mind.
But I guess he trained me well.
He taught me how to react to a sudden grab in a dark alley–esque situation. So I’m freaking out, yes, but not because I’m afraid but because I know it’s him; and how dare he grab me again like a freaking criminal? Like this is the first time we’ve met and he hasn’t done all the things he’s done.
As he takes me wherever he wants to take me, I twist and struggle in his grip.
I scratch his arms. I elbow his ribs. I even try to kick back and hit his thighs and calves.
Not that it has any effect on him. He still keeps walking, keeping me plastered to his hot and hard chest, without once breaking his stride.
When he finally arrives at the destination, all the way to the back and away from the party, he puts me down, spins me around, and pins me to the wooden wall of the barn.
And I finally lock eyes with him in the dark, both our breaths hard and fast and noisy.
His Stetson is gone and his hair’s all mussed up, strands falling over his forehead, so I guess I did some damage.
But why does he look so beautiful, still?
And why does his voice sound so much rougher than it did only a few hours ago when he says, “Thought I told you not to tail an ex-con.”
My breaths are still loud, but at his words, irritated like I’m some kind of a bother, they grow even faster and instead of replying back, I do what I’ve wanted to do all this time.
I punch his face. It’s not as hard as Axton’s was yesterday or even Haven’s, and I think it hurt me more than it did him, because all it did was make him blink and breathe through his nostrils, but I’m glad I did it.
I’m also glad that I go ahead and smack his face.
And then it’s like I got the taste for it, and I can’t stop so I keep going.
I keep hitting him. Slapping his face, hitting his chest. I even knee him in his thighs; I was going for his stupid junk, but I miss it.
I would’ve tried again, but I think he’s had enough so he takes both my arms and pins them to the wall by my head.
He also leans into me with his hard body, trapping my legs with his, his belt buckle digging into my upper belly.
Then, with his fingers squeezing around my wrist, he rasps, “You get that out of your system?”
I twist between him and the wall, trying to dislodge his grip. “Let me go.”
“Not until you calm down,” he says with authority.
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“I will if it looks like you’re on the verge of hurtin’ yourself.”
“I’m trying to hurt you, asshole.”
“Yeah, don’t think that’s happenin’.”