Chapter 21 #2
His sinfully sexy lips curved into a small smile, but she still saw torment in his warm brown eyes.
“I never knew my dad. My mom said it was a short-lived thing, and he wasn’t worth knowing.
For most of my childhood, it was just me, my mom and my grandpa.
He ran a small ranch about fifty miles from here, and my mom helped him with the books, the housekeeping and chores.
When I was old enough, I was expected to help out, too, which was fine with me.
I loved being with my grandfather. I followed him around like a pesky little dog, and he was always endlessly patient with me.
He’s the one who taught me everything I know about horses.
People tell me I have a gift with them. If that’s true, it came right from him. ”
His eyes went soft with affection when he talked about his grandfather.
“He died suddenly when I was thirteen. We found him in the barn where he’d collapsed.
They said it was probably a massive heart attack and that he hadn’t suffered.
But I suffered over losing him. Oh, how I suffered. In some ways, I was never the same.”
“I can totally relate to that. It’s the most incredibly difficult thing to discover the people you love best can be taken from you with no warning.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Thanks. I still miss him every day. I think all the time about what would’ve been different if he’d lived.”
“It’s amazing how one incident can set off a chain of events that changes everything.”
He glanced at her, seeming less tortured than he had just a short time ago.
“That is so, so true. About a year after my grandfather died, my mom decided to start dating for the first time in years. What a shit show that turned out to be. She quickly learned not to tell them about the ranch she’d inherited or her teenage son, both of which became either pros or cons, depending on the guy. Then she met Clive.”
His entire body tightened with tension that radiated off him.
“He was a retired rodeo star. Had made his name as a bull rider. Won a lot of awards and money and acclaim. All the money was gone by the time he met my mom, and he saw dollar signs when he eventually found out about the ranch. My mom was crazy about him for reasons that I never quite understood. He wanted nothing at all to do with the teenage son, but he put up with me to get his hands on her land. I hated him the first time I met him, and my opinion of him never changed.”
“God, Brayden. That’s so awful.” All Maggie could think about was how lucky she and her sisters had gotten when Andi and Aidan came into their lives. Brayden had had the opposite experience.
“It was. He knew I hated him, and he sort of got off on pushing my buttons.”
“What did your mom say?”
“She pleaded with me to help her make it work because we needed help running the place, and she fancied herself in love with him for a while. That didn’t last long, but by the time she woke up to who he really was, she’d married him, he was in charge of my grandfather’s ranch and wanted nothing to do with me.
And vice versa. I started getting into a lot of trouble around that time.
Skipping school, drinking, smoking pot, basically acting out in every way I could, which I can see now only justified his dislike of me. ”
He cradled her hand between both of his, caressing her skin with callused, scarred hands from a lifetime of hard work.
“I only came home to take care of the horses and see my mom. Otherwise, I crashed with my friends and generally stayed away. I was fifteen and getting around on a motorbike that had belonged to my grandfather. The bike made it so I could get out to the ranch to tend the horses. I tried to time my comings and goings for when I knew he wouldn’t be there.
But this one day, I went home after school.
He… he had all the horses in the paddock and… ”
Maggie cradled his head against her chest the way she might a child who’d had a bad dream. But this was no bad dream. It was Brayden’s life, and her heart broke for him as she waited to hear the rest of his story.
“He had a bullwhip and was beating them.”
Maggie gasped. “Oh my God.”
“They had nowhere to go.” He spoke in a flat-sounding tone, devoid of inflection.
“They couldn’t get away from him, and obviously, it’d been going on for a while, because all of them were bleeding, especially Dancer, my grandfather’s horse, the one I’d learned to ride on.
He’d focused on him because he knew I loved him the best.”
Maggie sniffed as tears ran unchecked down her face. “Brayden…”
“I don’t really remember a lot about what happened next.
But I vividly recall climbing the paddock fence and going after him and the whip.
From what I was told, I beat him until he was unrecognizable.
My mom came home in the middle of it, pulled me out of there, called 911 for him and the emergency vet for the horses.
Everything after that was a blur. The cops came, they took me in.
Later, I heard Clive was on life support. I didn’t care.”
Brayden looked up at her, his gaze fierce. “I want you to know if I had it to do over again, even knowing how it would fuck up my life, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I wouldn’t want you to. Those poor horses. Were they okay?”
“They recovered from their wounds, but I’m sure they were never the same.”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “My mom rehomed the horses and sold the ranch to pay for my attorneys.”
“Oh, Brayden… God, I’m so sorry.”
“She did the right thing. She couldn’t handle it all on her own anyway, and the horses needed care we couldn’t give them.”
“But still… It must’ve broken your heart to lose your home and the horses.”
“It did, but I had bigger problems by then. I was charged with attempted murder, and there was talk of trying me as an adult. My mom got me the best lawyers money could buy, and they eventually got the charges reduced to felony assault and kept the case in juvenile court, which was a huge break. I spent three years in juvie and five years on probation after I was released and have been trying ever since to get my record expunged, but it hasn’t happened yet.
My mom managed to keep the story locked down.
She told people I went to live with my uncle in Colorado, and no one questioned her story because my friends knew how much I hated Clive. ”
“And what about him?”
“He survived. I was told I should be thankful for that. If he’d died, I probably would’ve been charged as an adult and would still be in prison.”
“Tell me he was charged with something.”
“Misdemeanor animal cruelty with a provision that he sign the divorce papers, relocate and never speak of or to me or my mother again.”
She wiped the tears from her face. “I’m so, so sorry, Brayden. I’m sorry that happened, that I forced you to talk about something so painful, that—”
“Hey.” Brayden tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. “It’s okay. I’m glad you know. It feels right to talk about it to you.” He held her gaze for a long, charged moment before he leaned in to kiss the tears off her cheeks.
Maggie tipped her face ever so slightly, her lips meeting his in a soft, sweet kiss that quickly became heated and desperate. After hearing his story, she no longer feared falling for him, as it was far too late for such concerns. The fall had already happened.
His arms encircled her, his tongue rubbed against hers, and Maggie moaned as she tried to get closer to him. “Brayden,” she said, gasping as she broke the kiss. “Wait.”
He dropped his head to her chest as he fought to catch his breath.
“Let me up.”
Brayden pulled back, running his hands through his hair as he seemed to search for composure.
Maggie stood and held out her hand to him.
Seeming surprised, he looked up at her as he took her hand.
She gave a gentle tug that brought him to his feet.
“What’re you up to?” he asked, smiling.
“Moving this somewhere more comfortable.”