Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
F inn had never wanted to punch someone as badly as he did Brad Jensen. Just once. One really, really good punch.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Mak had been with a man like this. Jensen. Why would any woman be with a bully? And that’s exactly what he was.
Finn remembered Brad Jensen well. Every evil, underhanded, degenerate thing he’d ever done to put another kid down and belittle him in an attempt to puff himself up in the process. Finn wasn’t the only one Brad and his crew had picked on, but he had seemed to take the brunt of it despite everything his brothers had done to try to protect him.
“Emi, will you please go inside with Sam while I talk to your father?”
Despite her tears, Emi got a stubborn look on her face at the request. Finn watched as Emi gave her mother a pitiful, pleading glance to stay before her petulant gaze shifted to Finn.
Finn forced himself to wink at her and tip his chin toward Sam in a silent urging to do as her mama said, promising Emi without words that he’d have their back and handle things out here.
Kids and animals went together like PB and J. And unless Mak did a one-eighty and bowed down to her ex, Finn wasn’t budging.
The little girl’s gaze shifted to her father next, and Finn watched her nose wrinkle up as she glared at him for ruining what had otherwise been the start of a fun visit.
“How about we see if we can find some carrots?” Sam asked Emi.
Emi gave them all one last searching stare as her child mind tried to understand what was happening before she relented, heading inside with Sam on slow feet.
Finn noticed the way Mak’s shoulders lowered a bit from her ears once the screen door and front door both shut behind them. Mak inhaled a breath and then turned to face her ex.
“You are not my husband, and I have the papers to prove it,” Mak said in a voice full of feminine rage. She shifted in such a way that she stood shoulder to shoulder with Finn—well, shoulder to ribs considering how short she was compared to him—but he liked that she’d sidled up to him as she ripped into her ex.
“You know you made a mistake,” the man said.
Finn bristled though he had no right to, but that was nothing compared to the fire that erupted from Mak. She growled. Actually growled. And it was the hottest thing he’d ever heard as she shifted to go toe to toe with her ex like a feral little honey badger about to end him once and for all.
“No, I didn’t,” she said. “You put yourself first, Brad. Always. And then you put everything else before us, too, including the women you cheated with.”
He wasn’t surprised by the fact the idiot was a cheater. Finn remembered the rumors of him doing the same to girlfriends in high school. But to cheat on a woman like Mak and destroy their beautiful family?
Brad’s gaze flicked to Finn’s before sliding away. The guy tried to look cocky about doing that to Mak, but it came off as pathetic. Finn found nothing admirable about Jensen betraying his wife.
“If you didn’t still love me, you wouldn’t care so much. So let’s discuss that—privately,” the guy said.
Mak practically vibrated with her anger.
“No. That’s just it, Brad. I don’t care what you do now. I’m free of you. Which means you can’t come here and order us around and make demands or—say Emi can’t be around animals, for pity’s sake.”
“That horse could’ve killed her.”
Mak scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, cocking out a hip Finn couldn’t help but admire from behind.
“That horse has barely moved a muscle despite your stupid tactic to cause a ruckus—which proves how gentle and sweet it is. You are the one acting like an animal, trying to force a scene so you can make it an issue because you’re not getting your way.”
Brad’s derision-fueled gaze shifted from Mak to Finn as a scowl snarled his features into all sorts of ugly.
“I want Finn and his animals off this property and away from my family so we can discuss our daughter’s safety and well-being as her parents.”
“You have no say here,” Mak said quietly, like she’d found that place of inner strength despite the chaos in front of her. “This is our home now. Finn is a neighbor— my neighbor, and I say he’s welcome.”
“That’s not acceptable to me.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she countered.
“Mak, listen to reason.”
“Reason? Really? Emi was perfectly safe. If anything the only danger she might have faced was when you waved your arms like that. Had Finn not trained the horse so well, Emi could’ve been hurt with your stupid stunt, and that would’ve been your fault and no one else’s.”
Finn studied the man, his grip so tight on the reins he felt like the leather would meld into his hands. Dash trembled in his arms and squirmed a bit at the tight hold, but he’d stopped trying to bolt and obviously drew comfort in being held after Jensen’s stunt.
He considered dropping Pepper’s reins to wander to the grass but didn’t trust Jensen not to try something else just to cause more trouble.
Mak was right about Pepper. She was one of the best horses he owned, and fireworks could go off ten feet away and the horse would stand her ground.
“I disagree. I think this is proof I need to take things back to court to get full custody of my daughter so she is protected from your carelessness and that of your…friends.”
Finn couldn’t stop the sound of angry disgust that emerged from him. He gently nudged Mak’s shoulder with his elbow, and when she turned to look up at him, he practically shoved Dash into her arms.
The tiny donkey immediately dropped his head into her neck like a dog and despite the intensity of the moment, Mak cuddled Dash like a baby, crooning softly to the creature.
Dash taken care of, Finn stepped toward Brad Jensen and relished the way the man’s eyes widened in fear. Things were different now than they were in high school. Whereas Brad had been a soccer star and Finn the silent, wimpy underdog, his body had matured in the years since, and he’d packed on muscle and inches.
The way Jensen’s nostrils flared as he took a breath and realized yelling and threatening a six-two grown man was a lot different than a tiny bit of a woman who’d obviously been verbally and emotionally abused—if not more, given the sight of the bruises beginning to darken on her arm from Brad’s earlier grip—during her marriage to the guy.
Brad was used to getting his way. Used to yelling and blustering and threatening and intimidating until he wore Mak down and won. That much was obvious. The man was used to Mak giving in because of fear or maybe even exhaustion, but that ended today. Right now.
Here. “L-l-leave.”
Finn called himself every single name he could think of for stumbling with his speech now—now when Mak and Emi and Sam needed him as their protector—but he’d face those thoughts later. Right now the most important thing was to get Mak’s ex off Sam’s property.
Brad’s surprise was evident on his face before it changed to gleeful mockery. “Wow, still with the stutter? Dude, I mean, you kind of look like a badass, but let’s get real here. It’s hard to pull off when you’re still st-st-stuttering like an idiot. Ruins the effect, you know?” Brad’s mocking grin turned into loud obnoxious chuckles. “L-l-leave,” he said in that high-pitched tone all bullies seemed to have, like it’s assigned at birth or built into their DNA.
“Brad, that is enough . You need to go right now, or I’m calling the police,” Mak said.
Finn hated the way Makayla’s voice shook with her emotions. But was it from her upset with her ex—or that she was embarrassed by the fact the man defending her was being mocked and ridiculed instead?
Was he only making things worse for her?
What woman wanted that? Someone to defend her who couldn’t even defend himself—at least not verbally.
His anger surged to the breaking point as he saw red. His hands fisted tighter at his sides, and he took a step closer to Brad while all the memories—all the bullying, all the things that had been said about him and his speech over the years—slid through his head like a sick and twisted river of shame, tugging him beneath the surface.
“Fine, fine. If Finn says it again,” Brad said in a droll tone full of in-your-face attitude. “Come on, Finn. Order me to go, and maybe I’ll listen.”
The smile on Brad’s face caused Finn’s knuckles to pop. Brad and his group of so-called friends had been bullies their entire lives. It came as no surprise to see he still was one. And since he knew better than to lay his hands on the man as badly as he ached to, he tugged on Pepper’s reins to get her attention and then tapped her flank so that she’d sidestep as trained.
Finn kept tapping, Pepper kept side-stepping, until Brad had to scramble over the closed door of his flashy, open-top convertible or be pinned against it by a thousand pounds of horse.
“Get that filthy animal away from my car!”
Brad’s curses rang out with every breath as he climbed over the bucket seats into the driver’s side and punched the engine to a roaring start. Pepper shied away from the loud noise with a jerk of her head and wide-eyed glare at the cause but didn’t try to bolt from Finn’s side. He’d never been prouder or loved a horse more than in that moment.
He rubbed Pepper’s nose to soothe her and whispered against her soft coat, praising her, and got a snuffling, nose blow in return, as if Pepper said good riddance to Brad in Horse.
“This isn’t over, Mak!”
Mak turned her back to the spray of sand and dust, still cradling Dash protectively in her arms as her ex shot out of there like a petulant child. He slung the car around to exit, flipping them off as he went.
A loud squeal of tires entering the highway sounded seconds later. In the quiet of the aftermath, Finn saw Makayla eyeing him warily.
“Finn… I’m so sorry. What Brad said—the way he behaved. I am so sorry.”
Finn swung up into the saddle and nudged Pepper the two steps it took to bend down and pluck Dash from Mak’s arms. He didn’t bother trying to speak because right now anger boiled the very blood beneath his skin. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t verbalize the words he wanted to say to her in regard to her ex, and he knew it.
He couldn’t tell her that she deserved better. He couldn’t say her ex was a piece of work and unworthy of her and Emi or a second more of their time.
He couldn’t say anything—because a man who couldn’t speak wasn’t worthy of them, either.