CHAPTER 22
Arlo
I paced outside of her bedroom door, silently cursing doors and locks and everything else that kept me away from Maxie. She’d been in the bathroom for hours. I was more than a little tempted to break the door down to get to her. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.
Rhett told us what happened between them that morning and I was both jealous and furious that he might’ve pushed too far, too fast. I went back and forth between knowing she wasn’t ready and wanting to demand she get her bitch of a mother out of her head so she could own her pleasure and every other magical thing about her.
I wasn’t going to back down. She needed to shake off whatever shit she had hanging over her, weighing her down, and she needed to do it fast. I couldn’t sit back and watch her suffer. I wouldn’t sit back and watch her work herself to the bone. Those days were over for her. If I had to get a little bossy to make it happen, then so be it. She’d forgive me eventually.
Before I could kick down her door, she opened it and looked up at me, the mask of coolness back in place. I was instantly even more pissed.
Her smile was plastic as she slipped past me.
“Thank you for taking care of me while I was sick. I know we have a lot to do, though, and I’m ready to get back to work.”
I scowled and caught her arm.
“Hang on a second. Don’t do that. Don’t put on that fake bullshit with me, Maxine. We’re past that.”
Shep called up from the bottom of the stairs.
“Everything okay?”
Maxie kept her face perfectly blank as she stared up at me.
“I’m sorry you’re upset, Arlo, but I’m not being fake. I’m just ready to focus on work again. I’ve fallen behind on everything I need to do and I’m ready to catch up. I was thinking I’d put in a few hours of work here this morning and then slip on over to make lunch for everyone at the Hellstone Ranch.”
She was pushing my buttons in a way that no one other than Shep and Rhett knew how to. I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and spank her until she knocked the shit off. I wasn’t a brute, though, not yet, so I ground my teeth together and shook my head.
“You’re not cooking meals for them anymore.”
A flare of annoyance cracked through her facade but she was quick to clamp it down.
“Of course, I am.”
I let out a bitter laugh.
“No. You’re not. We should get something clear right now, Maxie. We might’ve fucked up ten years ago but the night you let us kiss you, you gave us something we’re not going to let slip away twice. You . I understand that maybe you don’t get it yet but you’re ours. I know you feel it, too, based on the way you came for Rhett this morning. One thing about us, Maxine , is that we take care of our things. If you think we’re going to let you go right back to burning your candle at both ends, you’re nuts. You’re on a short leash until we know you’re not going to abuse yourself until you collapse again.
“Your days of doing everything for everyone are over. If you’d rather work at your family’s ranch for now, that’s fine, but you’re not going to work both ranches. I refuse to watch you pass out again. If you’re working full time on the ranch, you’re not going to be taking fucking pro bono cake orders for assholes who love to take advantage of your kindness. You wanted us ten years ago, sweetheart, and now you’ve got us. Until we can trust you to take care of yourself, we’re going to do it. Even if it pisses you off. I hope it does because at least then you’ll show us the real you and not this watered down version that you think makes you more palatable. Whatever you mom filled your head with is bullshit. If I could revive the old hag, I’d do it just to shove her back in her grave because I’m sure the things you’re not telling us about her are more horrible than I’m imagining, if the way you live now is any indication.”
Maxie’s hand didn’t move so fast that I couldn’t have stopped it but I didn’t want to. I welcomed the burn left behind after her slap. Her chest heaved with anger and then horror as she stared at her hand.
“Oh, my god… I’m sor—”
I grabbed her and gently shook her.
“Fuck no. Do not apologize. That’s what I want. I want the fire, Maxie. I want you . I’m not going to stop until I get what I want, either.”
She struggled between fury and shame, I could tell. Her eyes burned with indecision but her hands were fisted at her sides.
“I want you to think about what your mom did to you and ask yourself which one of you was the problem. Then I want you to think about being big and round with our babies. Are you going to be your mother? Are you going to raise our kids the same way she raised you?”
Fire. Her entire being went up in flames as she jerked away from me and went up on her toes to shout at me.
“Don’t! You don’t know what you’re talking about. None of you do. No one was here so no one gets to speak about any of it. Everyone left me here, doing it all, and now you think you can come in and take over? No! No, you don’t get to do that! You don’t get to talk about the imaginary kids we’ll never have. And if you knew anything about me and my relationship with my mother, you’d never think twice about raising a child with me. It’ll never happen. I will never be a mother. I will never risk turning into her. You may as well look somewhere else for whatever fantasies you’re inventing.”
Her words knocked me back a step. What the fuck had her mother done to her?
“There’s a cattle auction coming up soon and there’s plenty of fence that still needs mending. I’m going to work.” She stomped down the stairs, all signs of the broken doll and the robotic woman gone.
Shep stared up at me after the front door slammed.
“Did that go the way you wanted it to?”
I rubbed my hands down my face.
“I don’t fucking know. At least she’s not practically comatose anymore.”
Rhett walked up next to Shep and frowned at me.
“What was that?”
I made my way down the stairs, my head already throbbing with a headache.
“I don’t know. If I have to push her to get her out of that robotic state, then maybe it’s worth it. Anything to make the real Maxie come out. We have a lot more of a shot with the real version of her than the cold version her mother left behind.”
Shep blew out a deep breath. “Maybe.”
“I’m going after her. The least I can do is help with the fucking fence now.” I stormed out the front door, miserable with how everything had gone. I wasn’t a cruel man. I didn’t want to push Maxie, not when it was clear the trauma she’d endured still had a hold on her.
I closed the front door behind me and grunted when a soft weight hit me. The sweet scent of Maxie filled my senses as her hands clenched in my hair and dragged my mouth down to hers. She kissed me hard, sinking her teeth into my bottom lip and sucking before I had a chance to grab her and hold on. She danced away from me, her eyes burning with an erotic mix of anger and desire. I pressed my fingers to my mouth and stared at her, confused and turned on beyond belief.
She glared at me as she steadily backed away.
“You don’t own me.”
A slow smile stretched my lips. As fucked as things felt, she’d kissed me.
“No? What if you own us?”