Chapter 7
ROWE
I should leave.
The moment I saw her kicking my truck tires like they’d personally wronged her, it would have been smart of me to turn back the way I came.
The Tilly I knew was never someone who held her frustration behind gritted teeth.
She showed it loud and proud with a vicious grin and a lash of her venomous tongue.
Clearly, that hasn’t changed, despite how drastically the rest of her has.
My best friend’s twin sister is not a teenage girl anymore.
Far fucking from it. There’s a figure to her body now, and my brain trips over itself trying to compare who she used to be to who she is now.
Her eyes are the same hazelnut brown, and she’s still got the honey-blonde hair that she kept braided most of her younger years, but the woman they belong to is more .
. . hard. Like she’s dealt with a lot of shit over the last decade.
“Stabbing is a new hobby for you,” I grate out, digging my shoulder into the body of my truck.
In a pair of jean shorts that have ridden up so high on her thighs they may as well be underwear at this point, Tilly glares red-hot daggers at me. It’s obvious she wants to draw blood, but that’s not something I’m prepared to give her.
She doesn’t deserve anything from me.
“I have plenty of new hobbies. It’s been a long time.”
I tap my tongue behind my teeth, dropping my gaze to the tire she was just abusing. “Heard you’d gotten back to town. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Would you have rode if you knew ahead of time?”
“You think too highly of yourself to believe I’d have given a shit.”
Her laugh is too similar to the angry noise that damn black horse makes when I get too close. “You’re still a fucking asshole, Rowe.”
“Careful,” I warn, curling my fingers into the inner fabric of my pocket.
“Or what? You’ll give away another hat to try and prove a point?”
My eyes twitch when I pop the back door of my truck and grab my spare hat from the seat. It’s what I came out here for, and standing in front of her is making me wish I’d grabbed it already and gotten far fucking away. Once it’s back on, I can breathe a little easier.
“I’ve got no point to prove,” I deny, tasting the lie on my tongue.
It was a warning more than anything. She can’t be looking at me like that again. Not when we’re no longer teenagers, and there’s so much damage left between us that I can hardly think straight right now. I’d prefer to bite her head off and send her running. She’d keep her distance then.
“You have no right to be so pissed off with me. I didn’t do anything to you.
” She shakes out her long hair, drawing my attention to the loose curls that now swing like a pendulum across her back.
The hat on her head is the same one she wore when we were kids, and I bite my cheek, letting my anger swell so I don’t feel anything else.
“You couldn’t even say you were happy to see me before we started this little game you want to play? ”
“I’m not in the business of lying.”
Her lips curl into a slow, crooked smile. “Right. It’s going to be like this, then?”
“I’d prefer not to be like anything, but here you are, throwing a tantrum by beating the shit out of my truck tires because you’re pissed off about something.”
With a flare of her nostrils, she taps the round toe of her boot to the rim of my back tire and clicks her tongue. “I’m pissed because you’re acting like you have any right to glare at me like that.”
“You think I don’t?”
“No, I don’t. If anyone should be upset, it’s me.”
I bark a cold, dead laugh and retreat, done with this conversation. “Get the fuck out of here, Tilly.”
“You can’t hide beneath all those new tattoos.”
“I’m not hiding shit,” I spit, whirling on her as my muscles bunch beneath my shirt.
There’s a furious tearing sensation in my chest as I tower over her, trying desperately to inhale breaths that aren’t full of her thick honey scent.
It’s too familiar, and that knife slides right between my ribs, pricking the scars left on the thrashing organ behind them.
She cranes her head back to keep eye contact with me, her lip curling just enough to show a flash of white teeth.
“You need to stay away from me. I want nothing to do with you, Tilly. With or without a ring on your finger.”
“So, you have heard, then.” She says it almost proudly, and that makes my rage ten times worse.
I round the back of the truck bed, tossing my previous plans out the window in exchange for getting out of here. At least she has the sense not to follow me.
“Everyone’s heard, and that’s not a fucking compliment.”
Without giving her a chance to reply, I whip open the door and get inside. I slam the door shut behind me and crank the engine, watching the black cloud of exhaust curl around her until she’s nothing more than a faceless figure in the rearview.
My boots kick up dust behind me as I circle the pen, my jaw sore from pulsing it the entire drive home. It’s still hot despite the sun having long since set, but I only roll my sleeves up before gripping the railing.
The black horse is still nameless. I’m not about to give him one until he shows me he deserves it.
So far, he’s kept himself glued to the far side of the pen unless he’s eating or taking a few careful sips of the water I offer.
I’ve got enough patience to last a lifetime, but tonight, I’m on edge, angry from my showdown with Tilly.
“You’ve got to give me something,” I tell him, knuckles white from my grip on the railing. “They’re gonna start pushing me to get you saddled soon.”
The horse stomps at the ground with an angry shake of its head. Hot air explodes from its nose in a very adamant fuck off. I ignore it, notching my boot on the railing. The bastard can heave and snort all he wants, but it won’t do him any good.
“You’re not charging at me, so I know you don’t hate me as much as you want me to think.”
There’s still hay on the ground from his dinner, and I shake my head at it. Diesel’s whinny from inside the stable calls to me, but I ignore him, knowing this is where I need to be tonight. Riding would clear my head easier. Maybe I’m trying to make myself suffer.
The horse watches me, his body wound tight as I jump over the railing. He throws his head back, digging a hoof deep into the dirt in warning.
“I’m not going to ride you,” I say, keeping my voice as even as I can. “Not yet.”
He huffs like he’s calling bullshit, swinging his neck side to side. It’s the same type of warning I saw from people during the three years I spent behind bars.
“You’re not all that different from the men I watched in prison.” I take a slow, controlled step closer. “You’re wound too tight. Eyes always tracking the exits. Teeth out for anyone that gets close.” Another step. “They break you down, pen you, and expect you to come out gentle.”
He doesn’t move, simply eyeing me up, considering whether I’m worth charging at.
“But you don’t come out the other side of shit like that the same. You come out meaner. Smarter. Itching to start a fight just for the hell of it with the first person who tries to put hands on you.”
A muscle twitches in his neck when I drop to a crouch. I give him the choice, whether to come to me or turn away. Hell, he could charge at me and put his hooves through my chest if he wanted to. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s his move.
“I’m not going to do that to you.”
He stays still, refusing to look away from me for even a second, not trusting whether I’ll come at him. Defeat nips at me, but I ignore it.
“We’ll try this again tomorrow,” I declare.
Standing, I turn my back to him and walk away. It takes a sense of trust that I don’t have with him yet to not run out of here. He needs to see that I’m not afraid of him, though. Horses are the smartest animals I’ve ever known, and they deserve the same respect we offer humans.
In my case, I tend to give them more.
In a blink, I’m back over the railing. My boots sink into the dirt as I walk away from the pen and to the stable. Diesel’s been patient with me these last few days, and I know he’s itching to go for a ride. I am too, more than I’ll admit.
The door is cracked open now, unlike how it was earlier. I pull it the rest of the way and head inside. It’s silent, save for the random crunch of hooves on hay. The lights above the aisle are on, keeping it just bright enough that I don’t trip on my way to Diesel’s pen.
“Did you win?”
I tense up, my palm running down the length of my thigh. “Yes.”
“Good. I knew you would,” Dad grunts. He steps out from his horse’s stall, his saddle slung over his arms. “It’s late for a ride.”
“That why you’re just getting back from one?”
“Getting back, not going out,” he says pointedly.
“I ride best at night.”
He stalks past me to the hooks on the wall and hangs his saddle. I open Diesel’s gate and then take my saddle and blanket from the spot two down from my father’s. The old man watches me with a sharp curiosity. It’s his typical gaze when he’s not eyeing me with disapproval.
Diesel whinnies when he spots what I’ve got in my arms, his excitement overshadowing the annoyance that was just there. Took you long enough, his tapping feet say. Balancing the saddle on my knee, I toss the blanket onto his back. He shuffles, unable to keep still when I fit the saddle onto him.
“When’s that angry bastard going to be out of the pen? Sawyer’s got the other one in here already.”
I wet my lips, testing my words in my head before saying them. “His was easier. This one’s broken, not just mean. It’s going to take a while.”
“How long is that? I’ve got to give an update to his owner soon before he comes all the way over here just to demand one.”
“A couple of months at least.”
A pause, then a rough “Months?”
I focus on getting Diesel’s saddle on right, keeping my back to my father so he can’t see the tightening of my lips. This shouldn’t be all that surprising to a man like him. This is far from the first time we’ve had a horse like that one here.
“Yeah. Four of them at a minimum. He’s not some green colt needing a firm hand.”
“You’ll be the one to explain that to the owner, then.”
“Who talks to him isn’t going to change the facts.”
“Maybe not. But I won’t be the one he has it out with when he realizes how much this is going to cost him.”
Diesel butts his nose to my shoulder, and I scratch him behind the ear. “I’ll talk to him.”
The last thing I want is the two of them to make some backdoor deal that’s going to screw both me and the horse outside. And knowing my dad, that’s exactly what he’d do.