11. Good Intentions
GOOD INTENTIONS
OLIVIA
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I intended to race to Douglas’s garage that night to trade my life for Bear’s. Instead, my brother used my love for Bear and tortured both of us until he got bored. Then, he ripped my heart out by killing Bear.
Lake was sweet to me last night. I’m definitely attracted to him, and I wanted to show him how much I appreciated his effort to be kind.
So, I let my guard down and kissed him on the cheek.
Once again, my intentions were good. I enjoyed being around him.
Yet all night, the only person that came to my mind was Bear.
It’s so strange, but I feel like that simple kiss on the cheek was being disloyal to him.
In my brain, it felt like I was cheating.
Realistically, I know Bear’s gone. He’s not coming back.
Yet this attraction I have for Lake is messing with me.
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a bit last night.
Now, I’m at work feeling like a zombie. It doesn’t help that the day seems to drag on, and because I didn’t sleep, I have a killer headache.
I took some pain meds, but they haven’t touched it.
When the bell above the door goes off, I paste a smile on my face and look up.
I’m surprised when I see Lake standing there, hat in his hand.
I try not to compare him to Bear, but I can’t help it.
He reminds me of him—from the color of hair, the eyes, and a lot of his mannerisms. Yet, the face is different.
None of Bear’s lines around his eyes, his personality is different.
His physique—while impressive—lacks the muscle tone of Bear’s too.
Bear’s beautiful tattoos are absent on Lake’s body.
No, Lake’s arms are covered in scars. I heard he had an accident and had to have skin grafts and everything.
Deb had mentioned that the medical bills were astronomical, and the Wells’ charity foundation had paid for them.
She works in their office and has overshared with me.
I silently forbid myself to ever compare Bear and Lake again.
Bear is gone and I need to keep remembering that before I end up in a padded cell somewhere.
“Lake,” I reply after the two of us just stand there and stare at each other for minutes too long.
“Hey,” he replies. I frown when he goes silent again. Finally, he clears his throat and speaks. “Are you off work?”
I don’t bother hiding my surprise. I glance at the clock. “It’s quitting time,” I answer, kind of surprised.
“Yeah. I was kind of wondering if you’d like to ride down to the barn with me and check out the new foal. Jeff had to run to town for Colt. So, I get to sit with the little guy while Darkness recovers.”
“Darkness?” I ask, confused.
“The mother. It was a rough delivery.”
“Oh,” I answer wringing my hands.
“So, what do you think? Want to help me?”
“It’s really sweet of you to ask me, but I’ve just got off work. I haven’t had supper and there are things I—”
“I’ve got supper taken care of. C’mon, I could use the company and I’ll be completely frank with you, I’d like the chance to prove I’m not a complete asshole.”
His honesty brings out a startled laugh I hadn’t even realized I had in me. I usually always have my guard up. “This is probably a bad idea,” I warn him.
“Probably, but I say we live dangerously.”
“You don’t really know me, Lake, but I’ve honestly had enough danger in my life. I mostly crave simplicity. I want quiet and calm—peace.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Livy. I don’t speak a lot to anyone.”
“I haven’t really noticed,” I answer truthfully.
For some reason that makes him smile. “In my book, that’s a good thing. C’mon, we'll watch the foal for a little bit, eat some dinner. Jeff comes back and I take you home. That’s about as simple and calm as you can get.”
“It’ll take a bit to lock up,” I concede, yet still wonder what on earth I’m doing.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” he answers with a nod, confusing me even more.
I have no idea what possessed me to agree.
I already know I’m flirting with disaster.
It’s not like I can be normal with a man.
More than that, Bear is the only man who will ever be in my heart.
I push those thoughts away. It’s a simple dinner and watching over a foal.
It’s not like it’s a true date. Maybe he’s as lonesome as I get sometimes and would like a friend.
Now that I think about it, that’s probably exactly what this is.
I haven’t noticed Lake a lot, but I know he never really goes out a lot with the other men.
At events, he’s rarely there or off to himself.
He volunteers to do security more times than he actually attends anything. That must be lonely.
Realizing this makes me feel better. I lock up the office, turn the sign on the door to show that we’re closed, and contains the emergency contact number.
Then I paste a smile on my face and walk toward Lake’s beat-up old Ford truck.
He opens the door for me, making me smile.
I step on the running board, holding the door to pull myself up.
Sadly, my foot slips and I fall backward. “Ah!” I cry out.
Strong, scarred hands wrap around me, catching me mid-fall. “Easy, I’ve got you,” Lake croons in my ear, pulling back against his body.
My heart goes crazy. My eyes close, and just for a minute I remember another night—a night in a cage, where Bear was trying to use the small amount of water we were given to clean out the open wounds on my back.
That night Lucky had used a whip on me as a punishment for not crawling over to him quickly enough.
He’d kissed my shoulder as the pain hit me.
My body spasmed, and he did his best to hold me still while whispering in my ear.
“Easy, I got you, Livy. I’m here. Feel me here with you. ”
“God,” I whimper, tears instantly stinging my eyes.
“Livy? Are you okay?” Lake asks, concern woven deeply into every syllable of his question.
No, I’m not okay. I’ll never be okay again. God, I miss him.
“Fine, just feeling foolish,” I lie.
He helps me inside again, not bothering to call me out over my lie.
I’m glad. It doesn’t take long for us to reach the riding paddock where the trainers work with the horses during training.
“Stay there,” he says when I start to open my door.
I scrunch up my face, not really liking being ordered around.
He hops out with ease, comes over to open my door and help me out.
“Didn’t want you slipping on these old running boards again,” he explains.
I look up at him and he gives me a smile, and although his beard is very nice, I wish I could see if his lips curl up and show a dimple. I shake my head. I don’t need to see more of his face. That’s just stupid. For what seems like the millionth time, I remind myself that Lake is not Bear.
“Thanks,” I respond hesitantly.
He keeps his right hand on my lower back as he escorts me to the stables.
In his left hand is a cooler that I assume contains our dinner.
The feelings inside of me clash with a violence I have trouble defining.
I’m happy, excited, guilty, sad, and confused.
I push it all back. I don’t really want to go back to my cabin right now.
Last night, my mind was in such chaos. Being around Lake seemed to wake something inside of me and yet, made me miss Bear more than I could handle.
The quiet of the cabin allowed my thoughts to run rampant, and I couldn’t breathe.
At one point, I crawled out of bed, walked to my window, closed my eyes, and pressed my face against the cool glass pane.
Then, I prayed for just one moment of peace.
When I opened my eyes, for a moment I could have sworn I saw Bear standing just beyond the reach of the streetlamp.
It was just the profile of a man, and he was completely in the shadows.
Realistically, I knew it was probably one of the security men.
Still, the way he stood was achingly familiar.
It allowed me just one moment—one very small space in time to believe Bear was outside and I was just waiting for him to come home.
Only then could I curl into the blankets and pretend Bear was coming home to hold me …
“You okay?”
I pull my thoughts back to the present and fake a smile. “I’m good. Sorry, I just got lost in my own thoughts,” I answer. “It’s been a long day.”
“Then from here out, you need to relax. Let’s go see Ranger.”
I freeze. “They named the horse Ranger?”
“Well, Colt asked me if I could think of any names. That one kept playing around in my head. I thought it was a good name for a horse. You don’t like it?”
“I hate that name,” I respond, my voice shaking. Ranger is the man who betrayed Bear. He’s the one who worked with Ayita to kill him. To saddle a beautiful buckskin foal with Ranger is a horrible curse.
Lake looks taken aback. “Wow, that’s a lot of anger you have over a name.”
“I knew a guy named Ranger. He was not a good person. He was a traitor and a murderer.”
“Okay, so what name should we tell Colt? I’ll have him change it before they send the paperwork in,” he says, squeezing my hand in reassurance.
“I don’t know anything about naming horses,” I murmur.
“Well, you can’t muck it up any worse than I did,” he jokes.
“I’m sorry. I’m just being silly,” I mutter, suddenly embarrassed.
“No, you’re not. Let’s go check out the foal, he’s just down this way.”
Lake leads me down the center of the barn.
It’s cemented and painted a bronze-colored stain that matches the handles and metal on the individual stall doors.
There’s a row on the right side of the barn and a row on the left.
They’re beautifully clean and somehow even the metal sparkles.
The place is perfectly climate-controlled too.
This place is nicer than most people’s homes.
When he slides the door back to the large stall, I gasp.
Lying on a fluffy floor full of hay is a mare—that looks completely worn out—along with the most beautiful little foal I’ve ever seen.
Black mane and tail, buckskin in color that gleams in the stall's light.
“He’s beautiful,” I whisper. I watch as he stands up. His legs are still a little shaky, but I imagine better than they were when he stood for the first time.
I watched as the mother doted on the foal. I frown slightly. “Can the mother stand?”
“Her name is Darkness,” he says, and I nod, remembering he had mentioned that before. “She needs to recover, but she’ll be okay. The vet comes over and exercises her throughout the day. She’s been standing a lot today. We get her up often, I promise.”
“C-Can I touch him?”
“Sure, but he’s skittish. If he backs away, let him. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I squat down on my knees, then carefully reach out my hand. The mare neighs, and I hold myself still. The little foal takes a wobbly step toward me. His nose nudges my hand, sniffing it. His tongue licks it, making me giggle. He pushes his nose back against my hand, and I’m in love.
“Such a pretty baby,” I croon, petting him.
“I think he likes you,” Lake murmurs gently from beside me. It’s only then that I realize he bent down beside me.
“I like him, too,” I admit, turning to grin at him.
“You really are pretty when you smile, Livy.”
I feel heat flush my cheeks just as my muscles tense. I look back to the foal and his mom and try to calm my rapid heartbeat. “What about Dorado?”
“Dorado?”
“For his name. It fits him.”
“Damn. That’s kind of perfect. I thought you weren’t good at naming horses.”
I shrug. “I just thought it described him perfectly. It means golden one in Spanish.”
“Do you speak Spanish?”
“A little. I used to work for the mayor in Cherokee, North Carolina, though we worked closely with the Tennessee side too. It came in handy to learn.”
“How did someone that used to work for the mayor wind up working at a camp office? Seems like a big step down in careers.”
“That’s a long, ugly story that I don’t really talk about,” I say at once, not wanting to unleash those memories at all.
“Well, how about we settle down outside of Dorado’s stall and eat some dinner, and we’ll find a different subject to talk about?”
I look up at Lake. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’ve changed my mind and want to go home. I should, but the crazy thing is that I don’t want to. Lake—once again—feels safe to be around. I don’t want to leave. So, before I can stop myself, I nod. “Sounds good.”
I know I should stop this before it goes any further, but seems that even after all this time, I still don’t know what’s good for me.
Crap.