CHAPTER TWELVE
MATTI
If I’d thought facing my fears with one horse would count for all horses everywhere, I’d have been mistaken.
As it turns out, achieving a level of comfort and trust with Jasper doesn’t count for much of anything the second I’m leading him around, moving through the barn aisle only to find myself face to face with Nessa and a greyish-looking horse that looks like someone crushed a crapload of Oreos and sprinkled the crumbles all over its coat.
“What’s up with cookies and cream, here?” I mutter, trying not to show my nerves. “Think they’re on the friendly side?”
Nessa all but snorts in response. “Her name is Rosie,” she informs me with a surprising level of haughtiness considering I offended a horse. “And yes, she’s lovely.”
“Lovely.” I nod. I believe her. On a mental level. Emotionally, I’m just not there yet. “Maybe we’ll still hang back and just wait for you to finish up.”
She shakes her head, turning sideways and pointing past where she’s standing with Rosie at another set of hooks and ties. “You’re supposed to go right there and wait for the rest of us. Frank just said so.”
Crap. “Frank said so, huh?” Can’t argue with Frank, apparently. Not that I want to. He did all the work of tacking up my horse for me during his little demonstration. All I have left to do now is hang out.
I take a moment to assess the path. I take several moments. After repeated attempts to forge a path that doesn’t exist, I sigh in surrender. “You’re going to make me walk behind your horse, aren’t you?”
She shrugs. “I mean, I’m not making you do anything.” Then she grins. “Frank is.”
I hate Frank.
“Fine.” I point at the horse’s ass. “Behind the horse it is.”
But I don’t move. I want to, my feet just won’t fucking budge.
“Want me to stand behind her while you walk by? Shield you with my body? Because I will,” Nessa offers. And she may be joking, but it’s not coming across as funny to me at all.
“God, no! Absolutely not. You stay up there by her head.”
“And her teeth .” She flashes her eyes at me. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to let this slide without fucking with me the entire time. And I can’t even be annoyed about it. Because she’s only doing it to distract me. And irritating as I find it, it works.
“Just do me a favor and don’t get killed by a horse for like thirty seconds, so I can get it together and do this.”
“Better do it fast,” she warns. “I’m not sure how long I can keep Rosie calm. And you know what they say about wild horses.”
“That they can’t be tamed?” I think maybe even Nessa’s lost track of that train of thought.
She shrugs. “Sounds right.” She waits a moment, just watching me.
Some people might find it unnerving, or feel like it adds pressure in some way, but for me, having her eyes on what I’m doing has always made me feel calm.
Assured. Almost like she’s giving me permission to take all the time in the world while also letting me know I’m not in it alone. She’s got my back.
Even now.
And somehow, realizing that, in this situation of all situations, makes it the perfect setting to finally do what I came here for.
I take a deep breath. “Here I go.” And I start marching, Jasper moving in step with me, shoulder to shoulder. Then, just as I’m centered behind Nessa’s horse, face to face with her rear end, the very place I’ve been terrified to set foot for nearly all of my life, I stop.
“Matti –“ Nessa’s eyes bug out at me, like she’s not sure what I’m doing, but whatever it is, she seems certain I’m losing it.
“I got this.” I swallow down every screaming desire to retreat or bolt forward, possibly even leap up into the rafters, anything really to get out of this particular spot. “Just give me a sec.”
“Okay.” She takes a step toward me. Clearly, she doesn’t entirely believe I’m acting of sound mind.
“Why is there a horse jam?” Roni pipes up from behind me all of a sudden. “Matti sing to your horse and make it move.”
“I don’t think he’s stuck,” Tori calls from up ahead. She’s busy with a horse tied up just past the spot I’m meant to be parked at right now. I’m guessing there are more just like it on the other side of her that Roni’s trying to get to. “I think he’s doing something.”
“Like what?” Roni doesn’t sound all that curious. Just annoyed, mostly.
“If you shut up for a second, you’ll find out,” I intercept the conversation bouncing back and forth around me.
“That seems uncalled for.” She sniffs, but at least she stops talking.
“Nessa,” I start, still not having had a chance to gather my thoughts, her name is as far as I’ve gotten with this speech. I had one all sorted out on the plane, but it sort of fell apart upon my arrival and the consequent discoveries regarding her all-sisters trip in Hawaii.
So, here I am. Winging it. While facing off with the most irrational, most festering fear of my life. What could go wrong from here?
“Yes?” She looks at me, wide-eyed and just short of gaping.
“Two days ago, I had a plan.” The words begin to spill out.
“A plan to jump on the redeye, race out to Hawaii, crash your vacation, and tell you I was insane for waiting two years to chase after you. Because I should have, Ness. I should have come after you the very second you started pulling away. And I know we pretend it was the trip you took to see your grandmother and take that job that set our undoing in motion, but it wasn’t.
It happened before. Sometimes we were standing in the same room when you started fading away, putting distance between us.
And I should have come for you then, Ness.
God, I’ve wished a million times over, I’d have come for you then. ”
NESSA
My knees are shaking and I’m having a vivid flashback of the day Matti proposed.
Everything about this feels just like it did back then.
Expected but surprising. True to the depths of my being, but overwhelming.
And more than anything, the words that want to surge from my mouth, are ‘yes, yes, yes!’.
They did back then.
Today, inexplicably, they remain stuck in my throat. The only thing flowing freely without signs of stopping, are the tears welling in my eyes, running down my cheeks.
I don’t know how Matti interprets my silence outside of his efforts to continue to fill it.
“And maybe I should have said all of this the second I saw you here. But there was the dude. And the freaking horses. And all of a sudden, just showing up didn’t seem like such a great plan anymore.
” He takes in our surroundings as if maybe he’s having second thoughts about his current execution as well.
“Maybe it’s shitty that I’m crashing your vacation like this, that I’m stirring up the past when you’ve been working so hard to move forward.
But the second I could see a chance to make things right, the moment I understood – really understood – how we fell apart, I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing.
Couldn’t keep going through the motions, letting life pass me by when the only life worth anything is a life I’m living with you.
Where we’re us. With the kids. As a family.
” He sighs. It’s painful and raw. “And no, it’s not the kids I’m doing this for.
It’s you. And me. And what we have when we’re together.
” He takes a brief glance to either side of him, assessing the horse sandwich he’s placed himself in, and lets out a helpless laugh.
“Ness, I would rather get kicked by a horse and have my insides smashed, than go another day without telling you that I love you now the same way I loved you then. That I’ve loved you every second in between.
And that I will continue to love you until love ceases to exist for me. ”
“I love you too,” I whisper, my fingers getting knotted in the lead rope I’m still holding, all of my nervous energy being channeled into the mindless activity of twisting and turning it. “Of course, I love you. How could I not?”
Matti starts to step toward me, then stops short.
Maybe because he’s not sure how to move with both horses here.
Maybe because he can feel the wall of fear and hesitation coming up between us.
I can’t help it. I’m scared. And the one thing I learned when we were apart, the one lesson I never sought to study, but found I had to when he was no longer at my side, is how to put up my guard.
I have a shield now, one I never needed before when I had him.
One I never dreamed I would utilize against him.
“This is sweet and all,” Roni interrupts, breaking the tension with her tone like a needle popping a balloon.
“But maybe someone who has a horse that’s already tied up could come and help them out.
In like two seconds, Matti’s going to say the magic words to break Nessa’s shell, and then she’s going to want to fling herself at him, lips first, and let’s be real, that will only get the man kicked by a horse again if he’s still standing where he’s currently standing. ”
“I got this,” my brother calls out from somewhere behind her.
Next thing I know, Vale is maneuvering his way around Roni and her horse and over to Matti. “Hand him over.”
“Um.” Matti seems torn. It’s obscenely adorable how attached he suddenly is to this horse. “You need to introduce yourself properly before I can hand him over to you.”
“Wow.” Vale shakes his head, but moves toward the horse’s head, nice and slow, quietly talking to him for a moment. “There, we’re good.” He gestures for Matti to release the horse to him. “Gimme the rope so you can go get your woman.”
Matti grins. “Is that your official blessing then?”
Vale just snorts at him and walks off, the horse going right along with him.
“You’re still blocking the aisle, man,” Roni grumbles. “And as much as I wouldn’t mind catching the rest of this show, I have a feeling you two will get things sorted out much faster without an audience.”
Matti nearly jumps forward, like he only just remembered Roni was back there. Then he stops himself as quickly as he almost leaped out of the way, apparently also recalling the part about not startling the horse when you’re standing behind it.
He takes a breath. Then he mumbles Rosie’s name before slowly, and very intentionally, reaching out his hand to touch her, letting his fingertips glide softly over her coat as he walks around her and toward me and finally clears the aisle for my sister to pass.
“Kenley taught me that trick,” he murmurs. “I’ll have to tell her it worked.”
“Anyone else have a hand in getting you to this point?” I ask, tears still wetting my cheeks, though the flow seems to have stilled for the moment.
“Knox,” he admits. “He was scared of hurting Kenley and asking about us. And I thought I was giving him all this brilliant advice.” He lets out a quiet laugh. “In the end, he was the one who dispelled the nuggets of wisdom. Weird how things can get turned around, huh?”
“Kind of thought that when Knox was the one arguing for commitment and titles earlier,” I smirk. “Maybe we have some things to learn from him this go around.”
“Maybe.” Matti’s hands reach for mine, slowly untangling them from the rope I’m still twisting and turning around my fingers. “Why are you scared, Ness?”
“Because hurting you sucked. Hurting you hurt worse than I hurt losing you,” I ramble off the words circulating at the forefront of my mind. The words I’ve been coming back to ever since he first showed up here. No, longer than that.
Ever since I first realized I never wanted out.
The day I signed the divorce papers. That’s how long I’ve been whispering those words to myself.
Over and over. Reminding myself that what was done was done.
That I’d survive life without him, but I’d never recover from the heartbreak of being his heartbreak a second time.
And I couldn’t trust myself not to do it again.
Not anymore. Because I never imagined I was capable of doing it in the first place. Until I did it.
“I know.” He nods, his eyes just as glossy as mine.
“I get it. It was the same for me. Maybe that’s why it’s really taken me this long to come after you.
Because I didn’t want to risk letting you down a second time.
” He pauses to breathe, and I want to interrupt his train of thought, want to tell him how insane he is for saying that, how wrong it is to even say he let me down because he never did. Not once.
But I don’t get the words out before he goes on, “But I know now that the only way I would truly fail you, would be in walking away. Even if that seemed like the easier, safer choice for both of us. We deserve more. We deserve to take that risk. You deserve my courage. Just as much as my love.”
There it is.
The moment Roni predicted would come.
Every desire I have to hold him at bay shatters around me and I fling myself into his arms, arms that catch me as they always have and, as I’m starting to believe again, they always will.