Chapter 23 Rowe #2
Stella gives him a good once-over before slowly extending her neck. “Pane, meet Stella, the last unicorn with magic.”
The hotel heir studies her with the quiet respect an alpha male reserves for another creature. “How do you know her?”
I exhale heavily and give her a friendly pat.
“She used to be mine. That’s until Sally offered to buy her to help with some of Dad’s medical expenses.
The deal was that I’d eventually get her back, but Sally didn’t keep her end—and Stella, turns out, doesn’t like Sally or Luke.
She bites and kicks them and anyone they attempt to sell her to.
They can’t get rid of her. So they put her in here, in solitary confinement. ”
My heart breaks all over again, and I release a shaky breath.
He whispers, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I reply. “One day she’ll be mine again.” Stella paws the floor impatiently, and I can’t help but chuckle. “She wants you to pet her.”
Pane lets her smell his hand, and then he runs a palm over her neck. “She’s . . .” His eyes widen as he drinks her in. “What’s that feeling?”
A smile breaks out across my face. “She can give you any emotion. She gives me love.”
He frowns. “I’m feeling . . .” He shakes his head. “It’s impossible to describe.”
“It’s your emotion for you to have. You don’t have to share it.”
His body stills and I watch him, understanding the awe that he’s experiencing. I’ve seen this before when people first meet Stella. They’re overcome with emotion. Some have described it as feeling as if their hearts are too big for their chests.
That might be what Pane’s feeling now.
Wonder fills his voice. “I’ve never seen such a creature.”
“I told you that there’s nothing like meeting a unicorn for the first time.”
He glances at the ceiling and the walls. “She made all these roses for you?”
I grin. “She does that for people she likes.”
He cocks his head and studies me. It feels like Pane’s peeling back the layers of my mind, peeking at the parts that remember how his lips felt, or how luscious it was to experience his fingers curling into my waist.
The urge to run and hide overcomes me.
But thanks to the love that Stella’s pouring into my heart, I find the strength to return Pane’s open stare.
He smiles. “Thank you for letting me meet her.”
“Now we’re even. I saved you, and you have now saved me.”
He steps toward me and looks down, forcing me to tip my chin up to meet his gaze. I let myself stare at him. He truly is beautiful—a blend of masculine strength and quiet determination, all of which mingle in his features: his strong jaw, piercing eyes. Pane Maddox is a work of art.
And as he watches me, a knot closes my throat.
I don’t know what’s happening. We’ve been around each other for days, and everything’s been perfectly normal.
Maybe it’s because of Stella’s magic. Duh.
Of course it’s because of her magic. Her magic is making the air charged.
It’s pulling us like magnets toward one another.
This scares the hell out of me.
So of course I pivot with, “So, you figured out how Luke cheats.”
This breaks the tension, and Pane rocks back on his heels. “Yes, sure did.”
I lightly touch the bruise and he flinches, so I draw my hand away. “And he punched you because of it?”
“Something like that.”
“Story, please.”
He tells me what happened, and I know the shock is evident on my face when I say, “He did not use unicorn mane.”
“He did.”
“What a jerk.” Anger curdles in my veins at the thought of Luke not only cheating but also doing it maliciously, against people like Ron and Isaac—good people. “Well, here’s the unicorn whose mane he stole from.”
Pane rubs a hand down Stella’s nose. “Stella.”
“Stella,” I confirm.
“So where did the unicorns come from, exactly? How did the ley lines become . . . I don’t know”—he scrubs a hand up the back of his neck—“activated?”
“Ah, that. Well, about fifty years ago Mystic Meadows was a logging community. When the industry started to die, the town council decided to find something else that would bring in money. They were going to do a German-themed town, but when they started building, something woke up the ley lines, I guess.” I shrug.
“No one really knows exactly what caused it, but soon after that the first unicorns were discovered, and then my grandparents found the piggycorns, and the rest”—I splay my hands—“is history. My parents bought the house and farm from them, and had me.”
“So it was a happy accident,” he murmurs, studying me as if looking for cracks in my facade.
“Right.” I don’t want to talk about the farm, though, not after what happened today. So I nudge him. “Back to Luke’s cheating. How’d you find out about the mane?”
“Now, that is strange,” Pane says in a low voice.
“Oh, there’s something stranger than sticking unicorn hair in your pants?”
He smirks. “The mint in my drink showed me.”
My brows stitch tight. “What?”
“The magic came into the drink.” He rests both hands on the lip of the open Dutch door and considers something. “But there’s not magic in town.”
“There isn’t.” I pull my hair over one shoulder and start braiding. “But the day that you worked the chain saw, the magic helped you out, too. By lifting a log.”
He drops his hands and faces me. “And you weren’t going to tell me that I only won because magic helped?”
The annoyance in his voice makes me grind out, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been busy. Besides, Coleman Barrier didn’t know, and that’s what counts.”
He winks. “I’m joking. It’s fine that you didn’t tell me. I’m just surprised that it happened.”
“Me too.”
When Stella nudges him, he pets her again. “What do you think’s going on?”
“I think the land realizes that you’re going to save the farm, so it’s helping you however it can,” I joke.
“I agree,” he replies, serious.
Our gazes latch again, and my heart expands, inflating inside my chest. This feeling, this longing, this something between us, it’s impossible to ignore.
But I must.
After a moment of quiet, he says, “My dad.”
This is a change in topic. “What about him?”
Pane pats Stella’s neck but keeps his gaze trained on me. “That’s why I want to win the Maddox Group. I want to be a better man than my father has been.”
Oh.
A tiny seed of possibility sprouts in my gut. This is the seed of friendship, of openness, of the fact that Pane Maddox just told me the one thing he said earlier I wasn’t privy to.
This is a gemstone—a rare, precious piece of information that’s not to be mocked or ignored.
And it’s taking a lot for him to say this, because his voice is raw, as if telling me this is like scraping the truth right out of his throat. I’m not sure how to respond, because my dad wasn’t someone I wanted to be better than. He was someone I wanted to make proud.
“Ever since I was a kid,” Pane explains, “I told myself that when I got the company, I would be better than him. I wouldn’t abandon my family, using the name to get what I want. I would be a Maddox who left a legacy, one that inspired instead of destroyed.”
My heart shatters into a million pieces before the vacuum of my chest yanks it all back together.
This is the suffering that Pane Maddox has endured, and I understand it. I understand him. He was abandoned, too, and so he wants to be better than the man who destroyed his life.
I turn toward him and he pivots to me. We each take a step in as if we’re tethered to opposite ends of a rope that’s being pulled tight.
I touch his arm and he immediately responds, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I lick my lips and say, “For what it’s worth—”
“Rowe, I know you’re in there!”
My eyes widen as Sally Ray’s voice sounds from outside the barn door.
“And when I find you,” she continues, “I’m gonna have you arrested for trespassing.”