CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RIKER
Fuck me. Fuck me and my stupid mouth. Why did I have to push her? Now she’s crying and I can’t even help because she won’t fucking tell me where the darkness hides or why it keeps coming back for her. And it always comes back for her.
I would give anything to protect her from it. Anything. Only this time I’m the asshole who woke it up and I’ve got nothing to fight it with.
So I hold her. I keep her shaking, sobbing body pressed to mine, and I’m reminded over and over just how fragile she is. She’s strong, but she’s broken. And the pieces that are left are hardly holding onto one another. All I’ve got is my love for her to put them back together, but she won’t take it.
“Breathe, baby. Please, just...breathe.” I kiss the top of her head. The side of it. Her forehead. Anywhere my lips can reach her. “I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have gone through your stuff. You have every right to your privacy.” I stroke her back, my fingers moving through her soft, thick hair. Suddenly it feels like the most solid thing about her. Like she’s dissolving right here in my arms. It scares me. “Keep your secrets. All of them. Just let me keep you .”
She still doesn’t say anything, but her breathing is getting calmer, and her hands are moving, touching me, holding onto me, because I’m her safe place. And that’s all I’ll ever need to be.
QUIN N
We didn’t go out tonight. We didn’t make love either. We just lay here. Entangled in one another, staring at each other. For hours we’ve been like this. Not saying anything. I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much about another person without uttering a word.
He’s been studying me too. But it’s different than before. I don’t feel like he’s looking for the things I don’t want him to know. He’s not trying to understand. Just accepting what is. And that means more to me than I could ever tell him.
So I’ll tell him what I can. What he wants to know. What I swore I wouldn’t share. After he answers one question.
“Why do you hate Nox so much?”
He looks almost startled, as if I yelled it instead of the quiet whisper it actually was. I guess that’s what happens when no one says anything for several hours.
“I don’t hate Nox.” He stretches his arm and adjusts his head a bit.
“Liar.” I slide my hand under my cheek for extra cushioning. The pillow’s losing its fluff from lying on it this whole time.
“Fine. I hate his four-legged ass.” He laughs when he says it, though.
“But why? He’s so smart.” I don’t think I’ve ever been around a horse like him.
“That’s why I hate him.” His hand moves up to take a fallen strand of hair out of my face. Sometimes I still find it strange how comfortable I am with him in my space. Like right now as he’s tucking the hair behind my ear. It’s such a simple thing. I should be doing it myself, but by some miracle I’m okay with him doing it for me. If only I could feel that way about everything.
“You hate a horse because he’s smart. That seems like an odd reason. No?” I should drop it. After all, I would want him to if the roles were reversed and I was purposely not answering a question .
“You’re right. It’s bullshit.” He sighs. “I hate Nox because he’s a selfish son of a bitch who refused to let me wallow in my own misery when all I wanted was to stay in bed until I died there.”
“Oh.” Not the response I was expecting.
He grants me half of a smile, and then, even though I can tell it isn’t easy for him, he continues, “He wasn’t always like this. You know, how he won’t let anyone handle him? When my grandfather was alive, he would put kids on him, and he would be just as calm and gentle as a fucking Golden Retriever. Nox loved people. He loved my grandfather. We all did.” His gaze drops down to my free hand resting on the mattress near my stomach, and his fingers travel down to interlock with mine. “When he died, it changed Nox. He was still friendly. Just...sad. And it only got worse. Then more shit hit the fan, and I wasn’t going out there anymore. I just needed a fucking break, you know? Some sort of an escape from everything that had happened. I took off in my truck one morning and didn’t stop for two days. When I finally couldn’t keep going, I was somewhere in the middle of Nevada. I stopped in some shady little motel, bought a bottle of bourbon, and went straight to bed. Didn’t get up for a week straight.
“Then Sid called. Nox wasn’t eating. He was destroying everything in sight and had nearly injured three people. Herself included. They’d tried everything. Nothing was working, and the vet insisted he wasn’t sick... but that he wouldn’t last long at the rate he was going.” His eyes travel upward to find mine again. “He left me no choice. Just because I wanted to die, didn’t mean I was going to let him go with me. So I got back in my truck. Drove another thirty-four hours straight to get home and fed him his supper. Then I spent the night in his stall, and I stood there with him, eye to eye, and I understood. He knew what I was doing. That I was giving up. And he wasn’t going to let me. He saved me. And I’ve fucking hated him for it ever since. Until now. ”
I feel the pressure on my hand as he squeezes it.
“I’m glad he saved you,” I whisper.
“Me too.” His soft rumble warms me at the pit of my stomach and spreads up into my chest. “I’m even happier he brought me you.”
“You think he knew what he was doing that day?” It seems ridiculous, really. “Think he was trying to save me too?”
But Riker’s completely serious. “I do.”
I do too. Sometimes I even think it worked.
“My mare’s name was Jazz.” I know I’ve changed the topic abruptly, but if I don’t just spit it out, I’ll never get myself to say it out loud. “She was stunning. Not the same way Nox is. Her beauty was different. Wild.”
Riker smiles. “Like you.”
A rush of heat floods my cheeks. “More beautiful than me. She was my partner from the time I was seven. My father bought her for me after I’d been barrel racing in junior rodeos for two years on my trainer’s horses. He said I’d made my point by then. I wasn’t going to be growing out of this horse phase anytime soon, so he figured it was easier to just cave and quit fighting the inevitable.” I untwine my fingers from his and crawl out of the bed and over to the corner where the box is now hidden in darkness. When I find the frame I’m looking for, I slip back into bed beside him and hand the picture of Jazz and I over.
“We competed for twelve years. We were really good. At eighteen I joined the WPRA and was competing at a professional level. I had every intention of making a career of it.”
Riker’s studying the photograph in his hands. “What happened?”
I shrug. “Life. Things came up, things I couldn’t avoid or change, and I had to quit.”
His eyes are level with mine. “What happened to Jazz? ”
I swallow several times. Back-to-back, trying to force down the lump in my throat threatening to suffocate me. Then again, maybe I should let it. “She died. Two years ago. She had a degenerative disease in her joints. All the years of competing took their toll on her and hit with a vengeance a year into what were supposed to be her carefree years of retirement. Treatment only worked temporarily. Eventually, she was carrying all her weight on her front legs and dragging the hind ones. She wasn’t able to lie down anymore because she knew she couldn’t get back up. She was dropping weight. It was just a matter of time before she collapsed or injured herself.” The words are getting harder to find. “I wasn’t even there for Jazz at the end. Kirsten had to go for me. She was the one who held her head in her lap while the vet did what he had to do to set her free.” Pissed at myself, I wipe my eyes with one harsh swoop of the back of my hand. Riker catches it as it comes back down.
“What are you doing?” he whispers.
“I shouldn’t be crying.” I sniff loudly and know I sound disgusting. It’s good. I should. Nothing about me should be remotely appealing or endearing right now.
Riker frowns. “Why shouldn’t you be crying? You lost someone close to you. What, because she wasn’t a person that makes it lame to grieve her? I know you don’t believe that.”
“Of course not.” It’s the exact opposite. “I shouldn’t be crying over her, because I have no right to. She gave her whole life to me. And I let her down when she needed me the most. I don’t deserve to grieve her, any more than I deserve to experience even an ounce of the joy a horse can bring you. I lost every right to that life the second I lost her.”
“You can’t seriously think that.” He sits up, and I know he’s going to try and set me straight the way he always does. Only it won’t work this time. Not with this.
“I do. And nothing you’re about to say will change my mind. So don’t bother. That’s not why I told you.”
His expression softens. “Why did you tell me?”
“You asked.” I nestle against his chest. “And you deserve to get an answer every once in a while.”
His strong arms envelope me, and his leg slides between mine. Sometimes I lie here with him and think how being with him gives new meaning to being wrapped up in someone. Riker’s not the center of my universe. He’s not my whole world. Or even my guy. But things have changed. We’re not the same couple of lost souls desperate to escape our reality and willing to fuck our way out. We’re not even the same people we were two months ago when we were just enjoying a casual fun fling.
We’re not fucking anymore. Or even having sex. Riker makes love to me now. And every time he does, it feels like he takes a piece of my soul with him and leaves a piece of himself behind with me. I’m afraid if we keep going like this, one day in the near future we’ll stop and look at each other and no longer be able to tell one from the other. Too much of me will live inside Riker for me to survive without him after this all comes to a crashing end. And it will end. It has to. Every dream does. And most of mine end with me screaming in agony. Why would this one be any different?
When I wake up the next morning, I’m somewhat taken aback that I am lying here alone. There’s a certain amount of irony involved in waking up alone for the first time ever on the first morning that I officially live here.
I’m about to call his name when I hear the thud of a cupboard door closing. He’s in the kitchen.
Wrapped in one of the sheets toga style, I drag my feet over the hardwood floor and sleepily wander over to where he is.
“Looking for food you don’t keep here? ”
He stops mid search of the cupboards above the sink. “Ha! That’s where you’re wrong. I went to the grocery store yesterday. Bought everything I needed to make you a proper welcome to your new home breakfast, only now I can’t find my frying pan.” Which he seems to give up on, temporarily at least, to give me a proper welcome to my new home good morning kiss.
“I can think of things I’d enjoy having right now that don’t require a pan of any kind,” I mumble against his soft lips.
“Hmm?” His hands are already roaming down from my shoulders along my waist until they reach the back of my thighs, gripping them tight and lifting me up onto the kitchen counter. “This along the lines of what you had in mind?” His husky voice breathes into my ear as he nips at my lobe.
But I’m too far gone already to utter even a single syllable. So I grab a handful of his dirty blond hair to hold him steady while I devour his lips with mine and let my tongue send a resounding yes in response to his question.
By the time we finish the appetizer romp before breakfast, I really am starving and hoping he wasn’t joking about having actually bought food for once. Of course, there’s still no frying pan, so I’m not any closer to eating any of it than I was before.
“Fuck it.” He slams shut the last of the unexplored cabinets. All of which wound up being empty. “I’ve got some upstairs. I’ll just grab what I need. Be right back.” He gives me a quick peck on the lips as he hurries from the kitchen.
“Wait. Upstairs? There’s still real stuff up there?”
He stops, apparently confused by my question. “Yeah. Why?”
I follow him out into the living area. “I don’t know. That first night we had dinner on the deck, the door was open and I caught a glimpse inside. I wasn’t snooping or anything, but the place looked like it had been cleaned out pretty good. Just random trash left lying on the ground. I thought it was weird, but we weren’t really doing the sharing thing back then, so I didn’t bring it up.”
Riker glances back and forth between myself and the door. He’s contemplating something, and judging by his expression, it’s something big. I’m suddenly sorry I asked. We’ve shared plenty already in the last twenty-four hours. I’m not sure I’m up for more monumental revelations.
“It’s my place,” he says slowly. “From when I was married.”
Shit. Why didn’t I see that coming?
“Oh.”
His gaze drops to the floor. “I know. It’s weird. I should have sold it by now. I just...” He exhales loudly, then lifts his eyes and stretches out his hand for me to take. “Come on. It’s easier if I just show you.”
Against my better judgement, I take his hand. Because somehow, I no longer know how not to. Whenever I see his hand, mine simply insists on being in it. So there it is—my palm resting on his, my fingers anchored to him and thereby tying me to whatever lies beyond that door and up those stairs.
He keying in the code on the garage door opener to gain entry to the main house that way, when I’m hit by my moment of truth amid all the lies I’ve been telling myself since the second I met him, and I panic.
“Wait. I can’t do this.”
He turns back to look at me over his shoulder, the garage door already in motion. “I’m not hiding any dragons in here, Quinn. Nothing’s going to happen to you that I can’t protect you from.”
I start to pull back, putting a strain on the grip between our hands. “It’s just...If I go inside here.. .if you show me this last secret piece of yourself, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk away from you. This whole time...all of my insisting I could just leave in two weeks and never look back...I was just pretending. ”
He moves in close, taking my other hand as well. “So was I.” He smiles, but it’s a sad smile, wrought with the possibility of loss. “How about we stop?”
“You might not like what you see,” I mumble because speaking clearly and confidently is a luxury I don’t have right now.
“It won’t keep me from looking.” Then he eases the intensity by tugging at the oversize t-shirt I’m still wearing from last night, and grinning. “You should see yourself right now, by the way. Wearing nothing but my ratty old shirt with your hair all a mess. I bet you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet.”
I yank my shirt back out of his grip. “Can’t be all that disgusting. You couldn’t keep your hands off me five minutes ago.”
“Still can’t.” And he draws me in for one more kiss before he leads the way inside.
Now that he’s diffused enough of my angsty tension, I notice the shiny black Mercedes SUV parked inside. It’s probably not the most recent model, but it still has the brand-new feel to it.
“You have a Mercedes SUV?” Because I still can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s just not him.
“Isn’t mine,” he says dryly as we walk past it.
“Oh.” Yeah. That makes more sense.
We’re already at the next door, and I’m guessing this one leads to another set of stairs. I take a deep breath and brace myself. Since Riker’s tightened his hold on my hand this time, I won’t be getting a second chance to make a run for it.
“Hang on, let me get the light,” he murmurs while we stand together in the dark. When he finally flips on the switch, there’s an explosion of sparks at the ceiling, and then darkness yet again.
“You should really talk to your maintenance guy about this shit. This place is practically falling apart.” Because bad humor always makes me feel better.
“No kidding. Where is that asshole when you need him? ”
Always at my side. But I don’t say that out loud. I just close my eyes and wait for them to adjust to the lack of light. When I open them again, Riker has already navigated us safely to the main level where we enter through the kitchen.
Since it’s an open floor plan, the tour starts pretty much immediately, in what I can only assume is the dining area. It’s hard to say considering there isn’t a single piece of furniture left in the place. Just...stuff. Picture frames mostly. Some random knickknacks. A vase in the corner with a full bouquet still in it, only of course they’re not so much flowers as they are dried-out zombie blossoms.
“So, this style of decorating.. .it’s a minimalist thing?” I don’t know why I can’t just ask a direct question. But then I also kind of feel like this tour should be guided. He’s here. Leading the way. Why isn’t he pointing and explaining as he goes? And to your right we have what was once the formal dining room before the Grinch came one Christmas and took it all away . I don’t know. Something along those lines.
“Miranda took all the furniture when she moved out. According to the divorce agreement, she was only allowed to take her personal items upon her departure. I’m guessing she and the judge had vastly different ideas about what constitutes a personal item. Regardless, I didn’t give a shit about any of it, so I let her.” He continues through the empty space and rounds the corner into a large living room spanning the entire side of the house and matched in size by a balcony visible through the wall of windows and glass doors.
Miranda. His wife. Why do those three words make me want to throw up?
“How long were you two married?” I ask. Because if we’re doing this, we’re really doing this. And I’m going to need to know. All of it. Otherwise, I’ll just make up my own shit to fill in the blanks, and that’s got bad news written all over it .
“Five years. Well, would have been that year, anyway.” He stops in front of one of the glass doors and gazes out at the ocean. “We got married right after I graduated college. We’d been seeing each other off and on for a few months when she found out she was pregnant.” He turns toward me. “At first I just figured we’d work things out as we went. I mean, I wasn’t worried about finances, and even though I hadn’t been planning on it at that particular time in my life, I wanted to be a dad, so it was easy to accept the news as good. But Miranda was in a panic about the whole thing. Said her father would disown her if she had a baby out of wedlock and that not getting married was not an option.”
I get it. Miranda was a controlling, manipulative, whiny bitch and I already hate her ass. Of course, my opinion might be slightly tainted. “And what? You were like, that’s cool. Fuck it. Let’s get married?”
He chuckles. I think I actually surprised him this time. “Yeah. Something like that. I was barely twenty-two. What did I know? My parents got married at nineteen. Had Hannah a year later. The concept wasn’t completely foreign to me.”
We’re having one of those awkward reality moments where he’s old and implying I’m an ignorant kid without realizing it. So I remind him. “I’m twenty-two.”
He shakes his head at me. “Only in this lifetime.”
Fair enough.
Apparently feeling that he’s answered my question about his marriage sufficiently, he begins to move again. When we turn the corner once more, there’s some sort of family room. At least, the main wall is covered in family pictures, so whatever was in here wasn’t a movie room. That one I can rule out. There’s no wall space left for the screen .
It takes me a second before I realize this is the part of the house I stumbled upon that night in the stairwell on my way to the deck. Even though most of the frames are still intact and on the wall, several more are in pieces on the floor.
“What happened in here?” My voice is barely audible. Mostly because I’m a little scared to ask.
“Me.” It’s a straightforward answer, and he bends down to pick up the frame at his feet. “Just couldn’t take it, you know? First my dad and sister die in that crash. Then my grandfather. It was already taking all I had to try and take care of the business by myself, not to mention Sid.” He’s staring down at the picture in his hands, but I don’t think it’s really what he sees. His voice sounds like he’s ages away. Back when everything first happened. “The irony was priceless, really. Hannah and Sid putting off their wedding all those years in hopes that my mother would come around and attend the wedding.”
“Your mom wasn’t going to go to their wedding?” My parents hated Jackson. But they still would have shown up if I had decided to marry him.
“My mom hadn’t spoken to Hannah in nearly seven years. Not since the day she told her she was engaged to another woman. My sister never gave up, though. Every Saturday morning, she would call her and leave a lengthy voicemail pretending they were having the same weekly chats they’d had all her life before my mother found out her daughter was a lesbian.” The disdain is abundant in his voice. “You know, if my parents hadn’t already been divorced, I think my father would have left my mother right then and there. Didn’t matter, though. She was already gone. Already living in New Hampshire with her thirty-five-year-old boyfriend.
“Anyway, after the accident, my mother finally deemed my sister worthy of a visit. Even if it was just to attend her funeral. Honestly, I think Hannah would have preferred she’d just stayed away. She did nothing but make everything harder on everyone else. Especially Sid. Then, after my mother found out Sid was set to inherit Hannah’s trust and the shares she owned in the company, things only got worse. My mother flipped. Hired a lawyer. Tried everything she could to get my sister’s will deemed invalid. Didn’t work, of course, but I still had to take the time to go to court and make sure it didn’t. Sid was a mess. And she didn’t care about the money, so she was ready to just sign whatever my mother wanted her to. But Hannah would never have been okay with that.”
When the silence starts to rest in the air, I gently squeeze his hand. “You’re a good brother, Riker. A good man.”
He turns, and I’m shocked by what I see. The beast of his grief has been completely unleashed, tearing him apart from the inside out. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Except continue to coax it out and set it free.
“What part did Miranda play in all of this?”
His gaze drops down to the frame again. “What part? I don’t know. The villain, maybe? No, that was my mother. Evil cheating bitch, I guess.”
“So that’s why you two split? She had an affair?” He’s still not looking at me, but I’m not taking my eyes off of him.
“That was part of it. Yeah. Not the worst part. But definitely a deciding factor.” His gaze is still glued to the frame in his hands, and a tear drops down onto the glass. His heart is breaking all over again. Maybe he hadn’t loved her when they first got married, but five years is a long time. Feelings change. Evolve. Clearly, he was devastated when his marriage fell apart. “After everything else that had already happened that year...”
“I get it. Then you lost her and it broke you,” I whisper, trying my best to hide my own hurt. This isn’t about me.
“It wasn’t losing her that broke me.” He hands me the frame he’s been holding this whole time and starts to walk away .
Automatically, my view drops from the back of his shoulder blades to the picture in my hands. Two small faces are smiling up at me through shattered glass. A little girl with white, blonde curls and a little boy with the biggest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. This wasn’t ever about her. It was about them.