Chapter Thirty
GRAY
PUTTING THE truck in reverse, I back up to Marley’s stable next to the door. On the way home, I stopped at the feed store. We don’t really need more, but I needed to do something normal to help clear my head.
After I left the hotel earlier today, I could still smell Elly’s scent hanging in the air, so I rolled the windows down to let the freezing cold air whip around the cab of the truck.
Something about the cold sting of the freezing wind while I drove down the highway was satisfying, punishing even, as I thought about what a fucking chump I’ve been.
As I drove through town on my way home, I noticed the electric is back on and the stores have their overhead lights and electric signs in the windows turned on. Seeing the everyday mundane helped to soothe not only my anger, but also the ache that keeps burning in my chest.
Slamming the door with a little more force than necessary, I walk around my rig and lower the tailgate as Marley walks out of her stable.
“Hey. I didn’t know you were going to stop at the store.
” Even with the sun out, I can still see her breath in front of her face.
But she’s smiling and seeing her smile always lifts my spirits.
Fourteen years ago, I watched a stranger who used to be my sister disappear into her head daily after the attack.
That happened for two years. I’ll celebrate every smile I get.
She turns and waves her gloved hand toward the stable. “The electric came back on, but I left the generator running in case you need to do anything to the heat lamps before its turned off.”
Her blond hair is in two braids coming out of the pink stocking cap on her head, and it has a big ball of fluff on the top.
I take a step toward her. “Come here.” I hold my arms out and pull her in for a hug.
She squeezes my ribcage and chuckles. “What’s this for?”
“Just felt like giving my little sister a hug.”
“Orrr, you just needed a hug? What happened?” She doesn’t loosen her grip around my ribs, her voice is muffled in the front of my coat.
As I’m about to set my chin on her head, the fluff on top of her cap gets tangled in my beard, so I shift my head. My eyes land on Jax standing on the other side of the stable, leaning on a tree.
Surely Mason has told him she doesn’t like to be around men she doesn’t know. But I know Mason trusts him as much as he trusts me or Tucker, so I know he wouldn’t do anything he shouldn’t. I narrow my eyes a bit as we stare at each other.
Is he interested in Marley? Alarms ding in my head.
He seems to be anywhere she is, and she’s starting to relax around him some.
I think of all the trips he’s suddenly made to the ranch in the past year, and the constant offers to help when he is here.
The overprotective ass everyone always accuses me of being wants to wrap her up in some kind of safety blanket and position myself between them.
He doesn’t break eye contact with me, but he also doesn’t act like some kind of macho dick head. I’m used to men backing down when I look at them, but he doesn’t do that either. He’s simply observing.
Marley tilts her head back with a smile, her blue eyes the same color as Mason’s, and says, “So? What happened that made my big, overprotective, softy of a brother need a hug?”
Letting go of her, I push her stocking cap up her forehead and plant a kiss on her hairline before pulling it back down. “Nothing I wanna talk about. Where do you want this feed?”
She pats my back before she lets go of me and points inside. “On the pallet in the tack room.”
The rest of the afternoon is spent unhooking the generators and resuming normal activities with the electric back on.
But no matter how much I focus on what I’m doing, my thoughts keep going back to Elly.
To seeing that man in her room. Part of me feels like an ass for leaving her there with him, but I had to get out of there.
Part of the anger and hurt that keeps swirling in my head and chest is that she wasn’t surprised he was in her room. She wasn’t surprised by the situation. The things he said about her keep playing on repeat in my mind. As much as I don’t want to believe it, I think she played me.
And it fucking hurts.
The ache in my chest has its claws in me so deep that it’s hard to breathe and if I keep moving, keep focused on the work, I don’t have to think about it.
That’s a lie.
All I can think about is her.
When I stomp into the mudroom and start hanging my coat and hat, I hear Sloane yell from the kitchen.
“Gray, is that you?”
“Yeah.” I walk around the corner as she’s checking the temperature of the roast she has in the oven.
It’s so nice to see overhead lights again.
She looks over her shoulder from her bent-over position in front of the oven. “I’m dedicating tomorrow to washing the mounds of clothes that have piled up over the past week, make sure you put everything in your hamper.”
“That smells good.” I look over her shoulder at the giant piece of meat in a pan full of its juices. “Do I have time for a shower before dinner?”
I have to get her smell off me.
“Yep.”
“Where’s Hallie?” I look around, but it looks like Sloane is the only one here.
Tossing her oven mitts on the counter, she winces a little as she looks toward the back stairs. “She got a phone call from the department of corrections. It sounds like her ex is going to be released in the next few weeks, she got pretty worked up, so I told her to take the rest of the day off.”
Halie’s ex live-in boyfriend went to jail for beating up on her. Since he put her in the hospital the last time, the police got involved and she could finally press charges hoping he would go to jail and not be able to come after her in retaliation.
Keeping my voice low, I say, “I thought he was going to be away for a few years or something?”
She lifts a shoulder and leans against the counter. “Overcrowding.”
I nod and give the back of her neck a little squeeze as I walk by and head up to my room.
The slight smell of peaches hangs in the air of my bedroom, and I know it’s from the clothes I wore to her room last night, I quickly pick them up and toss them in the hamper and cover it.
Fucking hell.
When I get to the dinner table, everyone has just started passing around the food and dad gives me a dirty look for being late. “Sorry, I needed to wash the day off me.” In more ways than one.
“Did everything go okay this morning?” Marley asks as the passes the bowl of Swiss peas to Kinley with one hand and takes the dish of baked potatoes in the other. She’s digging.
Keeping my eyes on my plate as I grab a roll, I say, “As well as could be expected.”
“Did you get the copies?” Dad asks.
Fuuuck! I was so pissed I forgot the copies. I walked out of there in a haze of red and nothing else mattered besides getting away from the source of the pain in my chest.
Just as I am about to tell him we’ll talk later, a distressed whinny is heard from Marley’s stable. For us to hear it inside means something is wrong. I turn in my seat to look at the same time Marley sits up and looks around us to see out the window.
Nothing looks out of place. The floodlights are on, but Marley quickly sets her napkin next to her plate and stands. “I’m going to go check on them. I’ll be right back.”
“Do you need help?” Jax asks before she gets to the door. He’s in mid-stand and putting his napkin on the table.
In her hurry to get outside, Marley doesn’t stop. She calls over her shoulder, “No, I’ll be right back.”
Dad is eyeing me, and I slightly shake my head once to tell him ‘not now’, but his brows knit together in frustration.
“Dad, Aunt Marley let me sit outside Star’s stall today and she let me name her.” Lainey Rai says, her eyes are sparkling, and it makes my heart happy. “The white spot on her forehead looks like a star, so that’s what we’re calling her.”
Even though I’m Dad again, I’m just happy she’s happy. “That’s great, Pumpkin. Did she spook at all while you were sitting there?”
She shakes her head. “Nope, she stood in the corner watching me, but she wasn’t upset.”
Suddenly Kinley stands, and her chair falls over backward. “Oh my god, Marley!” She points over my shoulder out the window.
Before any of us even get out of our chairs, Jax is running out the door with Mason hot on his heels. A quick look over my shoulder and I see smoke curling around the floodlights on her stable. Chairs are scraping all around me, and I sprint out the door to catch up with Mason and Jax.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This can’t be happening.
As I jump off the porch and run to the stable, I see Jax and Mason go into the structure, so I go around the side and grab the hose from the outdoor spigot and start unrolling it as I walk.
There are, I think, three horses in her stables right now and they are all yelling. One of them is kicking inside her stall, and I hope they get her out before she hurts herself. All Marley’s horses are traumatized by something that has happened to them, so this will only send them into a panic.
As I come around the corner of the stable with the hose, I see Marley holding a towel over one of the mare’s eyes as Jax leads her to a paddock. She’s holding her arm over her nose and mouth and I worry about how much smoke she’s breathing.
“Daddy!” I hear Lainey Rai yell from behind me and I turn to face her, holding my hand out to stop her.
“Stay back, Pumpkin! Stay with Kinley!” As I say it, Kinley runs up behind her, fast breaths puffing in the air in front of her and her arms windmilling as she stops and throws them around Lainey Rai’s shoulders to keep her in place, her blond hair surrounding Lainey Rai like a curtain.
Mason is coming out of the stable with another mare that is dancing in fear, a towel over her head and pulling her to the other paddock. “Mason!” I yell.
He turns to me, coughing at the same time and squinting his eyes. Another kick on the other side of the wall I’m standing next to and a loud whinny that sounds like a scream.
Fuck!
“How many?” I yell as I walk toward the door of the stable.
“Just the one.” He says and turns to lead the horse away from the stable.
“I’ve got this, go get her.” Dad yells from behind me and grabs the hose from my hand.
Letting go, I nod and run into the stable. Flames are licking up the wall of the back corner across from the mare that’s kicking, it’s the one Marley just got last week. She’s nearly out of control in her stall.
Just as I get to the door to pull it open, she rears back to warn me. She’s about to kick at me. Heat licks my back, and the smoke is burning my eyes, so I pull my shirt over my mouth and nose.
In my peripheral, I see dad walk through the door with the hose turned up, spraying water everywhere as he gets closer to the fire. He points the water at me and the horse and even though it’s freezing, it feels good on my back.
Grabbing the latch on the door, I pull it open, and the horse shoots out toward the front of the stable. I don’t even care she’s running wild, as long as she gets out of here.
I pull one of the quilt covers off a shelf and beat at the fire as dad sprays it. Within seconds, Mason is next to me with the hose from the grooming stall spraying from the other direction. It takes us several minutes, but we get the flames out.
The entire corner is a mess. The bales of hay stacked there are half burned and soaking wet and the wall is scorched black up to the rafters. At least the stalls are still okay, the damage looks manageable.
A wail from Marley pierces the air. “Noooooo!”
We drop everything and run to the door to see Marley on the ground next to the horse that ran out last. She is laying on her side and Marley is leaning over her, stroking her neck as tears stream down her face.
Jax is squatted down behind her, his only contact is that he has put his palm on her back between her shoulders.
“God damn it, what happened?” Dad bellows as we walk up to them.
Marley is crying too hard to answer, and Jax looks at Mason. “She slid on some ice as she came around the corner and I think her leg’s broken, she can’t get up.”
Fuck me!
I’ve only had to shoot a horse once in my life and, aside from Sarah’s death, I’ve never felt so bad.
As I watch the scene in front of me, Jax snaps his head toward the front fence that lines the main road, narrowing his eyes. The purposely thick tree line is dense enough that it’s impossible to see the house or any of the buildings from the road.
Mason walks to Marley and squats down next to her on the other side. “Mar, she’s in pain.”
Marley nods her head and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I know.” The two words choke out with sobs and it kills me to see her like this.
Mason glances at Jax, who is still scanning the tree line, and a silent exchange happens. Jax’s hand slides from Marley’s shoulder blades to her shoulder as he stands and moves into the shadows, he disappears like a fucking ghost into the darkness.
Mason reaches out to her and gently squeezes her arm, and she sits back on her heels.
“Give me just a second.” She takes a deep breath and leans over the horse again, whispering in her ear.
The chestnut mare huffs through her nose, staying still under Marley’s hand, almost like she understands what Marley is saying and wants to listen.
“Daddy?” I hear Lainey Rai getting closer behind me and I spin around to see her stop dead and slap her hand over her mouth.
Kinley does the same thing behind her, their eyes glued to Marley and the mare. Tears fill their eyes and Lainey Rai looks at me, her voice is so small. “Star?”
Turning my back on the heartbreaking scene, I walk to my daughter, who has started to cry. “Come here, Pumpkin.”
She lets me pick her up and even though I turn her away from what’s happening; she turns her head to look around me. “Will she be okay?”
I’m not going to lie to my daughter. I can hear my dad’s voice in my head, she has to learn the good with the bad, son. “No, Pumpkin, she’s not going to be okay.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard my daughter break down and cry like she did when she was little, but she cries her heart out as I carry her back to the house.