She lay asleep beside him, naked between the plain white sheets, her hair spread on the pillow like a gold wave of summer wheat.
He was wide awake.
Rylan was still reeling from what had happened. From the moment she’d abandoned her food and walked over to where he’d been sitting, something had been different. Electric. It had just been...more.
Seeing her undress, offer herself like that to him, it had shaken him to the core, both sexually and emotionally. Until tonight he hadn’t known what it really was to make love, but when they’d come together that was exactly what it had been. Love. Not just bodies but hearts.
God help him.
He turned onto his side and watched her sleep, reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear so it didn’t fall over her face. How had this happened?
Yet he’d known it was possible. Of course he had, in his hesitation to even come here with her this week. Things had been getting a little too comfortable. Too serious. It had been like this from the beginning. He’d just been pretending otherwise.
He loved her. It scared him to death. Almost as much as it scared him to think about staying at Crooked Valley indefinitely. Making that commitment to Lacey and Duke and investing so much of himself in any one single thing went against everything he had wanted for himself.
He sighed. But Kailey never moved. He’d discovered she was an incredibly sound sleeper. In the mornings he almost had to shake her awake since she merely slapped away at the snooze button on the clock radio, all without waking.
In the silence of the night there was a buzzing sound.
He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his phone, frowning at the lit display. It was definitely his that was buzzing, and the number that came up was Duke’s.
He slid out of bed and scooted into the bathroom to answer.
“Hello?”
“Rylan?”
“Carrie?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to bother you, but...”
It was after midnight. If that weren’t reason enough, something in her voice sent warning bells screaming through his head. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Rattler. There’s...been an accident.”
His stomach seemed to plummet clear to his feet. “What happened?”
Carrie’s voice was shaky. “We think it was a mountain lion. The vet’s out here now, but I thought you ought to know.”
He sat on the edge of the tub and pinched the bridge of his nose. Seventeen grand. The hopes for the whole program at Crooked Valley. But more than that, he felt sick at the thought of the pain and fear his horse was going through. “How bad,” he breathed.
“Bad enough.” She choked up a little. “Duke’s with him now. They’ve got him sedated.” He heard her gulp. “I’ve never heard a horse scream like that in my life.”
There was nothing else to do. He had to head back to the ranch...tonight. As it was, he wouldn’t make it back until early morning, and that was driving straight through. But Rattler was his horse. He was the biggest investment they’d put into the ranch and his responsibility, not Duke’s or Quinn’s.
“I’m coming back,” he said to Carrie. “Go ahead and do what needs to be done to help him, okay? I’ll hit the road in the next thirty.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. It’s not like I’m competing or anything. This is more important. Tell Duke I’ll see him as soon as I can.”
“Okay, Rylan. Whatever you say.”
He hung up, feeling slightly surprised at Carrie’s response. Whatever you say. As if he was in charge of anything...
He ran his hand through his hair. He’d think of that later. Right now he had to get his stuff together and get going.
As Kailey slept on, he packed up his jeans and shirts and toiletries, shoved a few pieces of forgotten pizza in a paper bag and grabbed an unopened bottle of cola, thinking he could use the caffeine hit on the road. When he was all ready to leave, he went to the side of the bed and sat on the edge.
“Kailey,” he said gently, putting a hand on her bare shoulder.
Nothing. He smiled softly, loving this little quirk about her. The woman, as she was about everything else, was serious about sleeping. Efficient. He gave her shoulder a little shake. “Kailey, wake up.”
“Mmm,” she murmured, but that was it. She rolled away from him and let out a deep breath.
“Kailey,” he said again, but nothing.
He could really press matters and wake her. But she looked so soft and peaceful he didn’t have the heart to do it. Still, he couldn’t just leave. Not after what had happened between them before.
He grabbed the complimentary motel notepad and pen and wrote out a quick message.
K, there’s been an accident with Rattler and I had to rush back to Crooked Valley. I’m sorry to leave in the night but it doesn’t look good and it’s my job to look after him. If you can’t get a ride back with the guys call me and I’ll come back to get you on Saturday night. I’m so sorry...thanks for this week. It’s been amazing.
He hesitated over how to sign it. In the end he decided on a breezy, See you soon, Ry.
He ripped the sheet off the tablet and propped it up against the lamp on the dresser next to his room key. He shouldered his bag, grabbed the packet of pizza and gave her one last, lingering look, imprinting the image of her sleeping face on his mind before opening the door.
A cold front had come in during the evening and the stiff breeze that came with it caught the door, nearly pulling it from his hand. He stepped outside and then closed the door as gently as he could, hoping the sudden gust hadn’t awakened Kailey. Seconds later he was in his truck, his bag on the seat beside him, backing out of the parking space and making his way through town to the highway that would take him home.
Kailey rolled over, squinted at the clock radio beside the bed. Seven forty? Surely Rylan would have gotten her up by now?
And then she realized that the other side of the bed was empty. And had been for some time. The sheets were cool.
“Ry?”
The shower wasn’t running. And it didn’t sound as though anyone was in there, either. Kailey was in the motel room all alone.
She crawled out of bed stark naked and hastily pulled on underwear and a shirt from a pile on the floor. She peeked through the curtains and saw that his truck was gone. Maybe he’d been up early and had just run out for some breakfast. He’d come back with coffee and sausage biscuits, and it would all be okay. She’d be a little late to the roundup but it would be fine.
She had a quick shower and dressed and when she came out of the bathroom he still wasn’t back. A little beat of warning pulsed through her brain.
And then she realized his bag was gone. And so was his toothbrush and shampoo and anything that said Rylan Duggan had been here. It was seriously as if...he hadn’t been there at all. All except the room key card, left propped up against the base of the lamp on the dresser.
He’d run.
The first sensation she felt was numbness, taking over her whole body, including her brain. For a few minutes the only words that would form in her head were not again. He wouldn’t, couldn’t have snuck out in the middle of the night as he had the last time, could he?
Could he?
She shoved her bottom back on the bed, pulled her knees up to her chest. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. Her breath started coming fast and shallow, her heart beat fast. She wouldn’t panic. She’d hold herself together.
Only she couldn’t. Because the last time it had just been one night. One single night, not weeks of caring for each other, not months. In February she hadn’t been in love with him.
Like she was now.
Oh God.
Like she was now.
The tears she didn’t want came anyway, streaking down her cheeks, forced out by sobs that choked her throat. “Why?” she cried softly, dropping her head to her knees. Why now? Why did he have to leave without a word in the middle of the night like a coward? Why did he have to break her heart just when she’d decided to trust him with it?
All the while the room key stared at her, accusing her of being a fool. Not just once, which had been difficult enough, but twice now. With the same man. The man who’d told her he was not permanent. Who’d made it clear from the beginning that he was just passing through.
Just who was the idiot here?
That was them. The idiot and the...she filled in the blank under her breath, the initial numbing pain transitioning to righteous anger.
He’d left her in a motel room six hours from home. When everyone knew he was there with her this week.
She thought of his face last night as he’d held her in his arms. He’d looked deeply into her eyes. Whispered her name. She’d been so sure. So very sure that this was a giant step forward for them. That he felt the same way for her as she did for him. Remembering that moment caused something deep inside her to shrivel up and die.
For some reason, men loved her. But they didn’t ever love her enough. She was never their everything. Their reason for breathing. The light in the darkness. Not like the way Quinn looked at Lacey. Or the way Duke smiled at Carrie as she held their baby son.
Kailey fell back among the sheets and finally let it out. All the disillusionment, the heartache, the humiliation and pain. She cried into the sheets until she was spent.
When she finally blinked her painful eyelids, she checked her watch. Eight-thirty. She couldn’t show up like this. She had to get herself together. First thing to do was text Jim and let him know she was running late, ask if there was anything urgent and she’d catch up with him in a bit. She frowned and decided she’d pick up some doughnuts and coffee on the way as a peace offering.
Next she got out of bed and went to the bathroom, ran a sink of cold water, retrieved a washcloth from the towel bar and laid the cool cloth over her face, hoping to minimize the redness and puffiness. What she really wanted to do was collapse on Carrie’s sofa with a bottle of wine and bawl out her troubles.
But Carrie didn’t live in her little house anymore, and it felt awkward crying on her shoulder now that she was married with a family of her own. Lives changed...
At least some did. Some didn’t, even when a girl tried.
She let the cold water work before patting her face dry and surveying the damage. It wasn’t pretty. Defiantly she reached for her makeup bag. She usually didn’t wear much to the rodeo grounds, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The only way she could get through today...and tomorrow...was to put Rylan Duggan at the back of her mind. Not spare him a single thought. She was Kailey Brandt, general manager of Brandt Ranch. Strong and capable. Maybe she’d been stupid to chafe against her commitment there, because one thing she could say about the ranch: never once had it let her down.
Moisturizer, concealer, foundation, powder. She used them all to smooth out her complexion, and then added a swipe of clear lip gloss and a coat of mascara on her lashes.
She examined herself in the mirror. Not perfect, but perhaps fixed enough that it looked as if she’d not had much sleep versus a ginormous crying jag over a man who wasn’t worth it.
She scowled. “You are not going to think about him,” she instructed her reflection in a stern voice.
The other issue right now was transportation. She’d traveled with Rylan, and the guys were already gone, so she’d have to find another way to the rodeo grounds.
Her lower lip quivered in a moment of weakness; she bit it and stopped the trembling.
Rylan’s key sat defiantly on the dresser and she left it there. This time she wouldn’t deliver his key or anything else to the motel office. It could damn well sit there until the end of the world for all she cared.
The taxi she’d called arrived and stoically she got inside, gave the address to the driver and prepared herself to face the day.
Rylan Duggan was not the end of the world.
She wouldn’t let him be.
The rest of the rodeo seemed to drag on twice as long as the first two days. Kailey let go of her hands-off approach and dug in and worked side by side with Jim and Dan, getting her boots and hands dirty. Friday night she went back to the room and took a long bath and opened a bottle of wine she’d grabbed when Jim had stopped for some beer on the way back to the motel. Normally she wasn’t for self-medicating, but she could still smell Rylan in the room and she shifted between anger and sadness depending on the moment. Three glasses in she brushed her teeth and crawled beneath the sheets, hoping for eight hours of oblivion. Tomorrow afternoon they had a horse in the finals, and after that they’d be packing up and making the long drive home, arriving sometime close to midnight. The idea of being home in her own bed was soothing. She only had to make it twenty-four hours and she could stop this pretense.
The only person who’d asked about Rylan had been Jim. Dan was working away behind him and Jim had asked where Rylan was. She’d tried to keep her expression and voice neutral as she explained briefly that Rylan had needed to return to Crooked Valley, and would Jim mind if she hitched a ride back with him? He couldn’t exactly say no, and she wasn’t about to share personal details with an employee, no matter how friendly they all were.
On Saturday morning Kailey was up and ready to go by seven-thirty, and she and Jim drove to the grounds together. Her heart was still hurting, and she was still angrier than she ever remembered being. But she was holding it together. At some point she’d let everything out, but not now. She let the anger feed her composure until she was a model of efficiency and straight-up business.
The finals began right after lunch and Kailey put her personal feelings aside and focused on Lucifer, their bareback entry into the competition. He was smaller than Crooked Valley’s Rattler, and compact, well-suited to bareback competition and with a glistening jet-black coat that made him a treat to watch.
When the time came, he was loaded into the chute, his hooves stomping as he tossed his mane. The cowboy who’d drawn him was a twenty-five-year-old out of Oklahoma who had the highest score going into the final. Kailey crossed her fingers as she waited for the door to open. A good ride for both cowboy and horse would mean good things. Brandt stock was in demand; Kailey wanted to keep it that way.
The horn sounded, the chute opened and horse and rider burst into the arena. Lucifer lived up to his name, bucking like the devil, throwing in a few turns and twists trying to unseat his rider. Eight seconds later it was all over, with a clean ride and the wait for final points. When the board lit up, Kailey grinned from ear to ear. An eighty-seven...a damned good mark, and good scoring for both competitors.
Lucifer was their last competitor, so Kailey took a long breath and exhaled it. She wished they could simply load up and leave right now, since their part of the competition was over. But Jim and Dan had spent the whole week following standings and performances. The extra hour and a bit to let them watch the finals wasn’t too much to ask.
One good thing about it was that they’d checked out of the motel that morning. For the first time since he left, Kailey had picked up Rylan’s key card, only to return it to the main office with her own. Her bag was in Jim’s truck. The dried-up pizza and box were in the trash and she could start putting this behind her. For good. She’d given Rylan a second chance, but she wouldn’t be giving him a third.
The bull-riding had just started when her phone buzzed. Surprised, she immediately pulled it out of her back pocket and looked at the screen. A text message...from Rylan. In a split second she went from surprise to traitorous excitement to red-hot anger at his presumption that a text message would be an acceptable form of communication at this point.
You coming home tonight?
What the heck? He’d left her high and dry and then wanted to know when she was getting home? As if nothing had happened? Lips pursed, she shoved the phone back into her pocket, leaving the text unanswered.
It buzzed again. And once more when the third competitor was having the ride of his life. She blindly took the phone out and shut off the power. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of an answer. If they talked at all, it would be at a time and place of her choosing. It would be when she decided what she wanted to say and not before. She definitely wasn’t going to engage in a text argument when they needed to speak face-to-face. She wasn’t going to be a coward and take the easy way out. Not like he had.
The rodeo finally ended and Kailey headed straight for the truck, ready to load their stock on the trailer and make the long ride home.
Right now, that was all that mattered.