“Because I would like to have a date.” She was stalling now.
“You want to make your dad mad? Is that what we’re doing? A little bit of revenge for everything he put you through?”
“I would never use you that way, Sam. I hope you know me better than that.”
“We don’t know each other, Maddy. We don’t. We’ve had a few conversations, and we’ve had some sex. But that doesn’t mean knowing somebody. Not really.”
“That just isn’t true. Nobody else knows how I feel about what happened to me. Nobody. Nobody else knows about the conversation I had with my dad. And I would imagine that nobody knows about Elizabeth. Not the way that I do.”
“We used each other as a confessional. That isn’t the same.”
“The funny thing is it did start that way. At least for me. Because what did it matter what you knew. We weren’t going to have a relationship after. So I didn’t have to worry about you judging me. I didn’t have to worry about anything.”
“And?”
“That was just what I told myself. It was what made it feel okay to do what I wanted to do. We lie to ourselves. We get really deep in it when we feel like we need protection. That was what I was doing. But the simple truth is I felt a connection with you from the beginning. It was why I was so terrible to you. Because it scared me.”
“You should have kept on letting it scare you, baby girl.”
Those words acted like a shot of rage that went straight to her stomach, then fired onto her head. “Why? Because it’s the thing that allows you to maintain your cranky-loner mystique? That isn’t you. I thought maybe you didn’t feel anything. But now I think you feel everything. And it scares you. I’m the same way.”
“I see where this is going, Maddy. Don’t do it. Don’t. I can tell you right now it isn’t going to go the way you think it will.”
“Oh, go ahead, Sam. Tell me what I think. Please. I’m dying to hear it.”
“You think that because you’ve had some kind of transformation, some kind of deep realization, that I’m headed for the same. But it’s bullshit. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. Wishful thinking on a level I never wanted you to start thinking on. You knew the rules. You knew them from the beginning.”
“Don’t,” she said, her throat tightening, her chest constricting. “Don’t do this to us. Don’t pretend it can stay the same thing it started out as. Because it isn’t. And you know it.”
“You’re composing a really compelling story, Madison.” The reversion back to her full name felt significant. “And we both know that’s something you do. Make more out of sex than it was supposed to be.”
She gritted her teeth, battling through. Because he wanted her to stop. He wanted this to intimidate, to hurt. He wanted it to stop her. But she wasn’t going to let him win. Not at this. Not at his own self-destruction. “Jackass 101. Using somebody’s deep pain against them. I thought you were above that, Sam.”
“It turns out I’m not. You might want to pay attention to that.”
“I’m paying attention. I want you to come with me to the Christmas party, Sam. Because I want it to be the beginning. I don’t want it to be the end.”
“Don’t do this.”
He bent down, beginning to collect his clothes, his focus on anything in the room but her. She took a deep breath, knowing that what happened next was going to shatter all of this.
“I need more. I need more than twelve days of Christmas. I want it every day. I want to wake up with you every morning and go to bed with you every night. I want to fight with you. I want to make love with you. I want to tell you my secrets. To show you every dark, hidden thing in me. The serious things and the silly things. Because I love you. It’s that complicated and that simple. I love you and that means I’m willing to do this, no matter how it ends.”
Sam tugged his pants on, did them up, then pulled his shirt over his head. “I told you not to do this, Maddy. But you’re doing it anyway. And you know what that makes it? A suicide mission. You stand there, thinking you’re being brave because you’re telling the truth. But you know how it’s going to end. You know that after you make this confession, you’re not actually going to have to deal with the relationship with me, because I already told you it isn’t happening. I wonder if you would have been so brave if you knew I might turn around and offer you forever.”
His words hit her with the force of bullets. But for some reason, they didn’t hurt. Not really. She could remember distinctly when David had broken things off with her. Saying that she had never been anything serious. That she had been only a little bit of tail on the side and he was of course going to have to stay with his wife. Because she was the center of his life. Of his career. Because she mattered, and Maddy didn’t. That had hurt. It had hurt because it had been true.
Because David hadn’t loved her. And it had been easy for him to break up with her because he had never intended on having more with her, and not a single part of him wanted more.
This was different. It was different because Sam was trying to hurt her out of desperation. Because Sam was lying. Or at the very least, was sidestepping. Because he didn’t want to have the conversation.
Because he would have to lie to protect himself. Because he couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her that he didn’t love her, that she didn’t matter.
But she wasn’t certain he would let himself feel it. That was the gamble. She knew he felt it. She knew it. That deep down, Sam cared. She wasn’t sure if he knew it. If he had allowed himself access to those feelings. Feelings that Sam seemed to think were a luxury, or a danger. Grief. Desire. Love.
“Go ahead and offer it. You won’t. You won’t, because you know I would actually say yes. You can try to make this about how damaged I am, but all of this is because of you.”
“You have to be damaged to want somebody like me. You know what’s in my past.”
“Grief. Grief that you won’t let yourself feel. Sadness you don’t feel like you’re allowed to have. That’s what’s in your past. Along with lost hope. Let’s not pretend you blame yourself. You felt so comfortable calling me out, telling me that I was playing games. Well, guess what. That’s what you’re doing. You think if you don’t want anything, if you don’t need anything, you won’t be hurt again. But you’re just living in hurt and that isn’t better.”
“You have all this clarity about your own emotional situation, and you think that gives you a right to talk about mine?”
She threw the blankets off her and got out of bed. “Why not?” she asked, throwing her arms wide. She didn’t care that she was naked. In fact, in many ways it seemed appropriate. That Sam had put clothes on, that he had felt the need to cover himself, and that she didn’t even care anymore. She had no pride left. But this wasn’t about pride.
“You think you have the right to talk about mine,” she continued. “You think you’re going to twist everything that I’m saying and eventually you’ll find some little doubt inside me that will make me believe you’re telling the truth. I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough of men telling me what I feel. Of them telling me what I should do. I’m not going to let you do it. You’re better than that. At least, I thought you were.”
“Maybe I’m not.”
“Right now? I think you don’t want to be. But I would love you through this too, Sam. You need to know that. You need to know that whatever you say right now, in this room, it’s not going to change the way that I feel about you. You don’t have that kind of power.”
“That’s pathetic. There’s nothing I can say to make you not love me? Why don’t you love yourself a little bit more than that, Madison,” he said, his tone hard.
And regardless of what she had just said, that did hit something in her. Something vulnerable and scared. Something that was afraid she really hadn’t learned how
to be anything more than a pathetic creature, desperate for a man to show her affection.
“I love myself just enough to put myself out there and demand this,” she said finally, her voice vibrating with conviction. “I love myself too much to slink off silently. I love myself too much not to fight for what I know we could have. If I didn’t do this, if I didn’t say this, it would only be for my pride. It would be so I could score points and feel like maybe I won. But in the end, if I walk away without having fought for you with everything I have in me, we will have both lost. I think you’re worth that. I know you are. Why don’t you think so?”
“Why do you?” he asked, his voice thin, brittle. “I don’t think I’ve shown you any particular kindness or tenderness.”
“Don’t. Don’t erase everything that’s happened between us. Everything I told you. Everything you gave me.”
“Keeping my mouth shut while I held a beautiful woman and let her talk? That’s easy.”
“I love you, Sam. That’s all. I’m not going to stand here and have an argument. I’m not going to let you get in endless barbs while you try to make those words something less than true. I love you. I would really like it if you could tell me you loved me too.”
“I don’t.” His words were flat in the room. And she knew they were all she would get from him. Right now, it was all he could say. And he believed it. He believed it down to his bones. That he didn’t love her. That everything that had taken place between them over the past week meant nothing. Because he had to. Because behind that certainty, that flat, horrifying expression in his eyes, was fear.
Strong, beautiful Sam, who could bend iron to his will, couldn’t overpower the fear that lived inside him. And she would never be able to do it for him.
“Okay,” she said softly, beginning to gather her clothes. She didn’t know how to do this. She didn’t know what to do now. How to make a triumphant exit. So she decided she wouldn’t. She decided to let the tears fall down her cheeks; she decided not to make a joke. She decided not to say anything flippant or amusing.
Because that was what the old Maddy would have done. She would have played it off. She would have tried to laugh. She wouldn’t have let herself feel this, not all the way down. She wouldn’t have let her heart feel bruised or tender. Wouldn’t have let a wave of pain roll over her. Wouldn’t have let herself feel it, not really.
And when she walked out of his house, sniffling, her shoulders shaking, and could no longer hold back the sob that was building in her chest by the time she reached her car, she didn’t care. She didn’t feel ashamed.
There was no shame in loving someone.
She opened the driver-side door and sat down. And then the dam burst. She had loved so many people who had never loved her in return. Not the way she loved them. She had made herself hard because of it. She had put the shame on her own shoulders.
That somehow a seventeen-year-old girl should have known that her teacher was lying to her. That somehow a daughter whose father had walked her down Main Street and bought her sweets in a little shop should have known that her father’s affection had its limits.
That a woman who had met a man who had finally reached deep inside her and moved all those defenses she had erected around her heart should have known that in the end he would break it.
No. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t the love that was bad. It was the pride. The shame. The fear. Those were the things that needed to be gotten rid of.
She took a deep, shaking breath. She blinked hard, forcing the rest of her tears to fall, and then she started the car.
She would be okay. Because she had found herself again. Had learned how to love again. Had found a deep certainty and confidence in herself that had been missing for so long.
But as she drove away, she still felt torn in two. Because while she had been made whole, she knew that she was leaving Sam behind, still as broken as she had found him.
Chapter 12
Sam thought he might be dying. But then, that could easily be alcohol poisoning. He had been drinking and going from his house into his studio for the past two days. And that was it. He hadn’t talked to anyone. He had nothing to say. He had sent Maddy away, and while he was firmly convinced it was the only thing he could have done, it hurt like a son of a bitch.
It shouldn’t. It had been necessary. He couldn’t love her the way that she wanted him to. He couldn’t. There was no way in hell. Not a man like him.
Her words started to crowd in on him unbidden, the exact opposite thing that he wanted to remember right now. About how there was no point blaming himself. About how that wasn’t the real issue. He growled, grabbing hold of the hammer he’d been using and flinging it across the room. It landed in a pile of scrap metal, the sound satisfying, the lack of damage unsatisfying.
He had a fire burning hot, and the room was stifling. He stripped his shirt off, feeling like he couldn’t catch his breath. He felt like he was losing his mind. But then, he wasn’t a stranger to it. He had felt this way after his parents had died. Again after Elizabeth. There was so much inside him, and there was nowhere for it to go.
And just like those other times, he didn’t deserve this pain. Not at all. He was the one who had hurt her. He was the one who couldn’t stand up to that declaration of love. He didn’t deserve this pain.
But no matter how deep he tried to push it down, no matter how he tried to pound it out with a hammer, it still remained. And his brain was blank. He couldn’t even figure out how the hell he might fashion some of this material into another cow.
It was like the thing inside him that told him how to create things had left along with Maddy.
He looked over at the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that was sitting on his workbench. And cursed when he saw that it was empty. He was going to have to get more. But he wasn’t sure he had more in the house. Which meant leaving the house. Maybe going to Chase’s place and seeing if there was anything to take. Between that and sobriety it was a difficult choice.
He looked around, looked at the horse that he had bent Maddy over just three days ago. Everything seemed dead now. Cold. Dark. Usually he felt the life in the things that he made. Something he would never tell anyone, because it sounded stupid. Because it exposed him.
But it was like Maddy had come in here and changed things. Taken everything with her when she left.
He walked over to the horse, braced his hands on the back of it and leaned forward, giving into the wave of pain that crashed over him suddenly, uncontrollably.
“I thought I might find you in here.”
Sam lifted his head at the sound of his brother’s voice. “I’m busy.”
“Right. Which is why there is nothing new in here, but it smells flammable.”
“I had a drink.”
“Or twelve,” Chase said, sounding surprisingly sympathetic. “If you get too close to that forge, you’re going to burst into flame.”
“That might not be so bad.”
“What’s going on? You’re always a grumpy bastard, but this is different. You don’t usually disappear for days at a time. Actually, I can pick up a couple of times that you’ve done that in the past. You usually reemerge worse and even more impossible than you were before. So if that is what’s happening here, I would appreciate a heads-up.”
“It’s nothing. Artistic temper tantrum.”
“I don’t believe that.” Chase crossed his arms and leaned against the back wall of the studio, making it very clear that he intended to stay until Sam told him something.
Fine. The bastard could hang out all day for all he cared. It didn’t mean he had to talk.
“Believe whatever you want,” Sam said. “But it’s not going to make hanging out here any more interesting. I can’t figure out what to make next. Are you happy? I have no idea. I have no inspiration.” Sudden
ly, everything in him boiled over. “And I hate that. I hate that it matters. I should just be able to think of something to do. Or not care if I don’t want to do it. But somehow, I can’t make it work if I don’t care at least a little bit. I hate caring, Chase. I hate it.”
He hated it for every damn thing. Every damn, fragile thing.
“I know,” Chase said. “And I blame Dad for that. He didn’t understand. That isn’t your fault. And it’s not your flaw that you care. Think about the way he was about ranching. It was ridiculous. Weather that didn’t go his way would send him into some kind of emotional tailspin for weeks. And he felt the same way about iron that you do. It’s just that he felt compelled to shape it into things that had a function. But he took pride in his work. And he was an artist with it—you know he was. If anything, I think he was shocked by what you could do. Maybe even a little bit jealous. And he didn’t know what to do with it.”
Sam resisted those words. And the truth in them. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Because it’s why you can’t talk about what you do. It’s why you don’t take pride in it the way that you should. It’s why you’re sitting here downplaying the fact you’re having some kind of art block when it’s been pretty clear for a few months that you have been.”
“It shouldn’t be a thing.”
Chase shrugged. “Maybe not. But the very thing that makes your work valuable is also what makes it difficult. You’re not a machine.”
Sam wished he was. More than anything, he wished that he was. So that he wouldn’t care about a damn thing. So that he wouldn’t care about Maddy.
Softness, curves, floated to the forefront of his mind. Darkness and grief. All the inspiration he could ever want. Except that he couldn’t take it. It wasn’t his. He didn’t own it. None of it.
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