A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances)

by Quint, Suzie

  Georgia shook her head. “No.” Her voice had a tremor in it. “I mean, yes, but . . . no.”

  “Okay. Then I’m officially confused. You drove all the way to Mesquite, hunted me down in a bar after a rodeo—” He went still. “Were you there? At the rodeo?”

  Georgia nodded.

  Sol was silent for several very long seconds. Finally, his mouth moved, starting to shape a question then a different one, but no sound came out. He ran a hand over the lower half of his face then scratched his jaw. “I don’t even know what to ask. Do you wanna help me out here?”

  Georgia took a deep breath. “Maybe . . . why now?”

  “That’ll do. Why now? What’s changed that you came all this way to talk about . . . whatever you came to talk about?”

  “Everything. Everything has changed. I’m seeing things more clearly than I have in years . . . or maybe ever.” God, this is hard. “Living in Dallas, only seeing you now and then when we traded off Eden, it was so easy to tell myself I’d done the smart thing. But being around you this summer . . . I’m not so sure.”

  “Oh, man.” Sol’s head dropped. All she could see was the top of his hat. That scared her. She needed to see his face.

  “What, Sol? What are you thinking?”

  His head came up slowly. “I think you’re going to tell me you’ve done something so bad, I can’t even imagine it.”

  Lifting her hands like she was about to pray, Georgia covered her nose and mouth as she realized how bad things were. Her thinking had been screwed up for a long time, but now she saw that this emotional sickness in her family had spread like a contagious virus, infecting Sol, too. He expected her to kick him in the gut.

  She swallowed. The time had come to bare her heart—maybe even her soul. She owed him that. It didn’t matter if he turned away from her—no, it did matter. It mattered a great deal, but she couldn’t let her fear that she’d made him wait too long stop her. Illogical? Maybe. But for all that logic said she was worried about nothing, she hadn’t quite shaken the idea that Sol loved riding more than he loved her.

  She filled her lungs with the night air. “Do you remember the last time Bill Marshall rode?”

  Sol’s expression was blank, as if her transition had left him behind. A second later, he caught up, and his mouth tightened. He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “That was a long time ago. We were still married.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip. Once she started this, changing her mind wasn’t going to be an option. Then again, it was probably already too late. “I never told you how I felt about you riding after that day.”

  He looked at her for a long time. It felt like five minutes of silence, but it probably wasn’t more than thirty seconds. Or roughly four bull rides. A really long time. Finally, he said, “Go on.”

  “I thought . . .” She swallowed and made herself tell him. “If that could happen to Bill, it could happen to you. I never believed it before Bill got hurt, but I knew it then. You could get hurt. You could even—” The word she’d intended wouldn’t pass her lips. “I got scared.”

  Here it was. This was the moment when she bared her soul. “I was afraid you’d get on a bad bull and . . . and . . . you’d . . .” Her throat slammed shut.

  Sol looked at her as if he didn’t know how that sentence ended. How can he not know? Her throat ached but she forced herself to say, “You wouldn’t come home.”

  Another silence. Long enough to scare her. When he finally spoke, his voice was detached, and that scared her even more.

  “Are you telling me you left because of the bulls?”

  “Yes.” A whisper was the best she could manage.

  He dropped his head and kicked the toe of his boot against the sidewalk.

  She’d never hated his cowboy hat before, but it was hiding his face again. Her teeth worried her lip while she waited for his response.

  Finally, he looked up. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t I get some say in what was happening in my marriage?” He was still too calm.

  “Would you have quit riding for me?”

  His face was blank again. No, not blank. But it held none of the emotions she’d hoped for or feared. Stunned surprise. That was the expression on his face.

  “That’s what you wanted? For me to quit riding? That’s what it would have taken to keep you?” He swiped his hand down his face. “I can’t believe it.” He turned and paced, no, stomped several feet away from her, then spun and pointed at her. “You’re asking that now? Why the hell didn’t you ask then?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Her mouth had gone as dry as West Texas. She swallowed, trying to find some moisture in her mouth.

  “So you decided riding bulls was more important to me than you were? Without even talking to me?”

  In spite of the warm air, she felt cold. Her best-case scenario had been that he’d understand, they’d fall into each other’s arms and ride off into the sunset together. The worst-case scenario she’d conjured up was that he loved riding more than he loved her or that he’d finally given up loving her altogether. Somewhere in the middle had been that he’d rant and rave a bit and then they’d work it out. She’d known that was more likely, but the fight she’d imagined involved heat. Something that reflected an underlying fire. This icy calm? She didn’t know what it meant.

  He lifted his hands. There was exasperation in his gesture. “You left me and all I had was riding. Even after Eden was born, you wouldn’t come back.” His voice escalated. “And now, twelve years later, I find out it was all about the bulls?”

  Some of the fire she’d hoped for finally appeared, but that initial coldness had thrown her off script. She didn’t know how to respond.

  Sol’s hands dropped to his thighs, slapping loudly against his jeans. “I don’t remember anything in our wedding vows that said you got to decide what I cared about and how I ranked it.”

  “Sol, I’m sorry. More sorry than you can imagine, but you don’t know the hell it is to watch someone you love get tossed off a bull and have to sit there, helpless, when the bull turns around and goes after you. I was scared all the time.”

  “But you didn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me with that.”

  His voice was louder now, and oddly, Georgia found reassurance in that. “You love riding. If you didn’t love it, you wouldn’t have kept doing it for the last twelve years.”

  “Yeah. Twelve years.” He ran a hand across his forehead. “Twelve years when you coulda spoke up.” His gaze was hard and angry, and it pinned her to the wall. “Twelve years I’ve tormented myself, wondering what the hell I did wrong. Twelve years wasted.”

  Georgia caught her breath. Did he mean wasted because they could have been together? Or wasted in pursuit of her?

  She could defend her choices twelve years ago. Her decisions were the result of her youth and inexperience. Of loving him but not wanting the marriage her parents had. What she couldn’t defend was twelve years of silence. Those years were the result of habit, of not stopping to examine her life and her choices sooner. Of fear.

  The knowledge that she had no good defense kept her silent even as Sol glared at her. When the silence continued, he held his hand out as though offering her a place to lay her explanation.

  What little she could offer had never felt so inadequate.

  Fighting was something they’d done a lot of this summer. It usually ended with her walking away, but this time, Sol was the one who turned and left her standing alone on the empty sidewalk.

  And she didn’t even blame him.

  ###

  “Somethin’ wrong?” Zach asked the next morning as Sol gave the door to the cattle hauler a final shake to make sure it was secure.

  “Nope.”

  They separated, each walking the length of the trailer to the front of the truck. Sol stepped onto the running board to reach the door and swing into the passenger seat as Zach did the same on the opposite side.

  They were on the fre
eway heading home before Zach spoke again. “Terry mentioned that Georgia showed up at the bar last night. Everything okay at home?”

  “Yeah. Everything’s just fine.”

  Zach winced and Sol realized he should have dialed back the sarcasm.

  “If you want to talk about it . . .”

  Zach’s voice trailed off, a clear indication his heart wasn’t in the offer. And why would it be? Guys didn’t talk about relationships. Especially when they were going badly. And this? God forbid. Sol wouldn’t even know where to start. “Nope. Nothing to talk about.”

  Two miles down the road, he said, “She left because I was riding bulls.”

  He kept his eyes forward, but he still caught the edge of Zach’s sideways glance. “Oh.”

  A drop of rain hit the windshield. Another one splatted a few inches away. A half a dozen drops later, they came faster. Big, fat drops. Zach turned on the wipers.

  Sol hoped it was raining at home. They needed the moisture.

  Another half mile.

  “Do you mean that’s why she left twelve years ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmm.”

  Rain pelted the windshield.

  A mile later.

  “I can’t believe she waited twelve years to tell me that.” Just like he couldn’t believe he’d said that out loud.

  He was about to breathe a sigh of relief at the silence that followed when Zach said, “Why didn’t she tell you back then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Two miles down the road, “You really had no clue that was why she left?”

  “Not a single, solitary one.”

  Now would be a good time for Zach to laugh at him. Sol was grateful when his brother refrained.

  Another mile passed. The rain came down in sheets.

  “Maddie likes to think things through sometimes before she talks to me about stuff, but twelve years seems a little excessive.”

  “That’s kinda what I thought.”

  He didn’t understand the twelve-year gap between Georgia’s leaving and her confession. Why the hell hadn’t she told him back then? Did she really think he loved rodeoing more than he’d loved her? That was just stupid.

  The high from riding lasted only eight seconds and came only once or twice a week. The high of loving her had filled the rest of his life. If she’d asked him to give up riding, of course he would have.

  But there was a thread of doubt. He wasn’t that eighteen-year-old boy any longer. He was older now and smarter. Well, maybe not smarter. Wiser, perhaps. Enough to know the choice today would be easy. Loving Georgia would give him purpose for his entire life; his rodeo life was nearly done.

  But twelve years ago, would he have made the same choice?

  His daddy had ridden, and he’d wanted to be the kind of man his father was. He still did. Back then, he’d seen rodeo as the path that would take him there. It wasn’t the only path. That was obvious to him now, but he wasn’t sure he saw that at eighteen.

  He was grateful Zach wasn’t a naturally chatty person because he was going to need the rest of the drive home to think this through.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The back stoop had always been where they’d gone to talk without their parents eavesdropping, so it didn’t surprise Georgia that the rain didn’t stop Bethany from pulling her out the kitchen door shortly after she got home. “How did it go?”

  The anticipation in Bethany’s voice and the gleam in her eyes made Georgia wince. “Not as well as I’d hoped,” she said.

  “Are you really telling me Sol didn’t leap all over you when you told him you loved him?”

  The rain was coming down at an angle, infringing on the space under the roof’s overhang. Georgia huddled close to the door, trying to stay dry. “I didn’t get that far. Sol got pretty mad when I told him I left because of the bull riding.”

  “Are you kidding me? You didn’t lead with ‘I love you and I want to be with you’? What kind of idiot are you?”

  “All kinds apparently.” The angle of the rain sharpened. Georgia grabbed Bethany’s arm and pulled her closer to the door. That was better. If Bethany didn’t have sense enough to figure out a better place to talk, she could at least provide a windbreak. “I was dumb for not asking when I left him, but I wanted to know if he’d loved me enough to quit for me.”

  She must have looked as miserable as she felt because Bethany put her arm around her shoulder and hugged her. “Ah, honey. Bless your heart, you’re just as dumb as they come, aren’t you?”

  Georgia couldn’t stop the bark of self-deprecating laughter.

  “It doesn’t matter what he would have done back then,” Bethany said. “You can’t get that time back no matter what. The important thing is what he wants to do today.”

  Of course that was true, but she wasn’t at all sure Sol was as enamored with the idea of having her back as he’d been when the summer started. And why would he be? If all the contact they’d had this summer had changed how she saw him, it could certainly make him realize she wasn’t the prize he’d always thought she was.

  ###

  Georgia appreciated that her daddy and Grams barely made note of her absence after Bethany left. Her mama made up for them by being extra demanding. No surprise there. She’d always had ways of making sure she was the center of attention. Being treated like a personal servant was Georgia’s punishment for not remembering that. It wasn’t until her mama decided to take a late afternoon nap that Georgia had the chance to take an extra breath.

  It wasn’t a blessing.

  Having nothing to do let her restlessness rise to the top. The long-awaited rain kept her inside, so she practically prowled her parents’ house, looking for something that would keep her from picking up the phone. Even letting Sol yell at her was better than silence, but starting a conversation too soon with him wouldn’t get her what she wanted.

  She could go to The Lariat, she thought. And do what? Catch up with Tommy? Except Tommy’s life finally seemed to be on track. He wouldn’t want to hear about her problems. Gak. She was obsessing. Next thing she knew, she’d be driving past Sol’s to see if he was home like some lovesick teenager.

  When her cell finally rang, she pounced on it. Eden. Riding to her mother’s rescue.

  “Hey, sugar britches.”

  “Mama.”

  With that one word, Sol faded into the background. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  Eden sniffed and Georgia could see her daughter’s lower lip tremble even though there were miles between them. “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”

  “Deanne’s parents are getting married. They’re going to . . . to . . . live in Houston.”

  “Oh, baby.” Daniel hadn’t mentioned moving, but Georgia had figured it was a possibility. “I’m so sorry.”

  Eden sniffed again.

  Not an hour before, Georgia had dismissed the idea of going to see her daughter because Sol might be there. In her present state of mind, she couldn’t be trusted that close to him, but Eden’s distress trumped her need. She told her daughter to sit tight; she was on her way.

  ###

  A half an hour later, Georgia sat on the bed in the room Eden shared with Sol’s sisters Hannah and Leah. The older girls had considerately vacated, leaving mother and daughter alone.

  Georgia’s heart broke as she watched her daughter trying so hard to be brave. Eden had not only lost her dream that she and Deanne might end up sisters, but now her best friend wouldn’t even be there when school started back up. That was a cruel enough blow, but having it come on the cusp of puberty? No promise Georgia could make about how they’d still get to see each other would make up for that. And Eden was still young enough that future promises didn’t mitigate the loss anyway.

  Being brave didn’t trump mopey, however, as Georgia well knew. High energy as they’d been, her own mopes had been cured by only Eden’s call. What Eden needed was a distraction. Something to pull her out of herself. The obvio
us answer could easily blow up in her face, but Georgia decided to risk it.

  “Come on, sugar. Borrow a jacket. We’re going outside.”

  For a moment, Eden’s sad face morphed into surprise. “But it’s raining out.”

  Georgia kissed her daughter’s forehead. “You’re sweet, sugarplum, but you won’t melt in the rain.”

  While Eden borrowed a jacket from Leah, Georgia went to the kitchen for some carrots. She tucked them in the pocket of the lined denim jacket she’d borrowed from her daddy.

  Leah’s black, nylon jacket swamped Eden just as Georgia’s daddy’s jacket did her. Except for the difference in height, they could have been twins. Eden didn’t know where she’d left her hat, so Georgia plunked her cowboy hat on her daughter’s head.

  As they stepped outside, she grabbed her daughter’s hand, giving Eden no choice but to run with her. They dashed into the rain, Eden trying to turtle her head into the jacket’s collar. Between the hat and the collar, her view had to be limited. Georgia felt a twinge, as if she were about to betray her daughter.

  And maybe that’s what Eden would think, too, but Georgia had to try.

  The horse barn was warmer than outside. Not by a lot, but at least it was dry. Eden shook the water off then looked around. Georgia pretended not to notice when her daughter froze.

  Knowing Eden would remember her mama’s reservations, Georgia hadn’t talked to her about Spitfire’s injury. Instead, she’d trusted Sol and Daisy to say whatever needed to be said. They hadn’t found the magic bullet, but maybe Eden hadn’t been ready. Georgia hoped she was ready now because one thing Georgia knew from her own childhood was that tears cried onto the necks of dogs and horses had magical healing powers.

  She left Eden standing by the door.

  To Georgia’s relief, the horse barn had more occupants than when she’d been there with Sol. The black mare Daisy was training occupied the second stall on the right. The horse nickered at the sight of them. Georgia slipped a carrot out of her pocket, snapped it in two, and held out a piece. Lola took two steps forward and lipped the carrot off Georgia’s palm.

  “What a sweet baby,” Georgia crooned as she slipped her hand under Lola’s forelock and scratched. Lola didn’t mind, but it wasn’t what she wanted. She stuck her head over the gate and nosed Georgia’s jacket, snuffling for more carrots.