I called Macy and she came right over. I was already pacing when she got there, and I hadn’t stopped. At this point, I might very well wear a path in the floor.
“Then he completely melted down when the guys keyed his truck,” I said. “Which, obviously, is not cool. I’m not going to jump to their defense or anything. But it was still just a stupid, juvenile prank. It didn’t justify him going off the deep end the way he did and pummeling them. Two of them had to go to the hospital. The hospital, Macy. So, I call him out for it, and suddenly, he decides he’s going to say he doesn’t think we should be together. He’s not good enough for me. Who says that and actually means it? That’s like the even more dramatic version of ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’”
I was on a roll. “Then, when he started walking away, I told him not to go. I literally told him if he drove away, I was never going to forgive him and he had no reason to come back. He didn’t even hesitate. He just got in his truck and raced off anyway. How dare he? How dare he do something like that?”
For the last forty-five minutes, Macy had just sat there on the couch mostly watching and listening. I didn’t know if it was because she didn’t really have anything to say because she just wanted to let me vent and get everything out or if I wasn’t giving her a chance to get more words in edgewise.
The words just kept sweating out of me. Every time I asked a question, I ended up answering it for myself. There wasn’t really anything that she could say anyway. I just had to get it out. I couldn’t let all the feelings fester and rumble around inside me.
Finally, I stopped pacing and let out a heavy breath. “Why does this hurt so much?”
It shouldn’t. In the logical part of my mind, I knew that. It made perfect sense for me to be angry. Him pulling this nonsense should absolutely piss me off. But being hurt by it was something completely different. Somehow, it felt like I should have more confidence or that I didn’t value myself enough.
Colt just walked away from me. He literally turned his back on me and left after I told him that would be it for us. It was understandable for me to be completely furious and offended, but I didn’t understand why it hurt so deeply.
It was Macy’s turn to actually speak up. She did so carefully, like she wasn’t sure if I was going to let her get everything out before cutting her off.
“Maybe it’s because this thing between you two is more than just a crush?” It was somewhere between a suggestion and a question. It left my head spinning.
That wasn’t something I expected her to say. More than a crush? She couldn’t possibly mean what I thought she meant by that. I had fleetingly toyed with the idea that my feelings for Colt were growing and maybe it could be more than just a brief fling. But it hadn’t gotten any further than that.
It couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly be falling for this guy. Not so fast, and not somebody like him.
But had I already fallen?
I carried that thought with me as I walked over to the couch and dropped down to sit beside Macy. I stared in front of me for a few moments, just contemplating what she said and tossing the possibility around in my mind. She leaned toward me just slightly, like she wanted to make sure I remembered she was still there.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“I haven’t known him that long. In the greater scheme of things, we really barely know each other.”
Macy shrugged. “Except that you told me you told him all about your past and he opened up to you about his as well. He even brought you back to his family’s ranch and introduced you to his brothers. That’s not just a casual acquaintance.”
“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel or what I’m supposed to think,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything even close to this about anybody else. Especially not this fast. Could I actually have fallen for him already? He makes me feel beautiful and understood. He makes me feel safe. At least, he did up until today when he came completely unhinged.”
I let out an exasperated groan and ran my fingers back through my hair as I hung my head.
“That’s definitely something to take into consideration,” Macy said. “It’s good to know how people react to things.”
I sat back up. “I know he’s under a lot of pressure right now. With the rodeo and his family. It’s a lot, and I know it’s stressful. But I don’t want to be with someone who can’t keep their cool when push comes to shove. Things don’t always work out in life, and I need to know the person I want to be with can handle things like that without totally falling apart. Today seems like kind of a red flag.”
Macy nodded. “I mean, yeah. That doesn’t sound like his best showing—as a person, as a potential partner in your life, kind of in general. It doesn’t sound like he exactly did all the right things. But I also don’t feel like that was the real Colt. I don’t think that was how he really is, or even what he actually wanted to do.”
“So, what are you saying?” I asked. “You think that was all for show?”
“I can’t say anything for sure, obviously. I don’t know what he was thinking. But baby, it’s worth having one more conversation with him before you walk away from him for good. It sounds like both of you were in pretty difficult states of mind at the time. You were both going through some stuff. And maybe you don’t know everything that happened while you were at the ranch with his brothers. Now that you both had a little bit of time away from it, maybe it’s time to actually talk about it.”
Hearing it come from Macy, the suggestion made so much sense. I really didn’t know exactly what happened after Colt stormed out of the house and Jesse followed him. I didn’t know what they talked about or what might have been said or revealed. A million things could have been going through Colt’s head after we left, and I didn’t even take the time to ask him.
It didn’t give him an excuse. He still completely flew off the handle and attacked those guys after they keyed his truck. I knew getting involved with a cowboy would mean being with someone a bit more rough and tumble. It wasn’t like I hadn’t dated rodeo-type guys before. There was just no excuse for that level of uncontrolled violence, no matter what else was going on. But it did explain it a little more.
Maybe I should have been a little more patient with him rather than immediately jumping down his throat about what happened. I could have at least asked what was going on with him or tried to be there for him more.
“You’re right,” I said to Macy. “I need to talk to him.”
I got up and headed for the door to my trailer.
“What are you going to do?” Macy asked.
“I need to find him. Jake’s still recovering from that concussion, right?”
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s just in his trailer. The medic is keeping an eye on him.”
“Great. Then I can borrow his car. I’ll keep you updated.”
Borrowing his car meant something more along the lines of stealing it, but he wouldn’t be using it anytime soon. A head-first topple off a horse was going to leave him incapacitated for a good while. He would barely even notice it was gone. And if he did, there wouldn’t be much he could do about it anyway, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.
Right now, what mattered was getting to Colt.
I grabbed the key from the magnetic box tucked up under the wheel well of the car, hopped in, and headed where I suspected Colt would have gone when he drove away. Green Valley.
Chapter 33
Colt
Roy let go of the glass and it bounced off the bar, rolling until Bill caught it. He was lucky it didn’t shatter. Roy was luckier. After the day I had, I wasn’t completely against taking a broken shard of it and carving my name in his chest like Zorro.
I could feel the tension rising to the point where someone was going to do something. As much as I knew I would have to fight dirty against Roy, on account that he was going to fight dirty with zero question, I still wanted him to make the first move. I always did. That way, I
could always go back and say, “yeah, well, he threw the first punch.”
It wasn’t much, but it was one leg to stand on.
My fists clenched and my arms tightened. I was ready to take a shot from Roy, even if he chose my ribs. It would hurt a lot, but I would survive and give him one hell of a shot back.
All I could hope was that he hadn’t noticed me favoring that side and would try, like a dummy, to hit me in the face. I rode wild bucking horses for a living. Getting smashed in the face was nothing new. He could hit me as hard as he wanted above the neck and it’d be just another Sunday.
The grin faded from Roy’s face and I steeled myself. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen in just a moment. I sent one last silent wish to the universe that he didn’t aim at my ribs first. Anything but my ribs.
“Stand down, Roy Hayes,” came a commanding voice from the corner of the bar. It completely took both of us aside and slowly he turned to look in that direction. Standing at a booth, a beer in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other was Old Man Farnsworth. His son, Eddie, was one of the fellas that had come up to talk to me and then realized I wasn’t in a talking mood. He turned his eyes to me and I could see that somewhere in that look, he was telling me “thanks for finding my horse.”
“Stay out of this, you old fart,” Roy said.
“Hey,” Eddie said, standing. His considerable gut knocked over his beer and spilled it on his table. Not that he reacted to it at all. “You apologize to my father, Roy.”
“The hell I will,” Roy said.
“Son,” Old Man Farnsworth said. I realized I didn’t remember his real first name. He had self-referred as Old Man Farnsworth for so long that I forgot it. Then it dawned on me. Eddie wasn’t Eddie. It was Edward Jr. “My family has been alongside both of your families’ ranches for half a century or more. I’ve broken up fights between both of your fathers in this very bar. Now, listen to me. If you think you can come in here and bully young Colt around just because he’s a Montgomery, you’re going to have to deal with us too.”
I was stunned. Since when did folks back our family up in bars? Against Roy Hayes? What the hell had Roy been up to while I was gone to get the swell of public opinion on our side?
“Just sit down and eat your damn baskets of wings, Farnsworth,” Roy said. “Mind your own business. Colt will only take about a minute to dispense with. I’ll lock him up like usual and you all can go on with your highly illegal overserved drinking. Bill.”
“Eddie isn’t the only one telling you to back off, Roy,” Tommy said, standing up from his stool. “You’re being an ass. Like usual.”
“Tommy, just shut your mouth,” Roy said, getting visibly agitated. Apparently, he didn’t expect the bar patrons to be on my side either. “I know about your moonshine and I know about how your sister smokes that nasty city weed. If you don’t stay out of this, I just might have to make a surprise visit up there tomorrow and bust the whole damn family. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like a threat,” Eddie Jr. said. “Sounds like you are using your badge to bully the people of Green Valley. Again. And it also sounds like we are about done taking it. All of us.”
Roy’s eyes went wide and there was a sudden silence. He looked from the Farnsworths to Tommy and back to me. Everything in him seemed to want to just launch at us, but he was hesitant. Suddenly, the door in the back of the bar opened, and Roy’s terrified expression turned into a vicious and disgusting smile. I let myself look away from him for a split second to see who was coming in and I nearly spit. Roy’s brother Ben was walking in, along with one of his buddies, Carl Winston. Carl should have been in prison for a multitude of assaults that the Hayes brothers turned a blind eye to. Some of them because they directed the assault in the first place.
“Seems like the numbers just evened up,” Roy said as I turned back to him. Our eyes locked on each other. “Now the question is, are you going to slither away and out of my town like the little bitch you are, or are you going to take this ass-beating like a man?”
“Roy,” I said dismissively, “the only ass you beat is your sisters.”
That was enough. Insulting Addie Hayes was the one button I knew I could push that would always get Roy to swing first. Sure enough, he lunged at me, still as gangly and slow as ever, and I sidestepped him. He slammed his hip into the bar, and I was on him immediately.
Commotion filled the room and there was a full-blown brawl instantly. Thomas tackled Carl and the two of them tumbled into the doorway. Ben went to help Carl, but Eddie Jr. grabbed him from behind and spun him, landing a shot to his jaw that rocked the six-foot-three monster of a man. I didn’t know how smart it was for Eddie to pick the fight with Ben, but I was glad for it. I was going to have my hands full with the wily Roy, and the last thing I needed was to fend off a fully fresh Ben too.
I was laying in shots on Roy when he instinctively raised his knee and cracked me in the ribs. I yowled in pain and crumpled backward, seeing the flash cross Roy’s eyes. He saw how much pain that caused me, and now I was as good as having a target painted on my side. He swung a fist at it, but I turned into it so he hit me in the center of my stomach. It knocked the wind out of me, but I bent over his fist and wrapped my arm around his.
Rearing back with the other arm, I elbowed him hard in the side of the head. Stretching in that manner hurt like hell on my ribs, but I threw a second while he wrestled his hand free. Suddenly, he was throwing haymakers at me with both hands and at any surface area he could hit. I shoved him backward into the bar and there was a sudden crash of glass. I looked up and saw Roy blinking hard as he tried to regain composure from being stunned. Behind him, Bill stood with the shards of a glass mug in his hand.
“Get out of here,” I shouted at him as I slammed my fist into Roy’s ribs before he could fully recover. Bill was in no shape, physically or age-wise, to get involved in a barfight. He scurried off to the stairs to wait it out, and I tried to wrangle Roy into a headlock.
I glanced up and saw Ben holding Eddie Jr. with one hand and swinging at him with the other, but Eddie Sr. crashed a chair over his back, making him lose his grip. The two of them went to work wailing away on him, and for as concerned as I was about Bill, I had no such worries about Mr. Farnsworth, despite him being at least ten years his senior. Eddie Sr. still worked the fields every day, and I had personally seen him wrestle a bull down to tie him not five years before. He might have been old, and he might have lost all his teeth, but he was tougher than nails.
While I was distracted by the fighting prowess of an ancient cowboy, Roy had wiggled out of my grasp and shoved me into the floor of the bar, knocking over a table in the process of falling onto my knees. Before I could get up, he was on me, wrapping some sort of cord around my neck. I realized it must have been the Christmas lights Bill kept up inside the bar all year in lieu of actual lighting. He said it made the place more festive and, inconsequentially, was cheaper to keep lit than actual lamps and overhead lighting. At that moment, I hated Bill’s thriftiness almost as much as I hated his love of Christmas.
I got one hand under the cord and wiggled it until it was over the center of my throat. Creating just enough leverage that he couldn’t choke me out, I tried to summon all my strength. In one huge push, I extended my legs and threw my body backward. The top of the back of my head slammed into his face and we went tumbling into a table and some chairs, completely obliterating one and sending stale beer all over the place.
Suddenly, the floor was slippery and Roy had trouble getting to his feet. He fell on his ass hard and then scrambled up to his knees using a chair for stability. I saw my opportunity and rushed him, tackling him and slamming his side into the two stairs that separated the restaurant area of the building from the bar. Now we were about even on the rib category.
He let out a wail of anger and I lunged forward with my fist, landing it hard on his jaw. I felt him crumble under the shot and knew I had a chance at winning the damn fight. Anoth
er blow got him rocked and he scrambled away to get some space. I chased after him, slipping on some of the spilled beer and we crashed into the bar.
I was vaguely aware that I could hear Ben barking orders in the corner, and realized the Farnsworths may have lost their battle. I reached for Roy and missed, giving him just enough room to slam his knee into my neck. I stumbled and he grabbed me by the back of my jacket and my belt and slammed me into the bar, hard.
My ribs screamed in pain and I let out a roar to match it. Something heavy slammed over my head and some of the fight drained out of me. I heard the tinkle of glass nearby and realized Roy must have smashed one of the mugs over my head. Another one came down on the back of my neck and then again on the back of my skull, making it explode.
Glass was everywhere and I was suddenly dazed and blurry. I could feel blood trickling out of a wound in the back of my head as well as some small cuts on my face from glass shards. Vaguely, I was aware I was bent over the bar and my arm was moving without my input. It wrenched behind me and my ribs came back to life with another scream of pain. I bucked backward and tried to fight back, but another fist hit my jaw and everything in my vision went gray.
Chapter 34
Leah
It felt like it took longer to get to the Montgomery Ranch this time than it had when I was riding with Colt. I wasn’t having to try to come up with things to babble about to keep him calm, but that also meant there was no sound in the car with me. I was left with just my thoughts. I turned on the radio and got the music blasting, but even that wasn’t enough to quiet what was going through my head.
The road seemed to stretch on and on in front of me. As if the anxiety of knowing how important it was to talk to him was making every minute longer. There was a point when it felt like maybe I had gone the wrong direction, like I didn’t remember how to get there.
His Sexy Smile Page 19
