“Why don’t we talk about this later. After the finals in Vegas. I know people don’t think it’s right that I got the ranch, and I want to be fair about it. But for now, let’s first lay David’s soul to rest, shall we? After the Finals, we’ll talk.”
Tanner could only nod as a chill entered his soul. His past mistakes had been enough to carry into the finals. Now his future was added to that burden, as well?
“That’s all I can ask for,” he said quietly. “For now I need to go talk to Keira.”
Alice’s lips tightened at the mention of her name but thankfully she didn’t say anything more. Tanner left the room but Keira wasn’t in the kitchen when he returned. Monty and Ellen were making a valiant attempt at cleaning up and as Alice entered the kitchen she reprimanded them and took over.
“If you’re looking for Keira, she went out to the shop,” Ellen said to Tanner as she set a stack of dishes on the island by the dishwasher. “You go talk to her. We can finish up here.”
Tanner didn’t need any further encouragement, but the note of concern in Ellen’s voice gave him added impetus. He hurried to the porch, grabbed his jacket and threaded his hands through the sleeves as he tried to jam his feet into his boots. Urgency made him clumsy and slowed his movements.
Finally he was out the door, the wan light of the shop casting a glow over the shoveled walkway.
The door of the shop was ajar and he heard Keira’s quiet voice and he realized she was talking to Sugar.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, the plaintiveness in her voice tearing at his soul. She sounded lost. Alone.
Scared.
But why?
Help me through this, Lord, he prayed, not sure what else to do. Then he pushed open the door, it’s squeak echoing through the quiet of the shop.
Keira sat on the floor, her back resting against the workbench, stroking Sugar’s head, who was curled up beside her.
Both Sugar and Keira looked up at Tanner as he closed the door behind him. Neither got up, as if they’d known he was coming. As he came closer Tanner’s heartbeat faltered at the sight of Keira’s face. Her eyes were red rimmed and haunted. Her features looked as if they had been dragged down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping to her side, sliding his arm around her shoulders.
She resisted a moment, then drifted into him, her head resting on his shoulder.
“We need to talk.”
Four words no man ever wanted to hear. Tanner sent up another prayer and waited. And for the second time this evening, feeling as if far too much was riding on this moment.
* * *
“Sorry I took off on you,” Keira whispered, letting the warmth of Tanner’s shoulder seep into her. Her forehead felt tight and her cheeks were hot, but inside she felt cold as ice.
Tanner took her hand in his. It was warm and completely enfolded hers. She heard his ragged sigh and she waited a moment longer, allowing herself this moment of calm before everything between them changed.
“That’s okay,” Tanner said. “I guessed Alice upset you. I would have come after you but she needed to talk to me.”
“What about?” Keira knew her inane question was simply putting off the inevitable, but she couldn’t simply jump into this.
“The ranch. If all goes well at the NFR, she said she would consider finding a way to make it mine when I come back from Vegas.” He clasped her hand just a bit tighter. “Which I’m excited about. Because that will mean I can think about a future. Here. In the valley.”
In his voice she heard a hope that both excited her and sent her heart spiraling downward. Would they have a future?
“What did you need to say to me?” he asked. “In the house you said we would talk later.”
Keira felt as if she stood on the edge of a precipice, teetering, struggling to hold her balance. Once she released the words there was no taking them back. They would be out in the world, real. Alive.
She closed her eyes, clinging to Tanner’s hand, praying for strength and courage.
“It’s about David...” She faltered, wishing she didn’t have to have this conversation but knowing that if they were going to move into the future that she hoped they might have, this needed to be dealt with.
Tanner stiffened, dropping her hands. Creating a distance that chipped away at her resolve.
“Did you want to marry him?” he said with narrowed eyes and clenched teeth.
Keira grabbed his shoulder, praying he believed her. “No. Never. David was delusional. I never wanted to marry him. Ever.” She spoke with force, clinging to her anger to control her fear.
“I’m glad,” was all Tanner said. His displeasure faded away as he stroked her face. “I’m having a hard enough time with my memories of David. I didn’t need that added to the mix.”
Keira’s heart turned over, her breath quickened and she sent up a scattered prayer for strength.
“That summer, after I broke up with you...” Her voice trailed off as she forced herself into the past. “It was hard. I knew I’d a made a mistake. I wanted to get back together with you, but I also knew how proud you can be.” She shifted away from him, wrapping her arms around her knees, but thankfully, he kept his arm around her shoulders.
“I was mixed up and confused, and then David was home and he invited me to a party with him. I went and we had fun and I asked about you and he told me a few things about you. How you’d placed first in the past two rodeos. How you were getting money together. He told me about your work as a mechanic. I was hungry for anything I could find out about you.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me, ask me?” The hurt in his voice was palpable but she couldn’t dwell on that. She had to stick with the facts. It was the only way to get through all of this.
“I’m a proud person, too,” she said, tightening her grip on her knees. “I’d broken up with you and I wasn’t ready to forgive you for not being able to stay in the valley. I didn’t think I had any right to contact you. And then the third time David and I went out he told me about the will, and I understood better why you were working so hard. But he...he also told me about girls you were dating—”
“What? I never dated any girls.”
She shot him a puzzled glance, surprised at his anger. “He said you went out every night when you guys were on the road. That you always had girls with you.”
“Not because I asked them and I certainly didn’t date any of them.” Tanner’s eyebrows were dark slashes over eyes burning with an indignation that both exhilarated and frightened her. “They were just girls who liked to hang around cowboys after a rodeo. Buckle bunnies. Groupies. Whatever you want to call them.”
“So David was lying.”
“Absolutely.”
The conviction in his voice thrilled her but at the same time she felt a growing tempest of fury rising up in her. David... He’d done too much damage.
She sucked in a deep breath, struggling to stay on top of the storm brewing, a storm that had been always latent but now was seeping through the fissures of her slowly eroding self-control.
“I’m guessing, though, you didn’t want to talk to me just about the lies my brother had been feeding you.” Tanner’s voice was gentle but she sensed the steel behind it.
Another breath. Another prayer.
“That summer, David and I went out a bunch of times,” she said, floundering through all of this. “When he told me about the...dates...I was angry. Upset. Even though I’d broken up with you, I missed you. I knew I had made a mistake and if I’d known exactly why you were so busy, if we’d talked more...maybe...maybe everything would have been different.” She paused, teetering, then pushed on. “David and I went to a party one night. It was a bush party and it got wild. I was upset and not thinking straight.” She leached all the emotion out
of her voice, bringing the conversation to a simple recitation of the facts. “I had too much to drink. So did David. He tried to make out with me and for a little while I let him. Then I told him to stop. That I didn’t want it and wasn’t over you. I drank some more and then, of course, went out to the bushes to get sick, and he found me there. He tried to help me and I told him I was fine. He insisted and I got mad at him. Told him to leave me alone. I was still upset with what he told me. Then he grabbed me and told me to get over you. That you were totally over me. That you didn’t care about me. That you were glad I broke up the engagement because you were looking for an excuse to break up with me, anyway.”
Tanner’s gasp registered on some level, but she plunged on. “He grabbed me and tried to kiss me again. I pushed him away and he got angry. Told me I had been leading him on. That he’d always liked me and knew I always liked him.”
She heard her own voice grow flat, even and monotone as she dealt out the facts like cards from a deck.
“He kissed me and I told him not to. He began pulling on my hair, grabbing it. I pulled away, tried to run away but he caught me. Then I tried to fight him off, but he was stronger than me. He threw me down on the ground—”
“Enough.”
Tanner’s voice resounded like a shot in the shop. Keira flinched, but stayed where she was, staring blindly ahead, seeing only the vivid memories that she had kept suppressed so long, now flooding her mind.
Tanner jerked away from her and jumped to his feet, pacing back and forth in front of her.
She stayed where she was, reminding herself what Dana, her counselor in Seattle, had told her again and again.
I didn’t ask for it. It’s not my fault.
But the anger rolling off Tanner as he strode back and forth in front of her, keeping his distance, detonated doubts and second thoughts. Did he believe her? Did he think she asked for it?
What did you expect? You throw this bomb at him about the brother who he would do anything for. Did you think he would wrap his arms around you and tell you that it’s all okay? That all is forgiven? You’re not the sweet innocent girl he proposed to?
She slowly got to her feet, her movements wooden and stiff. She couldn’t look at him because she didn’t want to see the condemnation in his face. Didn’t want to see his disappointment and his anger. How often hadn’t he told her how much he loved her innocence?
Not so innocent anymore.
She walked slowly to the hook that held her coat, Sugar right at her heels. She pulled her coat off the hook and slipped it on, her hands clumsy, her movements uncoordinated.
All the while Tanner kept a distance between them. It was only a few feet but it may as well have been a yawning chasm. He didn’t want her anymore. How could he?
She shot a quick glance at him and then said, “I think you better go.”
Without another word she pulled her hood up, tugged open the door and, with her faithful companion, Sugar, trotting behind her, left the shop.
Left Tanner.
It was over.
Chapter Thirteen
He couldn’t think. Couldn’t process. Thoughts, reactions, memories clashed in his mind, a fierce battle he couldn’t control.
David. With Keira.
Lies and mistruths and devastation.
David. Hurting Keira.
He hadn’t let her finish her story, but he didn’t have to. He knew what happened because he knew what Keira had done after. She ran.
It was as if everything that had happened the past six years finally all fell into its proper place. The questions were answered, but at what cost?
I think you better go.
Her words still cut through him like a knife. She didn’t want him around and who could blame her? He was the very embodiment of everything that had ruined her life. His brother was the one who had stolen her innocence and it was his brother who he had dedicated this entire season to. Everything he’d worked for all wrapped up in a lie.
This whole year, his whole driving force was making up for the guilt of the death of his brother.
It was all a lie.
He grabbed his neck, not knowing what to do or what to think. He needed to get control of his emotions. He sucked in a deep, long breath and then he saw it. David’s saddle.
It was finished, looking as new as it had when David first proudly showed it to Tanner. And Keira had been the one to fix it.
How could she have, after what David had done to her?
I asked her, pleaded with her to work on it. How could I?
Tanner stared at it a long moment, his thoughts whirling.
Tomorrow morning he was leaving to compete in the National Finals using this very saddle. Keira had adjusted it so that it fit him better than it had fit David.
He had hoped a win would do what the past couple of years of working and praying hadn’t been able to. Eradicate the guilt he felt over David’s death.
Give him some kind of deliverance, some way of connecting with Alice and receiving her forgiveness.
His whirling thoughts settled on Alice and the expectations she had heaped on his shoulders moments ago. If he won...
If he made it...
He stared at the saddle, his frustration and fury with his brother growing every minute, a fury that had no outlet because the man he wanted to beat to a pulp for what he had done to the woman he loved was beyond his reach. David was already dead. Tanner grabbed the saddle and in one furious heave pitched it against the door of the shop. It landed against the door with a dull thud and then bounced on the floor. Tanner strode over to it, lifted his booted foot and stomped on it. Hard. Then again. And again. He wanted to destroy it.
The symbol of his guilt and loss held other, more ominous meanings.
He took out his fury on the saddle.
Minutes later, sweat was dripping down his forehead and blood seemed to cloud his vision as he gasped for air.
How could you? How could you?
He stared at the now-destroyed saddle, feeling cheated. That was too easy. It wasn’t enough. A blind fury still held him in its thrall.
He grabbed the saddle and ran out into the dark to his truck. He tossed the saddle into the box and yanked open the truck door. Jumping in, he twisted the keys in the ignition. He didn’t wait for it to warm up. Instead he slammed it into Reverse, tromped on the accelerator as he spun the truck backward, the exhaust momentarily obscuring his vision. Then he whirled the steering wheel around, slapped the gearshift into first gear and with a roar, tore out of the yard. He needed space to think, to process and clear his head.
He needed to get out onto the open road.
He needed to get rid of David’s saddle. Take it as far away from Keira and Refuge Ranch as he could.
* * *
Keira stood by the window of her bedroom, watching the blink of Tanner’s taillights as his truck sped out of the yard and down the driveway.
She rocked back and forth a moment, trying to find a center of peace and control.
But it eluded her.
I shouldn’t have told him.
The insidious words wound themselves around her like a serpent.
If I had kept it to myself, he would still be here.
But she knew that sooner or later the secret would make itself known. And the longer she kept it to herself, the more harmful and dangerous the fallout would have been.
I should have told him sooner.
Keira dismissed that thought, as well. She hadn’t been ready to tell him now; what would it have been like to tell him earlier?
Hugging herself against an all-pervasive chill, she turned away from the window and trudged to her bed. She should go downstairs and help Alice and her mother. And what? Tell them what happened? Talk to Alice, the woman who had
almost made her want to explode when she said that Tanner would never be the man David was? Explain that because of the evil her son had done to her Tanner had left in such a rush?
A band of pain constricted her heart.
Tanner.
The look of shocked horror on his face jolted into her mind and her legs gave way under her. She dropped onto her bed and pressed her hot, tear-streaked face into her hands.
She’d thought she was done crying over what David had done. Those years in Seattle, when she was floundering, trying to find her way past the horror and the shame of an event that sundered her life, she thought she had wrung every possible tear out of her eyes.
But here they were again. Only this time it wasn’t David’s actions that caused her sorrow. It was the result of them. Her changing feelings for Tanner had made her vulnerable again. Had created this turmoil of emotions and pain and loss.
Tanner was gone.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her hot eyes, willing the anger and the humiliation away. She waited a moment, trying to still her heart, slow her thoughts.
Nothing has changed from two weeks ago, she reminded herself. You’re in the same place.
But she wasn’t the same person. She had tasted the sweetness of a reunion with the only man she had ever loved. She’d experienced hope, had dared to look into the future. Her life had expanded and blossomed. Tanner filled a hole in her life that had been empty since she left him.
She couldn’t go back.
She tugged a few tissues out of the box beside her bed, wiped her eyes and hands. Then she picked up her Bible and turned back to the passage she had bookmarked with an old letter Tanner had given her years ago. His version of a valentine. Isaiah 43.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.”
She clung to the words, letting God’s strength and love seep into her soul. The waters had swept over her and had sent her running to Seattle. She’d found a job and had turned her back on God. But He had not turned his back on her. A regular customer at the diner where she worked convinced Keira to come to her church. It was there she met a woman who was a crisis counselor, who seemed to recognize the unspoken pain and guilt in Keira’s life. She’d persuaded Keira to see her for counseling. It was in her office, with her prayers and support, that Keira had received strength. When she’d heard that David died, she’d been ready to come back. Dana, the counselor, had encouraged Keira to talk to her parents and tell them what happened.
Love Inspired December 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Her Holiday FamilySugar Plum SeasonHer Cowboy HeroSmall-Town Fireman Page 55
