by Lexie Ray
I ached for her, recognizing her pain, but I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t enrage her further. What was it about finally having come to literal blows with her father that had destroyed her so thoroughly? I knew I was privileged for wondering, for not coming close to ever understanding, but if she said they’d come to blows before, what was it about this time that had made her come undone? The Peyton I knew was strong, confident, unwilling to let anyone get her down. I’d admired that Peyton even as I’d feared her — terrified of disappointing her, boring her, shaping up to be like just another asshole drifting through her life.
“What do you want, Peyton?” I asked, fighting to keep a tremble out of my voice. “Tell me. I would do anything to help you.”
“You just want to take advantage of me.”
She was weeping like it hurt her, her teeth bared, jaw clamped together, and maybe it was painful to come apart like this. Peyton was always so self-assured, so contemptuous of everyone around her that it was difficult to recognize that she had holes in her armor, just like the rest of us. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t think of what kind of solace she would accept — and I didn’t think I could handle being pushed away again. I loved her too much for that. It would cut too deeply.
“I would never take advantage of you,” I said quietly. “Not ever. And I would protect you from anyone who tried.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said, wiping her face hard with the heel of her hand, sounding like she didn’t even believe that fact herself.
“I know you can. I just want to know if you’d let me take care of you, too. If you’d let me in.”
She snorted at me, and I guessed I could at least be thankful it wasn’t a laugh. A laugh might’ve completely demoralized me. I was trying to be honest with her here, and with myself, too. I had significant feelings for Peyton Crow, as problematic as that was. How many men had crooned how much they loved her into her ear after burying their seed deep inside her, then throwing her away? How many men had she used for her own gain, leading them along until she’d wrung out all the money they were willing to give her — or all the money they had.
“I’m pathetic,” she said, out of the blue, giving voice to one of the thoughts tumbling around in her head.
I wished I could reach out and wipe away the residue from her tears that still stained her cheeks, but I didn’t think she’d let me touch her.
“You’re not pathetic. You never could be pathetic.”
“Look at me.” She lifted her hands and let them drop uselessly into her lap. “Run out of my home. Letting my fucking parents get to me like this. There’s a reason I stayed away from the both of them. Just look at me.”
The bruises were fading, physically speaking, but it seemed like they’d leave their marks for a longer time than any of the doctors estimated. Even if her only broken bone had been her wrist, it seemed like this encounter had broken much more than the obvious.
“I see a resilient young woman who is in the midst of redefining her career and her existence,” I said, cringing when Peyton tossed back her head and howled with laughter. “What? What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re a cheese factory,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. I wasn’t sure whether they were from mirth or despair. “It’s like a storybook for you, isn’t it?”
“I really don’t understand.”
“This is life.” She pushed her hair out of her face and gave me a flat stare. “People just don’t hope hard enough for something good to happen. Nothing good ever happens.”
I swallowed. “I think something good happened.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“We’re together,” I said, wincing at the way her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know if you even want to hear this right now, but I have feelings for you. I’m glad you’re here with me, even if the circumstances were terrible to get you here.”
“Typical. You’re thinking with your dick.”
“No. I’m not.”
“Then what? Don’t tell me you’re in love with me.” Her lip curled in an ugly, sarcastic way above her teeth, and I knew that if I told her that, yes, I was in love with her, that I cared deeply about her, that I envisioned a future for the both of us that involved doing the things we were most passionate about while being passionate with each other, she would eviscerate me.
“Well?”
What could I do?
“I am in love with you,” I admitted. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, especially not right now. But I’m glad you’re here with me because I’m in love with you. I’m glad I can be here for you.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Of all the things I expected Peyton to say to my confession, this wasn’t exactly one of them.
“Oh, don’t give me those stupid puppy dog eyes,” she said, glowering at me, her own dark eyes narrowed to slits. “Those don’t work on me. Yes, you’re an idiot. You heard me right.”
“I guess I am an idiot, because I really don’t understand why you think that.” I tried not to look as hurt as I felt, tried to keep from handing Peyton any more ammunition to fire at me than she already had.
“Because you don’t love me. You’re not in love with me.”
She stared at me, daring me with a jut of her chin to refute her.
“This fucking idiot needs you to explain yourself, please,” I said, feeling tired. “I just don’t know what else I’m supposed to feel.”
“Everyone thinks they’re in love with me. You’re not the first person to tell me that, and you won’t be the last.”
Just what I was afraid of. “I’m sure that lots of people have told you that,” I said. “I don’t care. That’s in the past. What I’m more interested is the present — and the future.”
“You want to take me away from all this ugliness, Emmett Corbin?” she wheedled, her eyes as hard as flint. “You want to save me from my own life? Sweep me off my feet and make everything better again? Make me feel like a virgin again?”
“I recognize that you have had a tough time of things,” I said, ignoring her peals of laughter, trying to finish my thoughts, trying to defend the thing inside of my chest that was aching, so sure of what was real. “I wouldn’t pretend to be able to change anything for you. I’m no Prince Charming, if that’s what you’re laughing at. I know I’m not. All I know is that I love you. You don’t have to love me back. Just accept the truth that I do love you.”
“You don’t love me. You can’t. You love the idea of me, the fantasy that you can clean me up and fix me up and have me all to yourself, good as new. But it’s never going to be like that. You just don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.” I leaned forward and captured her good hand, but she yanked it away from my grasp as if I had burned her.
“This is the only way people can love me,” she said, ripping her tank top off with some difficulty, exposing her breasts to me. The bruises there, though fading, were more prominent than the ones on her face, including the dark spread across her ribs that had given the doctors such initial worry. With a shimmy and a kick, Peyton divested herself of her shorts, too, naked in front of me except for the cast on her wrist. She was a beautiful woman even with the damage she’d been dealt. But something about this display was ugly, and I looked quickly down at my feet.
“No, you look at me, Emmett Corbin,” she said, crawling forward on the bed until she could kneel and take my head in her hands, forcing my gaze back up. “You look at what you love. You love me like this. This is the only way it works.”
“This doesn’t have to be the only way it works,” I said, but she kissed me hard. “Peyton …”
She ignored me, kissed me again, kissed me until I stopped being able to protest, stopped trying to insert words between her lips, which were so determined to prove her point. Peyton pulled me forward until my thighs knocked against the bed and I lost my balance, tumbling forward into her. It knocked the wind out of her with
a whoosh, but if it hurt, she didn’t give a single indication. She simply rolled me off of her and straddled my middle, grinding herself against the crotch of my pants.
“Peyton, please.”
“Yes, beg me,” she said, her eyes glittering in a way I hadn’t seen before. “Beg me for this.”
“This isn’t what I want.”
“This is the only thing you want.”
“That’s just not true.” I tried to still her hips by gripping them with my hands, but she only seemed to take that as encouragement.
“You want me.”
“Of course I want you,” I said, sweat beading on my forehead as I fought desperately to control a burgeoning erection. “But in many ways. More ways than just this.”
“Bullshit.”
And my cock was in her hand, and she guided it into her body, rocking on it, covering my mouth with her other hand, her eyes glittering as she looked down at me. There was so much pain in that gaze that it was hard to stay locked with it, but I wouldn’t allow myself to look away. I couldn’t. It would be the worst thing to do. I kissed the palm of her hand over my mouth and gently removed it.
“Yes, I love you like this,” I said. “But I love the Peyton who knows everything about horses, the one who can do anything, who follows her dreams. The one who doesn’t give a fuck what anyone says or thinks. The one who knows her own heart.”
“Shut up.”
We hadn’t made love since before the episode with her father. Maybe she needed this. Maybe I needed this. I tried to move in the right ways, the ways that would help her find her way back to herself and to me. But then she started crying again, or maybe she’d been crying this whole time. I tried to withdraw, tried to take her in my arms, but she resisted, pinning my hands with hers, riding me until she was finished with me.
“Peyton, talk to me.”
She’d climbed off of me, but she still wouldn’t let me hold her.
“I’m never going to be good at anything except giving my body to people,” she said, completely shattered. “That is the only thing I’m good at. I’ll do it until my fucking teeth fall out, and then the blow jobs will be even better. Maybe I’ll charge more, then.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“It’s my life, Emmett. I know what it is.”
“No, you don’t.” I couldn’t just lie here and take this self-abuse anymore. “You don’t have a clue just how talented you are.”
“I’m good at fucking. That’s why people pay me to do it.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. I’m talking about the horses.”
“There aren’t going to be horses anymore. Can’t you get that through your head?”
“There are going to be horses,” I argued. “It’s the right thing to do. We work well together.”
“We worked together undercutting my father’s business, using his resources and contacts, behind his back,” she said. “Maybe, if we hadn’t done that, that land would’ve been mine someday. But there’s no chance of that anymore. He’ll probably try to father some other bastard to leave his operation to — or let the bank take it.”
“Just forget about your father. Let the court take care of him.”
“I can’t forget my father. He said … horrible things.”
And that was the root of all of this, I suddenly realized. All of the bullshit he’d spouted while he was beating the crap out of her was what made Peyton feel like this. It wasn’t fair. He was such a motherfucker. Peyton didn’t deserve any of this. She only tried to survive. That was her one crime in all of this. She never gave up, never rolled over and stopped living.
“It’s time my brothers understood that this is what’s going to happen for us,” I vowed, standing.
“They’re not going to listen to you,” Peyton said. “You’re not even listening to yourself. This isn’t realistic. Maybe it never was. Maybe we’re both idiots who don’t know better than to dream.”
“This dream is going to be a reality,” I said. “I promise you. Get your clothes on. You have to help me convince them.”
“I’ve tried before,” she said, pulling her shirt on anyway. “You know I have. I really tried to be persuasive, but none of them took us seriously.”
“Tonight is going to be different,” I said, strangely determined. I didn’t understand what had gotten into me, why I was so steady in my conviction that something about tonight was different, but there it was. This might turn out to be my last stand about the horsing operation, but I was going to make a hell of a good argument. Peyton and I had enjoyed success at her father’s ranch, even if it had been underhanded, and I knew that if we were given the space to expand at the Corbin-Summers Ranch, we could draw in even more business with the contacts we’d already made.
“Emmett, you’re going too fast. Wait!”
But something propelled me forward, out of the trailer and toward the house, the windows alight, where I knew my brothers would be. They were going to listen to us. They were going to hear what we were telling them. They were going to see the wisdom in the future we believed in.
Chapter 8
Peyton trotted next to me, barefoot in our haste, her long hair streaming, looking excited at the prospect of a confrontation. If I were being honest, I was looking forward to it, too. At least it would get both of our minds off of the problems we were facing personally.
But just as we approached the house, the door burst open and Tucker and Chance sprinted out at full speed.
“What the hell?” I exclaimed, startled.
“Get in the truck or on a horse,” Tucker threw over his shoulder as our oldest brother continued his dead run. It dumbfounded me, and I realized that the last time I’d seen Chance run like that, he was wearing a football jersey for the high school team, the talk of the town and the surrounding colleges as scouts drove in to watch the games. Life could’ve been so different if our parents had never died — for all of us, and for many different reasons.
“Move your ass, Emmett!” Tucker shouted. “We just got the call! A bunch of motherfuckers are trying to stampede the herds through the fences and off the ranch! Get a horse!”
“Stay in the house, Toby,” Zoe yelled, busting out the door and nearly mowing us down in our numb, silent shock. She was hefting a shotgun as big as she was, running nearly fast enough to catch up to Tucker and Chance, who were spinning the tires of the truck. There was the briefest of shouted arguments before Chance begrudgingly pulled her into the bed of the truck with him. Tucker gunned the engine and they were off, rocketing across the bumps and divots of the ranch.
Peyton whooped beside me and took off running. I glanced back at the house to see Toby rubbing his eyes sleepily, and rushed over to him.
“Listen to your mama, you hear me?” I asked him. “There’s a problem we need to take care of, but we’ll be back soon. Stay in the house. You can turn on the TV, if you like.”
Tired as he was at the late-night surprise wakeup call, the boy brightened at the prospect of watching television when he was normally asleep, and stepped back inside the house, contented for the moment. By the time I caught up with Peyton, running full sprint, she’d already pulled Sugar from the barn and was slipping the saddle on.
“Do you think you can handle the horse at a gallop with that wrist?” I asked her, moving to the other side to finish securing the fastenings.
“You’re going to do the handling,” she said, breathless, and it was then I noticed the gun in her hands. “I’m riding shotgun.”
There were a million things to address, a million things to argue about, but now just wasn’t the time or the place. We were in a terrible hurry, so I simply hopped astride Sugar and pulled Peyton up before urging the horse into a gallop, into the darkness.
Even at this distance, all the way up by the barn, I could just make out the tumult surrounding the herd. We’d combined the cattle for security purposes earlier, doubling the size and the number of eyes on our livelihood.
I could hear the beasts calling out even above Sugar’s hooves pounding the earth, Peyton’s intermittent whoops, the pounding of my heart.
It felt like it took us forever to get down to the river, the night wind on my face, whipping Peyton’s hair into my eyes, but I was sure the majority of that perception was adrenaline. I could just make out the chaos in the moonlight and the truck headlights, ranch hands darting around the seething mass of cattle, trying to keep them calm and away from the portion of fence that had been trampled. Beyond that, fording the pathetic trickle of a river, was a significant number of cattle, along with …
“There,” Peyton said, pointing.
“I see them.”
Another gentle prodding from my heels and Sugar took off, not shying or skittering from the bellowing cattle, but plunging right past them and across the downed fence. She was a damn good horse.
“Not your herd, motherfuckers,” Peyton screamed, her only warning before firing a shot in the air. The shotgun was loud, and the cattle moving across the river beside us turned away from it. The men on the horses ahead of us cowered. I guessed that none of the other ranch hands had used guns on the situation, yet, more intent on trying to keep the herd from panicking more than what it already was.
“I see you,” Peyton announced. “If you don’t cease and desist this instant, I’ll put a bullet in you. I’m a hell of a shot, but I’ll let the gun decide tonight. It is awfully dark.”
I didn’t personally know whether she was or not, but the woman in front of me was a lot of things — fearsome, beautiful, loyal, loving, conflicted, and so much more. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she could handle herself around a shotgun, as well.
One of the men half turned on his horse in the darkness. “Is that Peyton Crow? The town whore? I’d recognize that shouting from anywhere. Shit, I made her shout like that just a couple of —”
Peyton fired and the man yelped and fell off the horse.
“Did you kill him?” I asked, aghast.
“Only the gun knows,” she said cagily, and loud enough for the rest to hear. “Anyone else have anything to say for themselves? I still have so much ammunition … and a twitchy finger. And some scores to settle.”
