“I don’t know about anyone else,” Oliver said, awkwardly pulling out his phone with one hand while he cradled the other hand against his chest, “but I need to go to the hospital. We can discuss it on the way there. But don’t screw up this whatever there is between you two, Wellington.”
Pete just managed not to smile at that whatever. Probably because his lip was busted in three, maybe four places. “I won’t.”
He hoped.
Man, he hoped.
Fourteen
“Do you mind if I drink?” Chloe said to Renee Lawrence as she carried the tray out to the porch, where Renee had somewhat uncomfortably wedged her enormous pregnant belly into one of Chloe’s rocking chairs.
It was still hard to think of her oldest, dearest friend as a Lawrence. Renee and Oliver had only been married for a few months and Renee was now only a few weeks shy of her due date.
“Help yourself,” Renee said with a soft smile, waving her hand toward the tray that held Chloe’s longneck beer and a pitcher of iced tea for Renee. “Drink one for me while you’re at it.”
“Thanks.”
Because Chloe needed a drink. It’d been three days since she’d walked away from the disaster at the rodeo and she hadn’t heard a single thing from Pete. Or her family. But that was fine. She needed a break from overprotective, bullheaded male relatives.
Did she need a break from Pete?
Renee rubbed the side of her belly and winced. “I still can’t believe Oliver flew all the way to Oregon to start a fight. I can barely get him to go to work. He’s terrified that I’ll go into labor without him.”
Chloe nodded meaningfully. “Because he has so much experience delivering babies.”
She and Renee looked at each other and burst out laughing because of course Oliver had never had a single thing to do with pregnancy before Renee had walked into his life. No, he was just a control freak. Which was exactly why he’d gone to Oregon. He must have thought he could control Chloe, too.
So typical.
Renee clutched her belly as she giggled. “Careful or you’ll make me pee,” she warned, which set Chloe off again.
She was happy for her brother and Renee. It’d always been her fondest wish growing up that Renee could be her sister and now she was. But there was something about the way Renee stroked her huge belly that made Chloe want to cry.
She’d never wanted a baby before, beyond a general maybe someday feeling. She’d never had a guy who’d inspired her to move past that feeling. But Pete...
But nothing.
Pete had gotten sucked back into his personal feud instead of putting the rodeo first.
Instead of putting her first.
And he hadn’t even bothered to call or text since she’d walked away. Which made his feelings really clear. He liked her, sure. They were great in bed together. But she would never be the most important thing in his life and Chloe wasn’t about to settle for anything less than everything.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Renee asked, snapping Chloe out of her thoughts.
“Not really.”
“Hmm.” Renee sipped at her tea.
That not really lasted all of thirty seconds. “It’s just that I’m so damned mad at them. At all of them,” Chloe went on, the truth bursting out of her. “I guess I’m not surprised at Dad and Oliver and Flash because this is how they’ve always treated me. But Pete...” Her voice caught and she had to take a long swig of beer. “I wanted things to be different. Between us. And they’re not. He’s the same, too.”
“You didn’t tell your family you’d fallen for him, did you?”
Leave it to Renee to get to the heart of the matter. “No, I didn’t tell them that, but that doesn’t make it not true. And because I couldn’t see him for what he was, now I’ve screwed everything up. The rodeo, my family...everything. God, I’m such an idiot,” she groaned.
Renee patted Chloe’s hand. “You know, you don’t actually have to take responsibility for their actions.”
“What?”
Renee shrugged. “Take it from me—you can love your family and still want to lock them in prison and throw away the key.” Her cheeks colored as she slid a glance at Chloe. “I happen to have some experience in this sort of situation.”
“Who could forget?”
After all, Renee’s father, brother and first husband had all worked together to pull off the largest pyramid investment scheme in history. Her husband had committed suicide and her father was going to die in prison. Her brother had bargained his sentence down to seven years. “Did your mother get extradited to America yet?” Because it was easier to talk about Renee’s messy life than Chloe’s, apparently.
“The lawyers are still negotiating,” Renee said with a dismissive shrug. “But don’t change the subject. What are you going to do?”
Chloe shrugged. “The Princess clothing line is still mine, thank God. I can do a lot with it.”
“Big plans?” Renee said with a knowing smile.
“Always,” Chloe agreed, taking another long drink. It’d be heaven—her own business, run her way, without any interfering men. Pure heaven.
“And what about you and Pete?”
Chloe groaned. “There’s nothing to do—not with him and not with my family, anyway,” she said in frustration. “Until they listen to me, what’s the point? I’ll always be Daddy’s little girl or the irritating sister or the woman who shouldn’t do anything other than smile big. Besides—” she sniffed “—it’s not like they noticed when I left. It’s not like Pete tried to come after me. It’s not like anyone bothered to apologize.”
“Hmm,” Renee murmured again. “Well, I’m sorry this sucks.”
“Thanks,” Chloe said, swiping at the tears that threatened to trickle down her face. If she wanted to get emotional with Renee, she could. Renee understood, thank God. “Even though you don’t have a single thing to apologize for.”
“I should have kept Oliver home,” she said, a note of steel in her voice. “Faked Braxton Hicks contractions or something. But I thought he was going to keep a short leash on Flash...”
“No one can keep that boy on a leash.”
“Yeah, there’s something going on with him. But,” she added quickly before Chloe could launch into the seemingly endless list of ways Flash had screwed things up, “that doesn’t excuse his behavior. It doesn’t excuse any of their behavior.”
“Right, you know?” Chloe said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “I’m not their mother or their keeper. I just wanted to do my job and then the thing with Pete happened and...” She dropped her head back and stared at the horizon.
The afternoon sun was hot on Sunshine Ridge, the ranch she’d bought to give her a place to get away from well-meaning relatives. Wonder, her mare, was prancing in the paddock. After Renee left, Chloe would saddle her for a long ride and maybe Chloe could leave all her heartache and frustration in the dust.
That was a hell of a maybe.
“And it was so good, Renee,” she went on. “He listened to my ideas and then translated them into man speak, I guess—but he got people to buy into the changes. He didn’t call me a ‘pretty little thing’ or say,” she added, dropping her voice down in an attempt to match Pete’s baritone, “‘that’s not how we did things when my family was in charge’ or any of that.”
“That’s what made it good?” Renee scoffed. “Don’t get me wrong—a man who listens is worth his weight in gold but come on, Chloe. You do realize we’re talking about the same man you used to send me messages about? How many times did you write about his butt in a pair of chaps?”
“Who could count that high?” Chloe sighed, because she had only ever allowed herself to admit that she thought of Pete in a non-enemy kind of way when she was talking to Renee.
“Uh-huh,” Renee snorted in a
highly unladylike way.
“He was amazing,” she admitted, because this was Renee. “Better than I’d ever allowed myself to dream he’d be. But we’d only just gotten started. Barely one freaking week,” she went on. “And only because Dad had yelled at me and the hotel screwed up my room and I was a mess. Pete was there and he offered me his bed and got me wine and chocolate.”
Renee’s eyes were huge. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, he totally did.” The memory left a bittersweet taste in her mouth and her eyes stung again. “And I thought... I thought he was in my corner. I could depend on him because he’d finally let go of the past. I thought we could go forward together.”
Maybe things changed, he’d told her in the bed of his truck a long time ago. Maybe I changed.
And maybe he hadn’t. She was more the fool for having trusted him at all.
“Anyway,” Chloe said, somehow getting the words out around the lump in her throat, “are you sure you should be this far outside of Dallas? Not to sound like Oliver—”
“God forbid.” Renee laughed.
“But what are you doing here?”
Renee gave Chloe a sharp kind of smile, one that didn’t seem natural on her face. “Besides supporting my best friend in her time of need?” As she spoke, a new sound reached Chloe’s ears—the sound of tires on pavement. “Stalling.”
Chloe pushed herself to her feet and leaned over the porch railing. It wasn’t a truck—two trucks were barreling down her drive. She recognized her father’s but...was that Pete’s truck behind it?
She spun on her best friend, who was trying to get out of the chair. Chloe extended her hand and helped Renee to her feet. “Renee, what did you do?”
Renee wrapped her arms around Chloe’s shoulders in an awkward, A-frame hug. “I’ll apologize for this later—but only if you want,” she said.
“Renee...” she warned, but Renee pulled away and walked down the top two porch steps.
The trucks pulled up in front of the house, and Dad and Flash got out of his truck, and Pete and Oliver got out of Pete’s truck and both Renee and Chloe gasped in horror at the mass of bruises and casts the four of them were sporting.
Her father’s jaw was a sickly shade of purple that spread up the side of his face to ring his eye. But Dad had nothing on Flash, who looked like he’d been run through a wood chipper. He had a cast on one hand and she could barely see his eyes between the broken nose, the bruising and swelling. Oliver looked better than that, but the cast on his right arm went all the way up to his elbow and he had a hitch in his stride as he made his way to his wife.
“You’re late,” Renee scolded.
“But we’re here now,” he said, meeting Renee on the steps to give her an exceedingly gentle kiss with his hands on her belly.
Chloe had to look away. Which of course meant her gaze landed on Pete, who was hanging back. The left side of his face was so swollen and discolored that his eye was nothing but a tiny slit. He also had a cast on his hand and, as he stood there staring at her with his good eye, she noticed he held himself stiffly.
If his face was that bad, what did the rest of him look like?
She took in the group they made, matching bruises and casts and contrite looks. At least they weren’t yelling and punching, unlike the last time she’d seen them. “What are you all doing here?” Chloe demanded. Because she was sure she’d remember if she’d invited them to her ranch. Which she had no plans to do, ever again.
Oliver turned and looked at the others. “Well,” he said, managing to look slightly embarrassed. “We thought we’d apologize.”
“All of us,” Dad added, giving Flash a little shove.
“Yeah,” Flash said without moving his mouth. “Sorry.”
“His jaw is wired shut,” Oliver explained. “It’s been the most peaceful three days of my life.”
Flash flipped off his brother with the hand that wasn’t in the cast and she saw that his knuckles were a painful shade of purple. But Chloe had to agree—it was very peaceful not to have to listen to Flash escalate a fight.
“That’s...nice,” she told them. She looked at Pete, standing a few feet behind Flash and Dad. He met her gaze without hesitation. But he kept quiet.
“I should’ve had your back,” Oliver said. “I know you’re more than capable of running the rodeo and it wasn’t fair to jump to conclusions.”
Chloe cut a look at Renee, who pushed Oliver on the shoulder. He winced and added, “And you were doing a great job with the All-Stars.” Renee pushed him again, harder this time. “I mean, you’ve always done a great job with it. I appreciate everything you’ve done to keep it going for the last four years.”
“Um,” Chloe said. She was completely at a loss. Apologies weren’t beyond Oliver, but had he ever complimented her business skills before? Not that she could remember. “Thank you?”
Dad stepped forward because they were going in a predetermined order or something. “And I’m sorry, sweetie. I shouldn’t have stood in the way of your taking on more responsibilities like I did. Your mother would’ve had my head on a platter for treating you differently, may she rest in peace.”
“Okay?” Chloe had to blink a few times. She always got teary when Dad talked about Mom.
“You’ll always be my princess,” Dad went on, his eyes watery. “But you’re a grown woman, too, and a sharp businesswoman and I want you to know that I’m mighty proud of you.”
She couldn’t reply to that because her throat wasn’t working. So she managed to nod, which was enough for Dad. He gave her another shaky smile and then turned back to Flash.
Chloe braced herself as Flash stepped forward. The apology tour was making all the stops, it seemed, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear anything from Flash.
He pulled a folded up sheet of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “Read it,” he got out, but then added, “please.”
Chloe gave him a long look, but what the hell. They were family, after all. She unfolded the paper and read, “I have enrolled in anger management classes and I won’t come to any rodeo until I have completed them and my community service sentence. I accept your decision to suspend me from the All-Stars because of my actions and won’t ask to have the suspension lifted until the beginning of the next season. I’m going to work on growing up and being a better man. I am also going to quit drinking. I’m sorry I was a dick. Flash.”
“Yes,” she mumbled, “you were.”
“Sorry,” Flash gritted out again.
That only left one. Chloe looked to Pete again, but he still hung back.
Instead, it was Oliver who spoke. “Okay?”
Pete lifted an eyebrow at her, almost in challenge. Chloe tore her gaze away from him and looked at the contrite faces surrounding her. “We’re family,” she said. “So, yeah, okay. But that doesn’t solve the problem we have with who runs the All-Stars.” Or the problem with Pete. She looked back at him and the man had the nerve to wink at her! At least, she thought it was a wink. He might just be grimacing in pain. Hard to tell, what with all the swelling.
“Actually, it does. See, sis, here’s the thing—I hate the rodeo,” Oliver said.
“And neither Flash nor I own any part of it,” Dad went on. “Not anymore.”
“While I value the All-Stars in terms of marketing,” Oliver said, “I can’t be bothered with the day-to-day management of it. I’m running a company, I just got married, the baby is due any second and, well, I’m busy.”
“I’ve recently come to realize that, while I love the rodeo,” Dad said, “that I was never that great at running it.”
“And I’d just screw it up,” Flash said. At least, Chloe thought he said that. She couldn’t be sure.
“But?” she said because she was positive she heard one in there. Oliver was grinning like he was about to get to the b
ad news.
“But running the rodeo isn’t a one-person job,” Pete said, making her jump. Even now, after everything that had happened between them and with her family standing around her, the sound of his voice still sent a shiver down her back.
Dammit, she’d missed him. She didn’t want to, but she did anyway.
“Exactly,” Oliver replied. “It’d be best if there was a team who could manage it together.”
“A couple of people who love the rodeo and treat it like family,” Dad added.
“Like home,” Pete said, his voice warm.
Chloe was getting dizzy trying to keep up with the thread of the conversation. “What are you saying?”
“I’m out of the rodeo business,” Oliver announced, his arm around Renee’s waist. He kissed her forehead and looked down at her, the love in his gaze painfully obvious. “I no longer own my stake.”
“You are? You don’t?” Which meant she was the only Lawrence who still owned the All-Stars? Was she even hearing this right?
But even as she said it, she looked to Pete again. Even with his face kind of swollen, there was no mistaking the grin on his face. And this time, he definitely winked.
“It’s time to end this feud,” Dad announced. “The All-Stars will always belong to a Lawrence but now they’ll always belong to a Wellington, too. It’s right.”
Chloe’s legs wobbled and she had to grab on to the porch railing to hold herself up. “You sold your stake to Pete?”
“Actually,” Pete said, finally stepping toward her, “he tried to give it to me.”
Oh. Of course. Because she couldn’t be trusted to run the rodeo on her own. Her family thought she needed a man to keep tabs on her, apparently. All this nice talk about how they were going to trust her instincts and treat her as an equal was just that—talk.
She spun on Oliver, ready to beat a few more knots into his head. “You gave your stake to Pete? Without asking me?” Her chest felt like someone had wrapped steel bars around it. She couldn’t breathe.
Everyone took a step back—except for Pete, who moved closer. “Hon,” he said quietly. “Wait.”
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