by Amy Marie
“How much longer were they together?”
Emma’s laugh held no mirth, “Another year. She left him, devastated no doubt, took God knows how much money, and continued to bleed him dry for many years after. She never even told me about the land.” She shook her head. “Surprise!”
“Did you talk to Ryder or his dad again?”
“No.” She shook her head regretfully. “Ryder tried for a long time, but eventually, he gave up. I couldn’t face either one of them after what my mom did. They hated me, probably still do. How could they not?”
“Because you’re not your mother.” Sommer’s answer was quick, as if there was nothing to question.
Uncertainty had Emma shaking her head. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”
Chapter 6
Emma
Something was wrong with her head. Emma attempted to open her eyes, but the blade that was piercing her brain seemed to twist a little tighter with the effort. A moan escaped, and confusion filled her as she lifted her head. Why was she on her kitchen table? And why was it so bright?
Oh, yes. At least some of her faculties were working properly. Roland. Vodka. Sommer.
She attempted to stand, but her head spun, forcing her to reach for the table to steady herself. What came next was a pep talk, a very quiet pep talk as she promised—demanded—of herself that she could in fact make it to the bathroom.
She headed straight for the guest bathroom; the one attached to her bedroom was too far away for such an emergency situation. When she reached the door, it was closed. Sommer. The sounds on the other side a premonition of what was to come for her as well.
Somehow, she managed to make it to her bathroom, and as much as she should probably be concerned at her recent state of unemployment, there was no chance she was going to be productive anytime soon.
Several hours later, both Sommer and Emma were among the human race again.
“Honestly,” Sommer said, rubbing her temples as she spoke, “walking in on them was the best thing that could have happened.”
When Emma raised an eyebrow, Sommer continued. “You didn’t want to marry him.” Her tone and the way her eyes bore into Emma’s left no room for argument. “I have been trying to understand your relationship and respect the fact that you wanted to marry him in the first place, but—” She stopped, her hands dropping to the kitchen table between them. “You don’t love him, Emma.”
“There is no question about that, and believe me, losing Roland has nothing to do with my current state. It’s just, how did I get to this place? How did I not see it coming?”
“Stop. This isn’t your fault, so wipe that look off of your face.”
Emma didn’t realize she’d been making a face, but her muscles relaxed at the command. “How?”
“He said all the right things. Did all the right things. That doesn’t make him right.”
She was right. All the magic was missing. No butterflies, no earth-shattering passion, no conversations had until the wee hours of the morning, no…connection.
“What do you want, Emma?” Her friend grasped her hand. “What do you want?”
A question she didn’t have time to ponder when a knock sounded on her front door. When Emma stood from the table Sommer responded quickly, putting a finger in front of her mouth to silence her as she headed for the door.
Emma allowed it, although she wasn’t going to be a bystander in her own life anymore. If it was Roland, she would face him. She would deal with the consequences of calling off her wedding, and today would be the first day of her new life. A life where she called the shots and took control.
Sommer reached on her tippy toes and peered through the peep hole. When she turned and faced Emma, she knew immediately that it was, in fact, Roland on the other side.
“No.” She mouthed the command as she moved toward Emma, trying to steer her away from the door.
She shook her head. “It’s done, Sommer. I’m not waiting another minute before dealing with him.”
Without a hint of indecision, Emma undid the locks that barricaded her from the outside world and swung it open. Roland didn’t wait for an invitation and strode past her, giving Sommer a look of disdain as he walked into Emma’s small living room.
“Come in,” she muttered under her breath with annoyance as she closed the door and faced him.
Sommer didn’t budge from her spot and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You mind?” Roland spat the words in her direction, but she didn’t budge.
Rolling his eyes, he turned from her and faced Emma again. “We need to talk.”
“Actually, I don’t think there is anything left to say.” Damn, she was proud of herself. Seeing him in person only confirmed her feelings. She and Roland were done; they should have been done long ago.
“Oh, believe me, I have plenty to say.”
His arrogance was both unnerving and confounding. What could he have to say? She’d caught him red-handed with another woman.
“Sommer…” She paused. As much as she didn’t want to be rude to her friend, she also didn’t want to have this conversation in front of her. “Why don’t you go ahead and take off?”
Unmoving, her friend stared back at her. A silent conversation passed between the two of them, and Emma gave her a nod. She was okay, and she could handle Roland on her own.
After a few minutes of gathering her things, Sommer was gone, leaving the two of them alone.
“There is nothing you could say that will change my mind. You and I are done. And the fact that you think you can come here and—”
“You quit your job?” Anger radiated off of Roland in waves.
Her job? He was upset because she quit her job? Unspeaking, Emma could only stare.
It was his laughter that pulled her from her temporary state of mortified awe. Her first thought? He was mentally ill. Something had misfired, and he was acting deranged.
“You can thank your precious mother for this by the way.” Spittle flew from his lips as he spat the words.
All the blood in her body shot to her brain, and dizziness left her with no choice other than to sit. She fell into the couch hard and sat there unable to speak. Her mother? Roland had never met her mother—at least, she’d never introduced the two of them.
She wanted to say the words but nothing came from her mouth, she could only stare.
“My mother?” she finally got out. She had more to say, but the words were lodged somewhere inside her, unable to escape.
“Don’t act so surprised,” he chided, now pacing the floor of her living room. Another laugh escaped him before he continued. “Your mother had a habit of borrowing money from the wrong people.”
What. The. Fuck?
“When she came to me with her little plan…” He knelt in front of her, so they were eye to eye, and placed each of his hands on either side of her, “Well, let’s just say I had no interest in the money.”
The money? Jesus, she was a fool. The one thing her mother couldn’t get her hands on was the million dollars Emma was set to inherit when she turned thirty, or the day she married, whichever came first. Her mother bartered her own daughter to pay off a debt.
“Catching up?” He laughed.
An overwhelming need to move, to get distance between herself and Roland, overtook Emma. She pushed his hands away, but he held her shoulders, a bruising grip she couldn’t escape.
Their entire relationship flashed before her eyes, and suddenly she could pinpoint all the tiny things she’d missed. The prenuptial agreement being forefront in her mind. When he asked her to sign one, she didn’t give it a second thought. She wasn’t interested in his money, and while the agreement protected that, it didn’t protect her money. Why would it need to? The Spurlocks had more than enough money, so what she had in comparison was practically pennies, even with her inheritance.
“I had no interest in her offer, that is, until I realized she’d offered up the one thing I could use.�
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He wouldn’t let her move from her spot on the couch, and she hated that she wasn’t able to mask her emotions from him.
Finally, he let her go, and she jumped up, moving as far away from him as she could. She couldn’t walk away, though, not until he revealed the truth he was hellbent on torturing her with.
“Straight out of college,” he laughed, “you were exactly what I needed at Locke.”
Realization dawned and felt sick. Emma always believed that their initial meeting at the coffee shop near her home had been by chance.
“Nice little salary… It’s not like you didn’t get your perks.”
Something changed in Roland in that moment, the arrogant amusement that he was projecting suddenly warped into something else; something dark.
“Then you up and quit your fucking job!”
She stood several feet away from him but found herself backing up. This side of Roland was one she was not used to. This side of him was dangerous.
“The way I see it, we have only one option left.”
She gulped, whatever he was about to say was going to change her life.
“You will finish what we started at Locke, and that little plot of land—”
He knew about the land her mother left her?
“Yes,” he answered the question she didn’t ask, “I always do my due diligence.” He closed the distance between them backing her into the wall. “Sign that over to me, and we’re done.” He didn’t back away. Didn’t so much as blink.
Chapter 7
Emma
Emma plugged her phone into the rental car and typed the address of the Seven Deuce Ranch in the GPS. After two flights, the first to Chicago and the second to Oklahoma City, she put the car in drive and started the six-hour journey to the place that was once her home.
It had been over twenty-four hours since she’d slept. The adrenaline pumping through her veins had prevented more than a couple moments of sleep while she was on the plane. Still, there was virtually no chance she’d fall asleep driving, if nothing more than that the thoughts screaming through her mind would keep her from sleeping.
She knew better than to believe that her mother had planned on leaving the land to her, something that happened only because of her unexpected death. Every move the woman made was calculated. She mistakenly believed that cutting her mother out of her life would protect her, but in reality, she didn’t need to be near her to pull the strings and control her life.
Her visit with Roland didn’t deter her impromptu trip to Texas to see Ryder and his dad. Now that she was put in this position it was even more necessary for her to go. This was a conversation she needed to have with them face-to-face. There was no way she could tell them the whole truth, but if she explained her mother already used the land to pay off a debt maybe they would understand why she couldn’t return it to them. They might hate her for it, but then again, didn’t they already hate her? This trip wasn’t about mending fences, it was about having enough backbone to tell them what she was doing so they wouldn’t be broadsided by it. It was about not becoming her mother.
It was just before dawn when she pulled into the long driveway that led to the Seven Deuce Ranch. She stopped her car at the gate despite the fact it was open. She wasn’t ready. She should have gotten a motel room in the small town before just showing up but she couldn’t stop herself from coming here first. She pulled down the visor and peered at her reflection in the mirror. The adrenaline had kept her mind humming, but apparently, her body hadn’t gotten the memo. Her eyes looked tired, and the blue of her irises had dimmed somehow. Her long blonde hair had been thrown into a messy bun long ago and the open windows had created havoc, tangling her fly-aways in knots.
She wasn’t here to impress anyone, but that didn’t stop her from taking her hair down and running a brush through it; no amount of makeup would fix her gaunt face. She took a deep breath and put the car back in drive.
The long driveway gave her a good couple of minutes to panic. There was no point in trying to guess how Ryder would respond to her being there. Had it been him at the masquerade ball? If it was, maybe he wouldn’t be so opposed to seeing her.
When the house came into view, everything else disappeared. She was just a girl again, a girl who’d found everything worth living for in one place. This had been her heaven, and eventually, her hell.
She stopped the car and tried to will herself to get out. The home that stood before her was massive, and despite the fact that the original house had burned down in the early 1900s, the one that replaced it was all she knew. The sprawling three-story house was what happened when a log cabin met millions of dollars. With the front of the house made up of massive windows, she didn’t doubt that her arrival had gone unnoticed. The sun was peeking up in the east, and that meant there was work to be done. There was no chance they were still sleeping.
She climbed the stone stairs that lead to the front door and, with a shaking hand, knocked on the wide cedar door.
When it swung open, she was relieved to find Bill on the other side; she wasn’t ready to see Ryder just yet.
Bill’s gaze morphed from confusion to delight in a span of seconds. His wide smile revealed deep lines in his tanned face, and despite the fact that the years hadn’t been kind, his expression was exactly that.
“Emma!” The sound of her name on his lips nearly brought a tear to her eye, but before she had time to analyze that fact, he grabbed her and scooped her into a fierce hug. It was the kind of hug you would expect from a father, and for all intents and purposes, Bill had been the only man who’d come close to being a father figure to her. Even before he and her mother married, and even after, although that was when her world had fallen apart.
It was like coming home, and she couldn’t stop the tears that were now running down her cheeks. She didn’t deserve his compassion, but she welcomed it still, as if his hugs were something she had been missing all along. The way he smelled as he always had, the slightest scent of tobacco he’d tried to cover up. He didn’t release her, and even though she should, she didn’t back away from his fatherly embrace. How could he still care even the slightest bit for her after what her mother had done, after what she was about to do. The thought sobered her, and finally she pulled away, wiping her eyes.
Chapter 8
Ryder
Ryder stepped out of his front door, not bothering to lock it behind them. Nobody locked their doors around here, and given that the closest neighbor was several miles away, what was the point? The dust kicked up by the rare passing vehicles was enough of a security system in itself.
As he climbed into the cab of his truck, his mind immediately went to where it always did, the day’s to-do list and how many ranch-hands they would need. Far more than they could afford. He hated to admit that fact, even just in his mind. They were no longer utilizing all of their land, but he’d be damned if that would remain the case. He would figure things out; he always did.
The drive to the main house was made on automatic pilot. It was still dark, but his eyes sought out anything out of place or in disrepair. He could spend the next five years on the fences alone. They were far past the point of needing to be replaced, but there was nothing he could do but repair them for now.
His eyes narrowed as he pulled from the dirt road to the paved one in front of his father’s house. A newer-model sedan was parked there. Georgia plates? A moment of panic struck him as he hopped out of his truck with a little too much energy for the early hour. IRS? Collectors? They’d just have to damn well wait a while longer. He charged into not only his home, but the place that had been his family’s home for generations.
Hearing his father’s almost jovial voice took him by surprise as he strode through the house, his boots clacking against the hardwood floors, making it impossible to keep his arrival a secret. He stopped short, nearly skidding to a stop when he took in the scene before him.
Emma.
His eyes locked on hers, and he
couldn’t look away. His father’s presence at the stove didn’t escape him, and he was vaguely aware that he was speaking, the familiar, deep baritone talking of mundane things like the breakfast he was preparing, but something else was there he hadn’t heard in a long time. Something that sounded like joy.
Emma blinked, and he watched with stunned amazement as her chest rose with a shuddering breath. He echoed the sentiment, needing to refocus so he could confirm that it was really was her, sitting in his kitchen as she had so many years before.
She was so far removed from the girl he once loved, but that girl was still there. When she opened her eyes, she held his gaze, her mask now in place. For a moment, he’d caught the vulnerability there, but with a flash, a blink of her eyes, it was gone. Those same cat-like eyes, the color he could only liken to the splashes of blue in a Texas sunrise, now scorched him. She studied him with the same steel determination he remembered from their youth, when she was hell-bent on riding one of the wild horses nobody else could seem to get under control. There was something in her eyes that could tantalize even the harshest stallions. She had a way of looking into their eyes, as if she was seeing into their very souls, and eventually, they would get the message. They were safe with her.
Those eyes gave her away. He could always see through to what was going on in her heart. He’d known that she loved him, even before she said it, and he knew when they were done, even when he’d tried to unsee it.
Now, as he looked into the eyes of the first and only girl he ever loved, he considered the necessity of her mask. What was she trying to hide from him?
The quietness of the room brought them both back to reality, and he took in the movement of her small chest as she inhaled another shuddered breath.
“I’m sorry.” She exhaled with an audible sigh as she pulled her attention back to his dad, “I guess the trip did take it out of me. What did you ask?” She gave him a tight, regretful smile.
