Wild Card

by Karina Halle

  “Rachel. Everything you do matters to me. You know this now. Is it…something to do with me? With what happened last night?”

  She takes in a deep breath and I tuck her hair behind her ear. “Yeah.”

  My heart feels heavy. I sit down right next to her, copying her pose, my arms resting on my knees. “Lay it on me.”

  “I, uh…I broke up with Samuel.”

  I shouldn’t be feeling joy right now, especially when she’s upset, but that’s what’s burning in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “That was probably my fault.”

  She gives me a weak smile. “Yeah. It was. But…it was also mine. I called him, you know, because I wanted to check in. Reception here sucks, so I took mom’s car and drove into town until I could get a better signal. I felt guilty about last night, I can’t help it. And just off the bat, I could tell he didn’t really care when I was coming home. So I knew it was pretty much over. I mean, it’s been over for a while but I…well, anyway, then I told him the truth. That you kissed me and I kissed you back and he didn’t even sound upset.” She lets out a sour laugh. “I mean, what does that say?”

  “Says he didn’t know what he had when he had it. How long were you together?”

  “Half a year or so,” she says, picking up some hay and playing with it. “Never said I love you. Never felt it. But I figured that eventually I would, you know. I was used to not falling in love…I couldn’t fall in love after you, Shane.” She rubs her lips together, glances at me. “You were it for me. I gave my heart to you and I never got it back. I don’t even think I wanted it back. I just prayed that I could love as big as I did the first time I loved you.”

  I’m holding my breath as she talks, my own heart swelling and stretching with each word that falls from her lips.

  “And I didn’t,” she goes on. “My heart just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have it in me because it’s only you that could get me to love like that again. Your heart is the only one that mine responds to.”

  Are you talking in past or present tense? I think. Please, please God, let this be about the here and now.

  “Funny thing is, Samuel says he wasn’t surprised at all. He knew this would happen. I never talked about you to him, I did my best to pretend you didn’t exist, but he still knew that my heart belonged elsewhere. Said that when we were, well, together, I was never in the moment. Never present. He said it was as if I was always somewhere else but it was never with him. And he was totally right.”

  I clear my throat, wanting so badly to just push her back on the hay and kiss her, have her, take her. Revel in her sweet, sweet words.

  I manage to hold it in. “Sounds like it needed to happen, though you know I’m biased.”

  “It did,” she says and then rolls her eyes. “And then I contacted work because I was all paranoid that my boss was going to break up with me too.”

  “And?”

  She gives a half-hearted shrug. “He said that he’s thinking of bringing Pete up to my level so when I go back, I shouldn’t be surprised if I’m officially sharing my clients now. Actually, I think by the time I get back…I won’t have any clients at all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Well. I knew that was the risk in coming here but I wouldn’t change anything. Still, I was upset and angry and frustrated at everything, just every fucking thing. And I came back to the house and my mom and I got in a fight and I think everything I kept bottled up just came pouring out. It was last night, what you told me. It reminded me that she was never ever there for me and yet here I am for her, sacrificing everything. I know I’m her daughter and I’m doing what good daughters do but fuck!” She slaps her knee. “She was never there. She turned her back on me. You were the only one who went to bat for me, Shane. I’m just so fucking confused.”

  I grab her hand, holding it, trying to give her comfort. “I know it’s hard.”

  “I told her some really horrible things,” she cries out softly, looking at me with pained eyes. “I was so mean.”

  “It happens. This is what families do. You don’t think I haven’t fought with every single member of my family?”

  “Not your grandpa.”

  “Yes my grandpa. Rachel, you knew me when I was young. I could be a little shit sometimes. I’m not anymore but that’s the point of getting older. Maybe I still want to duke it out with Fox every now and then and maybe we should but even so, it’s just life. You said some mean things and your mother probably deserved it. She hurt you. She was your mother and she failed for a while because she was hurt too and she hurt you and that’s valid. But in time, you’ll both get over it. I promise. No one’s heart repairs overnight, it takes time to put the pieces back together.”

  If they even want to try, that is.

  “Why are you so good to me?” she whispers.

  Because I never stopped loving you.

  “Because you deserve all the good this world can bring,” I tell her, sliding my hand behind her neck as I lean in, my lips finding hers.

  “Shane,” she whispers against my mouth but her words drop away. The world drops away as I sink into the sweetness of her tongue, as we fall back into the hay, my hands roaming over her body in quiet worship. Each section of skin my palm skirts over is a section of my heart I’m shocking alive again, willing it to beat. Her body makes me feel like I’m just being born, over and over again.

  I want to give her everything.

  I kiss her, deeper, sweeter, with a longing I can’t hide as I start to pull down her shorts, slipping my fingers under the front of her panties.

  She tenses. I know it’s moving fast and backwards all at once but I keep going because I know what she likes, I know how she likes it. I need to know that I still know her as intimately as I once did.

  “Shane,” she says again but her words drip with sex and then I’m pulling her shorts and underwear down, yanking them aside and parting her soft thighs, diving right in.

  I need to taste her, messy, hot, and wild. I want her body, her touch, her soul, everything I once had and lost. I need to put my cock deep inside her, make sure she really feels me, knows me, knows I’m hers. Always hers.

  But this isn’t about that right now. Right now, I just want to take her mind off of everything. I want to make her come in my mouth, thighs squeezing my face, whispering my name.

  “I’m on the pill,” she manages to say as my tongue, flat, wide and wet, licks up her thighs, her taste is sweet and salty and sinfully good. “I mean, an IUD. And I’m clean…I…”

  “Shhhh,” I tell her, murmuring into her skin. “Don’t worry about that right now. This is just about you.”

  At that, she squirms underneath me in anticipation and my mouth fucking waters at the sight. I push my lips into her, groaning as my tongue swirls around her clit, building and building, just the way she used to like it.

  I think she still does. She’s growing wetter by the second, her hands are first in the hay, making fists and then they’re reaching down, in my hair, holding tight, and her legs are splayed wider, wanting more. I pull back, wanting to be a tease and gently blow on her until she’s whimpering.

  “Do want it soft or wild?” I whisper, air skirting over her clit. I’ll give her anything she asks for.

  “Wild,” she says and I love how bold she is. There was no hesitation at all.

  I smile to myself, the sight of her spread before me, then I attack her with my tongue, pulsing it in and out of her, flicking and licking up a frenzy until it’s wet and messy and my mouth is cramping. It’s not long before she’s coming, her thighs wrapped on either side of my head, her skin throbbing beneath my lips.

  I smile against her and look up over her chest rising and falling, frantic. She’s gripping the hay for dear life, her back arched and her mouth is gaping open as she cries out my name.

  I’ve missed this. It’s like witnessing a miracle. Hard to find in an ordinary world.

  I pull back and watch her as she comes down from t
he high, her cheeks rosy, her skin glistening with sweat.

  Eventually she sits up, pulls her underwear and shorts back on.

  She’s avoiding my eyes at all costs.

  That ain’t fucking good.

  My heart seems to drop out of me.

  “Was that okay?” I ask her. She sure acted like it was okay in the moment but now that the moment has passed, she looks like she’s struggling with something.

  “It was…” she starts. She looks at me. “I’m not sure if that was a good idea.”

  I swallow uneasily. “Okay. Why?”

  “It’s too much…too fast.” She rubs at her forehead. “I don’t know how I feel about anything right now. An orgasm isn’t going to fix anything, it’s just going to complicate things and we’re already complicated enough as it is.”

  An orgasm? I want to say. That wasn’t just an orgasm. That was everything.

  But I don’t say it because she’s fucking right and this just proves it. Things are complicated as hell.

  Still, “I hate to break it to you, Rachel, but we’re going to be complicated for a while yet.”

  “And when does it stop?”

  When you love me again. When you stay.

  If you stay.

  Our eyes lock with each other and I know that she knows what I’m thinking. She has to feel it off of me. Rachel feels everything.

  And because of that, I know I have to tread carefully. I don’t want to push her away, I don’t want to scare her off. She has to work things out on her own, even though I would give anything to help her. I gave her closure, I reset her past, but that doesn’t mean that I’m her future.

  I get to my feet, breaking our gaze, and start heading down the ladder.

  “I better get a move on then.”

  “Where are you going?” she asks, staring over the edge as I jump down on the barn floor.

  I look up at her. With the way the sun is streaming in, the dust motes floating around her head look like a halo. “I’d just finished hosing down Basil. Now I gotta get Polly, tack up, head out on the range. Some cows have wandered too far.”

  “How long are you going to be gone for?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her as she starts climbing down the ladder. “Maybe overnight. Maybe not.”

  “Can I come?” she steps onto the ground and turns to face me.

  I’m beyond puzzled. “Why would you want to come?”

  “I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to talk to my mother after that, I just need to get away for a bit. I don’t want to be alone.”

  I raise my brows. For someone who doesn’t want complications, she’s certainly complicating things.

  But like hell I’m complaining.

  “Of course you can come,” I tell her. “I’ll saddle up Sybil for you. Go put on some jeans, boots, grab a sweater, maybe a toothbrush and I’ll get us some saddle bags just in case.”

  She nods, looking nervous at the thought of having to go back into the worker’s cottage and the scene of the crime. Then she turns and runs to go get her stuff.

  I watch her ass as she goes, the taste of her still on my lips.

  I’m welcoming this complication with open fucking arms.

  15

  Shane

  A lot of time may have passed since Rachel was young and on this ranch but one thing remains the same. She’s cute as fucking hell on horseback.

  And a natural, too.

  Even though we’d gone bareback riding the other day, now seeing her sit proudly on the back of Sybil, a slow and rather ornery mare (just like the Fawlty Towers character she was named after), as we ride up into the mountains, she looks just as she did back in the day.

  “What?” she asks me, adjusting the brim of the black cowboy hat I’d given her.

  “Nothing.” I smile.

  “You keep staring at me. Am I doing it wrong?”

  “You’re doing it great. You belong on the back of a horse.”

  She snorts. “Yeah, well after we went bareback, I couldn’t walk very well the next day.”

  “Kind of like the day after we’ve had sex.”

  She narrows her eyes at me and lets out a puff of air in disgust. “You and your ego.”

  I shrug. “Not ego, just the truth.”

  I know it’s making her uncomfortable for me to talk about sex but I just had my head between her legs so I don’t think it matters all that much what we talk about. She can pretend that what happened was a mistake but I know that meant something to her, even if she won’t admit it.

  “Don’t act like your other partners ever measured up to me,” I add. I bite my lip, watching for her reaction.

  Her eyes roll far back in her head and she clucks at Sybil to pick up the pace, trying to get past me.

  “You trying to escape?” I call after her.

  She glances at me over her shoulder and then yells at Sybil, “Come on girl!” and starts kicking like crazy.

  Sybil perks up and starts off at a canter, turning to a gallop as soon as the two of them find their rhythm together. I take a moment to watch Rachel fly across the grass like she’s sailing on top of a ghost. I can hear the freedom in her voice as she whoops and hollers over the hoofbeats, the big sky and mountain peaks stretched out in front of them.

  I look over at Fletcher trotting beside me, his ears perked up and focused on Rachel as she gets a bigger and bigger lead.

  “You ready cow dog?” I ask him.

  He wags his tail.

  And I join in the chase.

  In a hot second, Polly is up to a gallop under my saddle and we’re flying down the slope after her. The reins are slack as I lean forward, one hand holding down my hat, Polly’s ears pinned back as she’s given ‘er.

  I can’t wipe the smile from my face, the pure joy that filters through me like sunshine as I chase down my love. It’s all open spaces and heat and horses and heart. That girl has my fucking heart.

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I yell at her as I start to catch up. She may have had the headstart but Polly is as fast as a thoroughbred and streamlined like a whip. Soon we’re overtaking them and I’m laughing into the sky as I pull Polly around in a circle, going around them.

  “Fuck you,” Rachel says but she’s smiling uncontrollably. “You’re literally riding circles around me.”

  “Trying to ensure you won’t ride off again.”

  “Don’t give me any reasons,” she retorts as we both slow to a trot, then a walk.

  “Don’t spook so easily.”

  “Spook?” she says. “Please.”

  “What? You’ve been all jumpy ever since I tongue-fucked you.”

  She balks at that, looking at me with an open mouth. “Shane.”

  “What?”

  “That’s no way to speak to a lady.”

  I grin at her. “You ain’t no lady.”

  “Fucker.”

  “I stand corrected. Besides, I remember you used to like the dirty talk.”

  Her cheeks flush and she pulls down at the brim of her hat to cover her face.

  “You did say I’d gotten bold,” I add. “I reckon you might just like it.”

  “Stop,” she says, sounding exasperated. “Let’s just put all that past us.”

  “Why should we do that? You have something against orgasms? You used to never get your fill. Greedy little thing you were.”

  Another sharp look. “Because. I told you. It’s complicating things.”

  “Funny,” I say, gesturing between the two of us riding side-by-side, Fletcher loping on the outskirts and the wild land beyond, “this seems like the easiest thing on earth. Just you and me. Out here. It’s where we both belong.”

  “It’s where you belong,” she says softly.

  “And you belong with me.”

  “Shane…”

  I sigh. “Look, I know I’m coming on strong and I know you think things are getting complicated but…you need to give me a chance.”

&n
bsp; “A chance?”

  I gnaw on my lip, wondering how to proceed. How to lay everything bare. It seemed so easy last night but that was everything from the past. It’s the present that matters most.

  “A second chance,” I tell her. “There’s nothing stopping you anymore.”

  “Are you serious? Shane. I can’t just…uproot my whole life. Maybe Samuel and I broke up, okay fine. And maybe I’m not happy in Toronto or with my job and maybe I won’t even have a fucking job when I get back home but…I have to go back home.”

  I shake my head, my heart feeling tight. “No. You don’t have to.”

  “Shane.”

  “Damnit, Rachel,” I tell her, bouncing a fist off the saddle horn as the frustration rolls through me. I shouldn’t be getting mad but I can’t help it. “This isn’t over. You know it isn’t. You can’t just come here and tell me that I’m not worth another chance. You can’t pretend that you don’t want me, need me. Fucking hell, I’ve been needing and wanting you every single day since you left and I refuse to believe that you haven’t felt the same way. Yeah, I fucked up but it’s over. You know the truth now and it’s over.”

  “You think I can just turn it off?” she snaps. “While you’ve been so-called pining for me, I’ve been fucking hating you.”

  Her words cut like paper, quick with a deep sting. “Ouch.”

  “Well I’m sorry,” she says. “But you ruined me and I know we’ve been over this but I can’t just forget that it ever happened!”

  “But you have to. You have to if you ever want to move on. You have to let it all go.”

  “You try being in my shoes. I get it that you broke your own heart when you broke mine and I feel for you but you weren’t in my shoes. What you’re asking me to do isn’t easy.”

  “I know it isn’t, I know. But aren’t I still worth trying for?”

  She presses her lips together and looks off and my heart, it fucking sinks.

  Maybe I’m not worth it in the end.

  “You know what,” I tell her. “It’s fine. I get it. I’ll back off.”

  She exhales, her shoulders slumping. “This was a mistake.”