Riled by the Rider

by Ana Lewin

  Now she was regretting that.

  “So what kind of experience do you have?”

  She went through the list of what she’d done in the past, answering every question politely and professionally. But she couldn’t help but be disgusted by their eyes on her lips, the way they tossed in the occasional sexist comment about maternity leave or men working harder than women. And when she was done answering questions she stood up to leave, but they weren’t done with her yet. “Miss Marsh, we do have a position available and this interview was just a formality. We’d like to offer you a starting salary of $25,000 per year. You can start next Monday.”

  They expected her to accept, but when her brain processed the numbers her jaw went slack. “I’m sorry, 25k starting salary?”

  The men shared a look. “Yes. It’s the standard starting salary.”

  “If that’s the standard starting salary, it’s a miracle people keep working here for more than three months at a time. That is so far below the New York industry average it disgusts me.”

  “Miss Marsh, we had hoped that you would understand-”

  “You know what I understand? I understand that every male at this company is a chauvinistic pig,” she eyed up both of them with disdain, discreetly backing towards the door. “Sexist comments, the way you’re looking at me like I’m going to fuck you for a promotion. The fact that you offered me, a woman with a university education, a starting salary that would barely keep me living on someone’s couch in the Bronx. I wouldn’t work for this company if you offered me a starting salary of 75k at this point, but you would never do that for any position. Because I’m a woman.”

  “I don’t think you know what you’re saying, Miss Marsh.”

  Both recruiters had stood up now, trying to look like they were calming her down as panic flashed in the depths of their eyes. “I know exactly what I’m saying. This company has something against women and I feel sorry for any woman that doesn’t have the financial security to refuse to work here.”

  “Your father isn’t going to be pleased, Miss Marsh.”

  “At this point, my father can go fuck himself. And don’t worry, I’ll tell him that one in person when I get home.”

  She left the two men slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Exiting the building as fast as was humanly possible, she tried to run through her head what she was going to say to her father when she got home. God knew he was going to have a hell of a lot to say to her.

  The subway went too quickly and before she’d fully run through her thoughts she was opening the front door of the lavish six-bedroom house that she shared with her parents. Her father was waiting in the kitchen, red-faced with smoke coming out of his ears. Her mother sat to the side, ashen cheeks as she glanced between the two of them. Even though she’d disagreed with what he’d done once, Maeve didn’t expect her to stand up for her now. She was on her own. “I hear you accused the recruiters of sexism,” he was yelling loud enough that she wondered if their neighbors could hear him. “What the hell were you thinking Maeve? I gave you a chance to right your wrongs and all you did was sully our public image again.”

  “I was thinking that they were sexist,” she declared, trying to stand tall even as a part of her wanted to cry. She missed the man that her father used to be before her grandma died and he got lost in the money. “I’m not going to work for a company that thinks I’m inferior to men.”

  “They don’t think that, the company is perfectly fine.”

  “Have you ever had someone look at you like you were a piece of meat at a work function?” she shot back, trying to keep her cool. That was her biggest weapon against her father’s hotheadedness.

  “No, because I’m married!” her father bellowed. “If you were married, this wouldn’t be a problem. I knew I should have arranged a marriage for you so that you would have a man to keep you in line.”

  Her jaw went slack and she stared at him, noticing her mother bringing a hand up to cover her mouth in shock. Had he really just said what she thought he had? Was that actually what he thought? “Keep me in line?” her cool head was gone. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

  “It’s your own damn fault that you’re getting all these comments from men. You’re single. Get yourself a damn husband, Maeve.”

  “I never would have expected that you would be even more sexist than all the recruiters.”

  Part of her wanted to yell and scream. Tell her father to take his conservative bullshit opinions and shove them right up his ass. But a larger part of her was so done with her father and his firm hand that tried to mold her life. She just wanted to leave. Listening to him prattle on and on about how she should get herself a husband, she thought about what she had to pack. There wasn’t much that she wanted. Clothes, a few pieces of decor. Nothing that she couldn’t fit in the two huge suitcases in her closet.

  When she walked out of the kitchen halfway through one of his sentences, her father huffed. “Maeve May Marsh,” he started, but she turned back around and held up a hand.

  “I’m not listening to you be a sexist twat anymore. It’ll take me fifteen minutes to pack my things and then I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

  “I’ll be cutting you off! You’ll have to live the life of a poor peasant without any money!”

  She and her mom cringed, exchanging a glance that he didn’t notice. “Dad, I don’t care. I’ve tried to tell you that I don’t care about the money and it’s not some ploy. I. Don’t. Care. I have a degree in accounting and I’ll be able to find a job, which is how normal people make money to live.”

  He looked like he didn’t know if she was playing with him or not. Surprising, that was what it took to shut him up. Maeve made her way up the stairs and packed up everything she wanted. When she got back down to the kitchen George Marsh was gone. A small piece of her heart broke but she’d known he wasn’t going to change his mind about anything. Not after all these years of being that person.

  Her mom, however, was sitting at the dining room table and stood up when Maeve walked into the room. There were a couple of tears in her eyes that she wiped away. Setting her bags by the front door, she rushed to her mom and swept her up into a hug. “Where are you going to go? You know I would never let him cut you off completely. You’ll always have help from me, sweetheart.”

  “I’m going back to Tennessee.”

  She hadn’t been sure until she’d said it, but it felt right. It was the only place she’d ever really felt happy and she doubted Levi could do much to dull that. Before, she’d been worried. But now she knew it had a lot more to do with the place than the person. As much as she did wish things with Levi had worked out. “What’s the name of that little town again?” her mom’s voice whispered against her hair.

  “You won’t remember it,” she laughed.

  “This time I will.”

  “It’s called Pelmsemet, mom. Pelmsemet, Tennessee.”

  “I’ll keep in touch, OK? If you get a new phone number you tell me.”

  Nodding vigorously she forced herself to let her mom go. “Mom, you know I love you, right? I know you don’t have the same opinions as him.”

  Her mother looked pained, but she nodded. “The next time we see each other things are going to be a lot different.”

  She could take a guess at what her mom meant. She hoped that she was talking about a divorce. “We’ll see each other soon, don’t worry. And I’ll call you every week to update you on what I’ve been doing. Promise.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  There were more teary goodbyes and she hung around until she couldn’t anymore, needing to get on the road before it got to be too late in the afternoon. On the road back to Tennessee, she cried more than she’d cried since she was a toddler.

  Chapter 12

  Levi

  Misery.

  It’s all he’d been feeling for a week and a half.

  He could make up reasons why. Maybe it was because the weather was too much
for him, or because one of the horses was unwell. But those would be lies. He was miserable because he’d driven Maeve away with insults and lies. All his clients could tell that he wasn’t into their lessons. Even the ranch life photography he’d put up on his website had been different. Darker, moodier. Oscar and Finn were avoiding him like he was the plague and Grant would only give him short quips when they spoke to each other. Olivia wouldn’t give him the time of day. He would have avoided himself too. He’d thought it would get better but the aching in his chest hadn’t stopped since the moment she’d walked out of that barn.

  Halfway through the week, he’d noticed a piece of paper tacked up to the corkboard in the office. Elizabeth Wilson, with a phone number. It was his mother’s name and the contact information that he’d refused to take down when she’d called him directly. His first instinct had been to crumple up the piece of paper and toss it into the trash. As he was about to, something stopped him. He shoved the paper in the pocket of his jeans instead and that evening placed it on his bedside table.

  Every day that passed he was more tempted to use it, Grant’s words echoing back through his mind. Was he letting his past define him too much? He’d thought he’d moved on from his parent’s negligence and his terrible marriage. The more he thought about it the more he realized he’d projected his fears onto Maeve. But she wasn’t his fears. That dumb book, the one she’d always been reading, and the tiny robot from the fair told him that she didn’t care as much about money as he’d told her she did.

  When he finally couldn’t handle his own thoughts anymore, he picked up the phone and dialed the number for Elizabeth Wilson. “Hi, this is Liz Wilson. What can I help you with today?”

  For a second he almost hung up the phone. Hearing her voice, so normal, was disconcerting. His memories of her were hazy because he’d wanted them to be, but she’d always sounded like a crazy person. Maybe she was actually clean? “Mom.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to call,” she breathed and he heard a rustling sound as if she were sitting down. “How are you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me about what happened once Derek and I had both left you and dad,” he was being brusque, but he couldn’t help it. Years of negligence didn’t go away because she’d decided to turn around her life and get clean. Especially since she’d done it when he was already an adult.

  “OK. We can do that. Your dad and I did the same things we’d always been doing for another five years after you left. Neither of us wanted to stop, neither of us cared. But I met someone who changed my way of thinking.”

  He snorted. “You’re telling me that you couldn’t get clean for your own children but you could get clean for God?”

  “Not God. I don’t believe in God. The man I met was a psychologist. He helped me get clean. I went to rehab for way longer than I’d ever been before and it actually stuck. Your father didn’t want to come. I left him, and I don’t know where he went after that. If he’s not dead by now, I’ll be surprised.”

  She stopped talking. What was she waiting for, a congratulations? What did he care if she was clean now? Now didn’t matter to him. “And then what?”

  “I picked up the pieces of my life with the help of the psychologist that helped me in the first place. I got a job at a local store. I manage it now. I volunteer at a youth center, trying to get kids to avoid drugs. You can see the effects in my body, what the drugs did to me. For some kids, that’s enough to scare them off the wrong path. For a bunch more, the support helps. It’s been ten years since I touched any kind of drug, and that’s including alcohol and marijuana. Even prescription medication, except for when I’m actually ill.”

  “Congratulations on ten years of being a normal human being,” he said dryly. “Why did this lead to you calling me?”

  “My psychologist. He told me that I was ready to start trying to make amends. It’s part of the process. I called you and Derek a couple of weeks apart. Neither of you wanted to hear from me, obviously. But my main goal was to get you on the phone even for a few seconds. That way you would know that I’m sorry at least.”

  He was tempted to ask about Derek, but that could wait. The brother he hadn’t seen in twenty years was a blip on his radar. “You ruined my damn childhood. Fuck, you ruined way more years of my life than you ever deserved.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “No, you don’t know. You fucked me up so bad that I can’t form a normal human bond. Even the woman I’m in love with…” that was his breaking point. Tears streamed down his face as he choked on a sob. All week he hadn’t cried. It would have been funny that he was crying to his estranged mother of all people if it hadn’t been so painful.

  “Levi, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was the worst possible mother I could have been. This woman that you’re in love with… you deserve that. Love. There’s always a way that you can fix things. Look at us,” her half chuckle might have masked a sob. “You’re talking to me after fifteen years. You may never call me again but that’s fine. This is enough, getting to explain. Even if you just get to explain, you need to go after your woman.”

  He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. Clutching the phone against his ear he sobbed until he didn’t have any tears left to cry, his mother on the other end of the line the whole time. And when he ended the call with a promise to call again, he knew what he had to do.

  ***

  Peak dinner rush at the diner wasn’t the best time to come in and ask Olivia a question, but Levi didn’t care. She could spare three minutes to answer his questions. He would buy one of those dinky branded t-shirts that they sold above the bar to compensate the diner for her time. Besides, it was only a Wednesday night. Nothing insane should be going on.

  When he stepped into the diner he was immediately on the lookout for a redhead in the yellow diner uniform. Before he could seek her out above the crowd, he saw someone else. Gorgeous brown eyes stared at him from the very same spot she was sitting that first time that they met. This time, they were open in shock, as if she hadn’t been expecting to see him.

  Like she was one to talk, considering she was supposed to be in New York.

  His feet moved before his brain processed the situation and then he was beside Maeve. No one sitting beside her even as most of the stools were full. “What are you doing here?” Maeve’s initial shock was gone, covered up by that shield of annoyance and sarcasm that he used to be able to bring down.

  “I was going to ask Liv how to find you in New York.”

  Levi noticed how her posture stiffened, then relaxed. “You’re just saying that because I’m here right now. You were coming in here for a burger and a chance to bang some out of town slut like me.”

  “You’re not a slut and I don’t want to bang anyone but you.”

  She didn’t say anything, sipping at the milkshake that she had in front of her. Olivia had caught sight of him and was giving him a glare that could melt ice as she poured people coffee and brought out their food. He would be surprised if she didn’t run straight into a patron with the intensity of her focus on him. “Why are you back?” he asked after too many beats of awkward silence.

  “Well, it doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she chewed on her lip, not something he’d ever seen her do before. It made him want to lean in and kiss her. “My father forced me to go to an interview with a company that’s extremely sexist and then threw a fit when I told them off for objectifying me. I had to leave New York.”

  It dawned on him. That must be why she had the second phone, the one where she answered pretending it was a prostitution service. He chuckled at the realization, earning him a glare. “Do you think sexism is funny? Granted, I’m not that surprised.”

  That one stung. Then again, what he’d said to her could have easily come off as sexist. “No, I just realized that’s what your extra cell phone was for. I’m not sexist, I just said some things that I regret.”

  “You said that I
care about money more than people. It’s one of the worst possible things you could have said to me and I never gave you any reason to believe that.”

  “Maeve, everything I said was about me more than it was about you,” when she opened her mouth to object he held up a hand. “Hear me out. You know me, I told you about my life. What I didn’t know was that I was projecting everything I was insecure about onto you. I was worried you would leave me for more money or more success or more fame because everyone in my life has left me for something. Not because you gave any sign that you would actually leave.”

  Brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, she looked at me for a bit. “Shockingly, I believe you. But that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Why doesn’t it change anything?”

  “I’m glad I can be on speaking terms with you now, but Pelmsemet is the only place I’ve ever in my life felt happy. I’m not going to risk my happiness in this town for a couple of months of good sex.”

  “Is that what you think I want?”

  Cocking an eyebrow, she scanned me from head to toe. “Seriously, Levi. You’re a playboy, that’s all you’ll ever want. And you said it yourself last week.”

  He cringed. He had implied that. Maeve slid off the stool, leaving a couple of bills underneath her plate. The sad smile on her face made him wonder if she’d be willing to forgive his idiocy. That was what fueled the split-second decision he made next. Grabbing onto her hand as she started to walk away, he pulled her back. Then he dropped down to one knee, right in the middle of the most popular dinner destination in town.

  “Maeve, I love you,” he said, keeping a hold on her hand so she couldn’t turn tail and walk away without hearing him out. “Just like Pelmsemet is the only place you’ve ever felt happy, you’re the only person I’ve ever felt happy with. I want you to marry me.”