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Letting out the breath I hadn’t even known I was holding, I leaned back in my chair.
Cord stared at me. “Tripp, are you over her? Are you really able to say you can move on with another woman?”
“If you had asked me that before Harley came back I would have said probably. Maybe.”
“That shouldn’t make a difference, Tripp. What does her being back in town have to do with it?”
I let out a gruff laugh. “For starters, when I see her a flood of memories come rushing back. If Mallory is with me I can’t focus because I’m afraid she’ll catch me stealing glances at Harley, or she’ll ask me if I still have feelings for her.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. No. Yes.”
With a lift of his brow, Cord gave me an incredulous look. “Which one is it?”
Closing my eyes, I sighed. “Listen, there will always be a part of my heart that belonged to her. That will always belong to her. But she made it clear when she told me she’d met someone else that she didn’t feel that way about me. So I know there isn’t a chance in hell with her.”
Cord leaned forward and rested his elbows on my desk. His chin went to his hands, and he shook his head. “Have you ever sat down and talked to her since that day?”
“No.”
“All those years she came to the house when she was visiting her parents, looking to talk to you, or asking us to please have you call her. I mean, Tripp, there were times I was ready to see her fall to her knees and beg us to tell her where you were. You never once thought that maybe you should call her back? That y’all needed to talk?”
“Why? She made her choice, and she picked some jerk she met at school who would live happily ever after with her in a goddamn loft apartment in downtown Dallas after they saw the world.”
Cord stood. “You’re an idiot.”
I laughed. “Me? You’re the fucking idiot. You haven’t even pieced it together yet that Maebh is the owner of the new restaurant…and that it’s not a bar. Remember the city council meeting?”
His eyes widened. “You told me it was a pub!”
Standing, I folded my arms over my chest. “Maybe if you hadn’t been staring at her tits while she was talking you would have heard that she’s opening up an Irish restaurant with a bar. Not the kind of bar you run, you stupid shit.”
“You motherfucker. How long have you known it wasn’t a bar?”
“A few months,” I replied with a smug smile.
“And you let me believe it was a bar. I saw her at the corner store and ignored her! I thought she was the enemy!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s your fault. You’re afraid of a little competition.”
Cord started for the door. He turned and pointed to me. “I’m not telling you anything else Corina tells me! Ever!”
“Ha! I’m her best friend, asshole. All I have to do is give her a call and get the information myself.”
He shot me an evil grin. “Good luck with that.”
As he shut the door I closed my eyes and let out a long groan.
“Fuck. My. Life.”
The trees swayed back and forth as I stared out the window at the beautiful sunset.
“Harley, sweetie, are you okay?”
My mother’s voice pulled my eyes from the reds and pinks that danced across the sky. With a half-hearted smile, I nodded. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine. You haven’t been fine in years. I thought moving back to Oak Springs and taking over Doc’s practice would have made you happy.”
“I am happy, Momma.”
Her eyes looked at me with pity. I couldn’t stand it.
“Then why do you seem so sad? Is it because of Tripp and Mallory?”
Just hearing their names in the same sentence made me feel ill. My stomach knotted each time I saw them, nearly knocking me to my knees.
I was so stupid to let him go. So. Damn. Stupid.
“I don’t know what I expected when I came back. All those years of knowing he hadn’t settled down with anyone and then I move home hoping for something—anything—and now he’s dating someone.”
“Are you ever going to tell me why you lied to the boy and told him you met someone?”
My chest ached as the memory of that day rushed back. I’d never spoken about it to anyone, not even to my parents. The day I broke the heart of the only man I had ever loved.
“Come on,” she said softly. “I have a couple horses saddled up. Let’s go for a ride. The horses always have a way of taking away the pain and heartache for a bit.”
I followed my mother through the house and down to the barn. The moment I climbed onto Starlight, I felt the tension start to leave my body. Horses used to be my life. I rode competitively when I was younger with my good friend, Lori. Her family owned some of the most expensive show horses in the county.
