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“I never made any promises.”
“No, but…”
Her eyes went all shiny, and she blinked hard as she spun away from him. He fisted his hands at his sides. He had to get out. Now.
To keep from reaching out for her, he strode over to open the door. “Go home, Raine. Go ride like you’re supposed to.”
“Is he paying you?”
He froze halfway through the doorway and saw she’d faced him once more. “You know me better than that.”
“I sure thought I did.” She swallowed hard. “Especially since you said you don’t sleep around.”
The next words made him sick to his stomach, but he forced them out anyway. “Well, as you said, there’s a first time for everything.”
He hated himself the moment he saw the utter devastation in her eyes. Guilt spurred his feet out the door and back to the stables. He galloped Taz across the land moments later, wishing he could outrun the blackness chasing after his soul.
He’d had to do whatever it took to get her to go for the gold…even if it ripped both of them to shreds.
21
“Rey?” his dad called across the arena shortly before five p.m. “I’m heading out. You almost done out here?”
Reyes reined Willow Moonlight over a set of four caveletti and brought the mare to a halt at the fence. His parents had returned from their month long Europe trip a week ago. The day after Raine had gone back to Texas with her father.
“I’m going to work with her for a little longer, then get some time in on Stimpy.”
His dad took off his Denver Broncos baseball cap, scratched his head, then resettled the cap. “You should come over for dinner tonight.”
“I got some stuff to do around here.”
“You said that the past three nights. Your mother is worried about you.”
So was his dad. He could see it in his eyes, and it was there in the tone of his voice. Because he wasn’t putting much into maintaining the happy-go-lucky façade of the past few years. What was
the point? He was miserable, and it wasn’t worth the effort to pretend otherwise.
But that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it either. Any of it. His parents knew some of what had happened in their absence, but not all. Dinner would only bring questions he wasn’t ready to answer.
“Maybe tomorrow night.”
“No more maybes,” his dad warned.
Reyes shrugged and backed up Willow. “Tell Mom I’m fine.”
“You know I don’t lie to your mother.”
He didn’t say anything else as his dad left and he wheeled Willow around. He would be fine—in about fifty years, when he was dead and didn’t have regrets plaguing him every second of every day.
Since Raine had left, he worked from sunup to sundown. Then he lay in the dark in his bedroom, fighting for air until her memory slipped in to ease the tightness in his chest. He relived every moment of that night with her in his arms until he fell asleep—which brought on a whole new form of torture.
His subconscious brought her to life in his dreams. He heard her laugh, saw her beautiful smile. That flicker of annoyance in those greenish-brown eyes of hers when he pushed her buttons. The flash of desire when he pushed other buttons. He filled his senses with the subtle flowery scent of her shampoo. Felt the silk of her pale skin as he caressed her curves. Tasted the sweetness of Raine on his lips and his tongue.
He inevitably woke up hard, his body pulsating with need as reality rushed in to chill his soul for another day.
After Reyes finished in the barn, the sun was long gone, and he wearily climbed the stairs. He ate a bowl of cereal standing by the sink with the TV playing on the other side of the room. Then he grabbed a beer and slouched on the couch. The show on the screen didn’t interest him in the least, so he lifted the remote to shut it off. A few minutes later, he drained the beer and set it on the end table before reaching to turn off the lamp.
His breath gave that familiar, hated catch in the darkness, but he sought out Raine in his mind. Therapy and torture all in one.
