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“You are good,” she said. “And you already made more changes in my life than I can even believe.”
“I won’t be like him, Alaina. I won’t. I don’t even know why he had kids. I don’t know what he thought. I don’t know what he wanted. Not from his wife. Not from us. Why? Why do you do that? Tie these people to you just so you can abuse them? Why have kids if you can’t...protect them?”
Those last words cost him.
They weren’t about his father.
They weren’t about the scars anyone could see.
They were private scars. The ones he kept buried.
“I don’t know,” she said. “And I know you aren’t like him.” She made a move to touch him again, but he rebuffed her.
Not now.
Not when she wanted to comfort him like he was a wounded, sad animal, and he wanted to touch her like she was a woman.
“Don’t pity me,” he said. “It was a long time ago. I wouldn’t call me sweet, Alaina, but I have a lot of empathy for people who are going through something tough. If I can help...then great.”
“Did horses help you?”
He smiled, but this was an effortless one. “Horses are about the only thing on this earth that haven’t let me down. It’s the reason I feel strongly about McCloud’s Landing. About keeping it. Cultivating it. Finding a way to move forward with it. So that it’s something other than what it was. The only reason I care about our legacy at all...is because I believe we have resources that we can make matter. Mean something. And the horses are the biggest part of that.”
“It was when my dad left that I really realized how much being outside, tending the land, finding connection meant to me. Because when he left, I lost that. He was my companion out there and I... I didn’t have it anymore. That was when Elsie and I really became great friends. I found a way to hang on to what I loved even without him there. Sometimes losing things shows you what matters. What you really want to hold on to. The horses were certainly therapy for me.”
“I’m glad you’re here. To help with this.”
“Thanks. I still don’t know what you want, Gus.”
For a minute, he sincerely thought about telling her.I want you. Naked and begging for me.
But he didn’t.
“I don’t want a whole lot, mite. But when I think of something I’ll let you know.”
“Okay. I’m going to go meet Elsie for lunch.”
“All right.”
And as he watched her exit the cabin and get back on her horse, he wished that he’d let her touch him. Even if it had been out of pity. Pride and martyrdom weren’t all that satisfying when the ache of wanting another person was so damn intense.
Yeah. That pretty well sucked.
And it was a hell of his own making.
Just like most of the ones he found himself in.
“Champion martyr,” he mumbled to himself. “Champion fucking martyr.”
“IGUESSIneed to make a doctor appointment,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the sandy beach across from Elsie. Their lunches were just the ones they’d packed themselves that morning. Alaina had a sandwich and chips. Elsie had rolls and cold chicken.
Alaina was appalled by the cold chicken, and every time her friend took a bite of it she wanted to gag. But she didn’t say anything about it. Because she was trying to build bridges. Not be a chicken bitch.
“So how are things going?” Elsie asked.
All she could think of was her conversation with Gus, but she knew that wasn’t what Elsie was asking. Since Alaina had just been talking about making a doctor appointment, she was pretty sure she was asking about the pregnancy.
“I don’t feel as sick. At least not today.”
