“Don’t you stand there and pretend to understand what this is like for me.”
“Oh, I don’t have to pretend. Iknow. I’ve lived this before, Tyson. Always on the outside, but this is a familiar glass house.” She grabbed her jacket and stormed toward the door, her throat burning with words she hungered to say but knew she’d regret, words she’d never be able to take back. She didn’t want his pity, but she wanted him to understand that he wasn’t the only one hurting. Not even close.
Spinning to face him, she clutched her jacket in one hand and yanked the borrowed ball cap off with the other. “I was thirteenwhen I saw my only brother killed in an accident eerily similar to yours. But it wasn’t during a show. It was in the middle of an open-range branding. An exceptionally large bull calf got squirrelly. Michael roped him.” She swiped at the single bead of sweat rolling down her temple. “But the calf fought, got wadded up in the rope. Michael’s horse didn’t have the experience to get out of the mess, and the three of them went down. Two of them got up. My brother wasn’t one of them.”
Wide-eyed, Ty opened his mouth and then closed it when she made a stop gesture with her hand. “Don’t.”
She’d achieved her goal—shocking him—with incredible efficiency. But the undisguised pity he didn’t even try to hide proved more than she could bear. She felt the first emotional fissures open, the sensations not unlike someone dragging the tip of sharp needles along her skin. Superficial scratches that would provide weaknesses, places that would split with the right amount of pressure.
But the next words out of his mouth created a kind of emotional epoxy that bound everything together. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. If I had...” He trailed off, his eyes closing as he fought to find the words.
She would spare him that much, at least. “How could you have known? You were fifteen. I wasn’t even on your radar at that point, so it wouldn’t have meant anything to you. Not on a personal level anyway. But my life was forever changed. Mom totally withdrew, first from her charitable and volunteer works and then from society altogether. It was as if she lost her will to live.”
Ty’s brows drew together in apparent anger. “I realize she lost her son, but she still had you.”
He hit so close to the heart of her decade of hurt, becoming invisible in the shadow of a good man’s death, that she took a physical step back. She couldn’t go there. Not with anyone,but particularly not with him. How could he understand the consequences of Michael’s death? How could he possibly grasp the fact that his love-’em-and-leave-’em approach felt very much the same to her? She couldn’t. Not without turning those fissures into gaping wounds.
Instead, she pressed on. “While I pretty much lost Mom, Dad began wrapping up his rodeo career. He gave it all up so he could be there for Mom. So while I lost my mom’s awareness, I gained my dad’s time and attention. He turned that focus on me, on helping me become national champion.” What she didn’t say was that she’d followed that path for her father, stepping directly into Michael’s boots. She’d never been able to fill them, though. Not for either parent.
“What about you?”
She whipped her gaze up to meet his. “What do you mean?”
“Just that. Your mom basically withdrew from life to grieve. Your dad gave up his career to come home and take care of your mom, but he also fought to keep Michael’s memory alive by encouraging you to chase championship titles on the rodeo circuit. What did you do to grieve?”
Kenzie reached out and grabbed the edge of the dresser as black spots danced through her vision. “I managed.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Swiping at tears she was fighting not to shed, she cursed her own vulnerability. She hadn’t want to show it to anyone, but particularly this man, who was notorious for running at the first sign of anything complicated.
You wanted him up and moving under his own power? You’re going to get your wish. This ought to have him hotfooting it out of the county by noon.
That thought cut the last tethers of her emotional control. Fear and anger, thoroughly aged and seasoned by time, welled up and exploded out of her in a rush of almost unintelligiblesound. “You want answers? Get your ass out of that bed. Better yet, make it to the barn and I’ll give you all the intimate details.”
“I don’t think I can make it—”
“Then, ask for help. But bottom line? If you want answers badly enough, you’ll find a way to get to the barn. Come find me there, Ty.”Want me enough to try.“I’ll answer your questions.”Need me enough to push past the obstacles.
Michael’s death had left her with an aching loneliness no one had ever been able to fill, partly because she hadn’t opened herself up to anyone enough to expose the hurt she wore like a mantle every day. And she’d never allowed anyone to get close enough that they might catch even a glimpse of her most broken parts. She’d never found anyone she trusted enough to understand her, to understand the pain and the yearning.
Until now.
Ty understood. She just needed to get him up and moving, to reinvest himself in his life and be active again. He would emerge stronger. He just didn’t know it yet.
But she’d used her brother’s memory paired with bribery to get him to do it.
Information.
The thing it turned out he wanted most was information, and it was there, within his reach. He had only to move, to walk, to make an effort and lay claim to it. She’d set a beginning point—the bedroom—and an end point—the barn. If he made it from one to the other, she’d answer the questions he wanted to know.
But in the process, she risked her own emotional devastation. Those fissures of grief would split, exposing a dark abyss. When that happened, she’d survive only if he was there for her.
Sheneededhim to need her.
TYLAYINBED,his mind a roiling mass of thoughts and ideas and realizations he’d failed to work out over the years he and Kenzie had been first friends and then lovers. Just now, she’d thrown out what amounted to more than a double-dog dare—get out of bed to get the answers he craved. Then she’d fled the room as if all the regret in the world nipped at her heels. Seeing her inherent bravery stripped of fight, reduced to flight, wrecked him. That he couldn’t give chase pissed him off.
“And just what do you think you’d do if you caught her?” he asked himself aloud. He’d like to think he’d rescue her from the heartache of her past, but in reality, there was no way to take the hurt away or undo what she’d experienced.