I jumped, my heart racing. Eva squealed beside me, a sound I’ve never heard her make before. Cash popped up, his chair flying back. A pistol appeared out of nowhere, pointed at the man barging into the kitchen.
Ryder.
And he was fuming mad.
Ignoring everyone else, Ryder stared hard at me. His mouth was set in a firm line. His body was coiled, ready to strike. The ferocity aimed at me was impossible to miss. It was obvious I suddenly had made his shit-list.
“Ryder?” I forced out.
“Hon? What’s going on?” his mom asked.
He didn’t answer either one of us. Yanking off his gloves, he tossed them into a nearby chair, never missing a step as he stalked further into the kitchen.
He was after one thing and I was it.
Frozen in place, I watched as he came at me like an animal about to attack. I was surprised he wasn’t showing his teeth and growling.
When he got close enough, he reached down and grabbed my elbow, putting just the right amount of pressure on my arm to pull me to my feet.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, digging in my heels when he headed back to the door, dragging me along with him.
Stopping, he glowered down at me. Eyes full of nothing but cold shards of ice drilled into me.
That’s when I saw it. Hate. For me.
He knew. Jesus, he knew.
“Let her go,” Cash demanded, blocking Ryder from walking further out of the room with me. The pistol he held earlier was now stuck in the waistband of his jeans, within easy reach if he needed it.
Ryder stared at Cash, his lips curling in a snarl. “Back off, Cash” he growled, stepping in front of me, putting his body in front of mine.
“I can’t do that, Ryder,” Cash said. “I know you’re pissed and you’ve got every right to be but you’ve gotta calm down. You don’t want to hurt Maddie or your baby.”
Ryder looked around the room, seeing Eva and Brody on their feet. Seeing his mom standing near the table, her spine straight, her lips set in a thin line.
Fury rolled off of him. I could feel it as he kept me behind his back, almost protecting me from himself in some twisted way.
“I’m pissed and I could probably kill right now but hurt Maddie? Or my child? Who the fuck do you think I am?” Ryder snarled.
No one said anything. That was all the answer he needed.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said, scoffing with disgust. “I might be a sonofabitch but don’t worry, I’ll pack up and leave before I hurt a hair on her head.”
Without another word, he took me with him out the door.
The cold wind hit me, slapping me in the face with a chill that went straight to my bones. The backdoor slammed shut behind us, the wind forcing it closed like it was locking us out.
“Ryder, slow down!” I exclaimed, almost falling down the porch steps as he held onto me. His long legs covered more ground than mine did. I think sometimes he forgot that. If his hand hadn’t been clasped on my arm, I might have landed face first in the dirt.
Without saying a word, he dropped his hand away from me and continued walking, leaving me standing alone. Acting like I didn’t even exist.
I watched his back as he headed for the barn. What was his deal? First he grabs me and hauls me out of the house and then he gives me the cold shoulder? I don’t think so, buddy…
Close to losing my temper, I stomped after him, following in his footsteps. Ready to have it out with him.
“Ryder, listen to me, I know what’s wrong but you need to…”
He stopped suddenly, almost making me run into his back. Swinging around, his eyes shot down to me, full of disgust.
“Don’t tell me what I need to do, Maddie. You don’t have that right anymore,” he said, looking straight into my eyes and letting me see the loathing there.
I felt a stab in my heart, like one of Cash’s knives was slowly carving it in half.
Ryder started walking again, stalking off like he was leaving for good. I followed him, ignoring the pounding of my heart and the sight of his muscles moving under his jacket. Stay focused, Maddie. He’s pissed. Keep it together. I was so focused on trying to maintain my anger, I tripped over a large rock.
Ryder’s hand shot out, grabbing my arm and keeping me from falling.
“Watch where you’re going, Maddie. I might be fuckin’ mad right now but if you break a leg, I’ll lose what little sanity I have left seeing you in pain.”
Keeping his hand around my arm, he continued pulling me along, never pausing in his pursuit of wherever we were going.
I glanced up at the overcast sky, my breath leaving me in small puffs of vapor. A tiny snowflake fell on my nose, melting instantly. Two birds caught my eye, flying by on the wind, their large wings flapping in the air. Their inky black feathers were dark against the grey sky, representing danger and foreboding. Landing on a tree branch nearby, they squawked loudly. The sound sent a chill through me.
“We need to talk about this,” I said, bringing my attention back to Ryder.
“Oh, I’ll talk to you but you won’t like what I have to say,” he said, his words clipped.
The wind pushed against me, depositing more tiny snowflakes on my hair and face. The creek lay to the left, running parallel to Ryder’s property. I avoided looking in that direction, afraid the memory of making love in the water months ago would be too much right now.
Within seconds we were standing in front of the large barn doors. The grey sheet metal looked old and worn but I knew it was thicker than it appeared.
With a flick of his wrists, Ryder slid the door open. The smell of musty hay and cow manure hit me. Tears bubbled up in my eyes, remembering the cattle that had to be killed. But maybe the tears were more for what I was afraid was coming. I might actually lose him. This may be the end of us.
Slamming the door behind him, Ryder led me into the barn’s darkness. Stopping, he faced me, towering over me by a good foot or two. He looked like a savage man, someone close to losing it. His hair was tousled, falling into his eyes but unable to hide the scowl aimed at me.
Taking a step toward me, he invaded my personal space. I stood my ground, at least for a few seconds.
“So you gonna tell me?” he asked, advancing on me slowly.
I took a step back, putting my hand on his chest. “About Gavin?”
“Yeah,” he answered, not paying attention to my hand on him.
“So I guess he told you?” I asked, biting my lower lip nervously as I continued to walk backwards. My hand dropped off of his chest. Even through the layers of clothes he wore, I couldn’t handle touching him. It caused a need, a craving that was just too much right now.
His eyes darted down to my lips. I realized my lower lip was caught between my teeth, being bitten to death. I let it go. My teeth left little indentions on my lip that I could feel with my tongue.
“Did you fuckin’ do that for him?” Ryder asked, watching my mouth. “Bite your lip? Tease him?” He looked back into my eyes. “What else did you do for him? Huh?”
What? How could he even think that! I saw red a second before I exploded. “Don’t you dare say that!” I shouted, shoving him. He didn’t move, just kept walking toward me, stalking me. He didn’t stop until my back hit the horse stall behind me.
Leaning over, Ryder placed his hands on the warped wood behind me, pinning me in. Beneath his jacket, the muscles of his arms flexed. I knew that they had the power to break me with one flick of his wrist or hold me tight as I came with him deep inside of me. I wanted to slap him for making me feel that way. Damn him for making me think of sex every time I was around him!
I tried to control my breathing as his large frame blocked my escape. His body heat wrapped around me, soaking into my skin. Touching me in places where his fingers and hardness had only touched.
But his words caused a different kind of reaction.
“You kissed him, Maddie. You. Fucking. Kissed. My. Brother,” he
said, leaning closer, staring at me with a mixture of hate and hurt.
I flinched with each word, hating that it was true. Hating that he knew. Hating myself for hurting him.
But not enough to cower.
I bent down and quickly ducked under his arm. Before he could stop me, I rushed toward the barn doors but he had other plans and they didn’t include me leaving.
“DID YOU KISS HIM?” he roared, his voice bouncing off the walls of the barn.
I whirled around to face him.
“NO! He kissed me!” I shouted back. “He thought you were dead and believed it was his duty to take care of me. You made him promise that he would! You said he was perfect for me! How could you?” I yelled, poking my index finger into his chest when he got close enough. “You can’t just give up so easily, Ryder! Sometimes you are so frustrating…” I took a deep breath, trying to calm down but it wasn’t helping. “The kiss meant nothing, Ryder! NOTHING!”
He nodded, like he understood. I felt relief. The pressure in my chest disappeared. But then his next words hit me, slapping me like a two-by-four upside the head.
“Nothing? Since I’ve been back, I’ve seen things, Maddie,” he said, taking a step closer. “I saw him put his hands in your hair. I’ve seen the way he looks at you and I’ve seen how close the two of you have become since I’ve been gone. Hell, I couldn’t resist you. No one can. So tell me what else have those lips done to my brother?”
It was like a shot through my heart.
My chin quivered and my throat closed up tight. I was a mess. But I was still holding on, fighting for us even if he wasn’t.
“These lips didn’t do anything to him! You were with countless girls and you are furious with me because your brother kissed me? It was one freakin’ kiss!”
“Yeah, I slept with a bunch of girls! Shit, if I could take it all back, I would!” he shouted, taking a step closer. But then his voice dropped, running along my nerve endings. “I never would have touched another girl if I knew I could have had you. That’s the problem. I don’t want anyone else but maybe you do.”
“No!” I shook my head, terrified he would believe that. “I stood with Gavin’s arms around me and wished it was you holding me. You kissing me! I would have given my life to have you back. I missed you!”
“Hell, Maddie, I missed you too. I lay on the hard ground at night and ached for you.” Pain and fury mixed in his eyes and on his face. “I breathed and I lived because of you. I walked through the woods alone, without any food or water just to get back to you.”
His voice became hard, all the pain gone. Only rage remained. “Then I get home. My family is starving, barely hanging on. I find out I’m adopted and that my real mother was a druggie who didn’t want me.”
He towered over me like a giant. His next words were harsh, said through gritted teeth. “Then I find out my brother and the woman I love were getting it on here at home while I lay dying. You think I shouldn’t be steaming, fucking mad right now?”
My blood boiled and coldness filled my veins. “Yeah, you have every right to be mad but Gavin and I weren’t getting it on!” I yelled. “Dammit, Ryder! Nothing else happened! Why can’t you understand that?”
Iciness stared back at me, void of all emotion. No love, no hate, no passion. Nothing.
“And I’m supposed to believe that?” he scoffed, disgusted. “My parents lied to me for all these years about my birth. Maybe my best friend is lying to me too.”
I stood up straighter, all the air whooshing out of my lungs. Realizing I had a firm grasp on his coat, I forced my cold fingers to let it go.
Sticking my chin up, I stared him in the eyes. What was the adage? Never let them see you sweat? Well, I wasn’t going to let him see me hurt. I wanted to bawl like a baby. I wanted to scream like a banshee. I wanted to punch him until he bled. But I stayed quiet and calm. In the past, he had called me stubborn. He was about to see just how stubborn I could be.
I took a step back, forcing an invisible wall up between us. His eyes moved up my body, somehow making me burn. I wanted to grab the back of his neck and kiss him. His low-riding jeans teased me, looking more provocative than they had a right to. I wanted to unbuckle them and reach inside, wrapping my hand around him and show him just how much I loved every inch of him. But instead, I squeezed my hands into fists at my sides. Pretty sad, Maddie. You can’t resist him even when he hates you?
Taking a much needed breath, I turned and walked away, leaving him alone. And he let me go. That hurt as much as his earlier words.
Halfway across the dusty barn floor, I stopped, a question popping into my mind. Turning on the ball of my foot, I faced him again. His gaze stayed on me, watching me with a closed off expression.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Ryder scoffed and looked away, shaking his head with disgust. It hurt to see him act like this but Ryder wasn’t a saint. I had known that my whole life. He could be a cold-hearted bastard but I knew it was just a front to protect himself. A way to hide his emotions from everyone else.
“I left him in the pasture, out cold. He’s lucky I didn’t shoot him and leave him to rot,” Ryder said.
Terror flooded my body. Gavin was out there alone? Lying on the ground somewhere hurt? Without thinking twice, I ran to one of the stalls.
“What are you doing?” Ryder asked, watching as I pulled a saddle blanket off of the top of a stall. Dust swirled around me, making my nose itch as the blanket fell in the hay at my feet.
I didn’t answer him, reaching for the saddle sitting on the stall instead. Placing both hands on the leather, I jerked but the saddle didn’t budge.
“Jesus, Maddie, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ryder asked, taking long strides across the barn floor, stopping only when he was beside me.
I refused to look at him, tugging at the saddle instead. This time, it started to fall. The weight of it almost knocked me over but Ryder caught it easily.
“Dammit, Maddie, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” he muttered, lowering the saddle to the ground. “You’re pregnant. You can’t lift heavy things, remember?”
I wanted to say, ‘I’m a grown woman and don’t need you telling me what I can and can’t do,’ but I kept my mouth shut. It was a hard thing for me to do.
Leaning over, I tried lifting the saddle, anything to keep my mind on the task at hand and not on Ryder’s large body standing over me. But I gave up and left the saddle on the ground when it became apparent that it was too heavy for me to lift.
Instead, I grabbed some reins and the bridle hanging on a nail nearby. Without glancing at Ryder, I picked up the saddle blanket and walked away, leaving the saddle behind. I don’t need it. I could do without a piece of leather. Or Ryder.
“You’re not going out there after him,” Ryder said, following me across the barn.
“Try to stop me,” I ground out through gritted teeth, my focus on the metal doors ahead.
“Don’t tempt me, Maddie. I don’t want an excuse to touch you.”
His words hurt, but I pushed the pain away.
Flinging open the barn door, a cold wind hit me, chilling my face and bringing snowflakes swirling around my feet. Ignoring the cold, I stepped out of the barn. My arms were full of reins that dangled behind me and the scratchy horse blanket chafed my skin, but I didn’t mind; I kept going.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eva and Brody standing on the porch, watching us. I knew that Eva was mad, itching to wrap her hands around Ryder’s neck. Join the club.
Cash was striding toward us with purpose, his hips rolling casually with each step. His gait was relaxed but I knew he would be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. The ever-present cowboy hat was on his head, hiding his eyes from the world. A rifle was gripped in his right hand, a hand that could swing the gun up and fire within seconds. But I knew that wasn’t the only weapon he carried. The man was a walking army, capable of taking out a man with hardly a sound.
Ignoring both
Cash and Ryder, I hurried to the edge of the barn. A few yards away was the pasture. Three horses stood next to the water trough, watching us with interest. I headed their way, not paying attention to Ryder or the cold wind that made me shiver.
“Maddie,” Ryder said, saying my name like that’s all he had to do to stop me. Well, not this time.
At the gate I slipped the lock off and hung it on the barbwire fence. The horses watched me approach, flicking their ears back and forth. Pushing past the other horses, I approached my quarter horse. She tossed her head, her big brown eyes staring at me with untamed wildness.
“Hey, girl,” I said, reaching out and letting her smell my cold fingers.
“Maddie, I swear if you ride off after him…”
I threw the horse blanket on the horse’s back and glanced over my shoulder at Ryder.
“You’ll what? Get mad at me?” I asked with indifference. “I’m going after him, Ryder. He’s your brother and he’s my friend. Don’t try to stop me because you can’t.”
Cash stopped a few feet from us, watching Ryder warily. “Everything okay, Maddie?” he asked.
My eyes darted down to the gun in his hand as snowflakes started falling around us.
I heard Ryder shift behind me, ready to strike if Cash overstepped some dumb, stupid boundary. It just irritated me more.
“Maddie, what’s going on?” Cash asked again.
“Ryder knocked Gavin out cold and left him somewhere out there,” I answered, nodding toward the pasture as I slipped the bridle over my horse’s head. “Someone needs to go get him. Might as well be me since we’re so close. You know, since my lips have done all kinds of things to him.”
Okay, I shouldn’t have said last part but I just couldn’t resist. I was so blistering mad that I just wanted to scream. And I wasn’t the only one.
Ryder exploded. His face turned red and his hand grabbed my arm, spinning me around.
“I swear, Maddie, I’m close to strangling you,” he forced out between clenched teeth.
We both ignored Cash as he took a step closer, always the bodyguard.