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CHAPTER 11Amber wasn’t in her room when I looked for her the next day. Nor was she downstairs. Reeve also wasn’t around. Despite the amazing breakthrough we’d had the night before, something inside nagged with suspicion and jealousy. Were they together somewhere? And if they were, did that mean anything?Around noon, the anxiety began to crescendo, and I paced the house like a mother worried about her lost child. I was seriously considering asking Tabor, the bodyguard Reeve had assigned to protect me, to help me search the ranch, but then, on my third trip to the back deck, I spotted her.She was standing about fifty feet away, by the shed that housed the ATVs and other large ranch equipment. Jenkins circled her feet as she chatted with a trim man in a button-down flannel shirt and jeans. He wore a cowboy hat so I couldn’t make out his face, and, even though his description matched nearly every one of the men on the ranch, I tensed and began searching for clues that would tell me if
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And if she was back to herself then that meant I had no excuse not to tell her all the things I needed to tell her, once and for all.I took in a deep breath of mountain air and let it out slowly. “Can we talk a bit? Alone?” I almost hoped she’d say no. I almost hoped it so much that I gave her an easy opportunity to bow out. “If you’re feeling up to it, because if you’re not —”She cut me off. “I’d love to spend some time with you. Have you been up to the attic yet?”“No.” I hadn’t even known there was an attic.“Fabulous. I get to show you. Nobody ever goes up there, and it’s one of my favorite places on the ranch.”I followed her into the house and upstairs to the far bedrooms. I’d explored when I’d first arrived at the ranch, but I’d spent barely any time in this area after determining it was comprised of two rarely used guest suites. Between them was what, I’d assumed, was a linen closet. However, when Amber opened it, there was a hidden staircase.“I’m warning you,” she said bef
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She nodded as she took another drag. “Just, that wasn’t really that bad. I mean, it was. I wanted to kick him in the balls for it.” Her eyes narrowed. “In fact, I think I did that too.” She exhaled and smiled, as if enjoying the memory.I drew my knees up to my chest and hugged them, uncomfortable with how it felt to hear her talk about Reeve. More specifically, her and Reeve.She sat up and crushed the butt of her cigarette against a roof tile. “But he wasn’t malicious. He didn’t do it out of cruelty. He did it because he loved me, and he didn’t want to let me go, and, yeah, it pissed me off, but I didn’t feel like I needed to be rescued.” She tossed the butt over the side of the house.I swallowed a chiding remark about littering and asked instead, “Then why?”She hesitated, her attention elsewhere. My eyes followed her gaze to her shoes – my shoes, rather. Her whole outfit had been borrowed from my closet.And while I was marveling at how convenient it was that we’d always worn the
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I shifted my whole body toward her. “You could have come to me.” If she’d thought of me long enough to call, then she could have thought about running to me instead.“I couldn’t,” she said emphatically. “Not after I sent you away like I did. I’d been horrible to you, and I didn’t deserve your forgiveness or your pity hospitality, which was what you would have given me.” She pointed a stern finger in my direction. “Don’t try to deny it.”“I sure as hell will deny it. I would have helped you and it wouldn’t have been out of pity.”“Yes. It would have. Then you would have been right where you’d been when I’d last seen you. Like you are now.” She stood up and faced me. “You’re so much better than this kind of life, Emily. I knew it, and that’s why I pushed you away, and then you went and proved that it was the right thing to do. I never meant to drag you back here.”One phrase caught in my head: “that’s why I pushed you away.”But she’d sent me away because of Bridge. Because she’d though
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Again, she ignored me. “And imagine what a total asshole I feel like. Because I made you be that person again. I made you return to the very thing I wanted you away from. Trust me when I say it’s the last thing I wanted. I’m drowning under that guilt.”“Stop it,” I said, standing, needing to meet her eye-to-eye. “Don’t you dare feel guilty. You came after me so many times. Saved my ass. Got me on my feet again. I owed you.”She rolled her eyes so vehemently that her entire head swept with them. “You didn’t owe me shit. We were even and now I owe you.” She took one step toward me, taking a determined stance. “I’m going to pay you back, eventually. Someday. Somehow.”“You don’t owe me.” I still couldn’t figure out how she’d thought we’d been even before. “There’s nothing to —”“There is and I will.” Her tone said there would be no more arguing about it.“Then pay me back by saving yourself, for once!” I snapped. “Stop with the bullshit life. Grow up! Think about your future. Make some g
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Even though it wasn’t that part of me that had the tears.“You deserve it.” I forced a smile.She met it with a modest smile of her own. “I don’t know that I’d go that far.”“No. You do. Everyone deserves to have hope.” Even me.And right now, my hope was that Amber was lying.CHAPTER 12After helping Amber back inside and down from the attic, I made some vague excuse to leave her and search for Reeve.“He’s out with the Callahans,” Parker, the stable manager, told me when I found him out in the shed, putting gas in an ATV. “They’re branding the calves up at the cowshed in the east pasture.”The doors of the shed were propped open so I squinted out over the property and pointed toward one of the trails. “That one? The one on the north side of the house?”“Yep.”I was already heading out when he shouted after me, “It’s a little more than a mile out there. If you want to give me fifteen or so to finish up, I can drive you.”“In fifteen minutes I’ll already be there.” I didn’t wait for h
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“Really? How is it different?”I opened my mouth to answer and realized I wasn’t sure it really was all that different.I rephrased. “Did you tell her that you still loved her?”The three seconds between my words and his response were heavy and long.Then, with his gaze pinned on mine, he answered. “Yes. I did.”When Amber had told me Reeve still loved her, I’d felt like I was falling. Now, I felt like I was fading. As if I were merely someone in a photograph left out too long in the sun, and although parts of my figure remained, I was no longer identifiable. I was no longer a person at all.It didn’t matter if there was more to his story or that he’d been honest with me when I’d asked or that he couldn’t really be blamed for loving a person that everyone loved, even me. All that mattered was that he’d said words to her that he still hadn’t officially said to me. I was the one who was supposed to belong to him. I was the one who deserved the sentiment, never mind my inability to say t
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But was it really too far? Or just too accurate? It was precisely why men like Reeve were so bad for me – because I wanted them to be bad for me. And, when they were, it hurt.Funny how then I wanted them even more.“No,” I said, making a decision, for once, on my own. The only one I could. “I don’t want any of this. This is over.”“This is not over,” he said, but I’d already turned away.He might have come after me again, except, right then, Parker drove up on one of the three-wheelers, the expression on his face clearly upset.Reeve’s eyes darted from me to his stable manager, as if trying to choose which of us to deal with. Finally, he said, “We are not done talking about this, Emily,” then turned to Parker. “What is it?”“You’re needed back at the house.” He glanced at me and I could sense he was unsure whether he should say more in front of me.Immediately, I feared the worst. “Is it Amber?”Reeve arched a brow, seconding my question.“I’m not sure. Come with me and you’ll see.”
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