Jase glanced over at me and nodded. “It is.”
Pushing the thickness down again, I returned my attention to Lightning, scooping up more oats once he’d finished with what I held. There was something peaceful about all this—the quiet of the farm, the simple act.
“This isn’t bad,” I admitted quietly.
“I know. It will be better once you understand what here is to you.”
I bit my lip, remembering what I’d said in the Jeep. “When did you get so wise sounding?”
“I’ve always been extremely wise. So much so, I consider it a curse.”
I laughed softly.
“Actually, it’s experience. Things come along you don’t expect all the time, Tess. Trust me. Things that change everything about your life—about what you thought you wanted, who you thought you were. Things that make you reevaluate everything and even if it doesn’t sound like a good thing in the beginning?” He shrugged as he settled his gaze on Thunder. “Sometimes they turn out better than you could’ve ever imagined.”
The way clarity rang in his voice, I had no doubt in my mind he had firsthand experience with the unexpected.
“You know something?” Jase asked after a couple of minutes passed. “What Jacob said in the Den yesterday wasn’t true.”
The swift change of the subject startled me. As Lightning ate out of my palm, I looked at Jase. “What?”
Thunder, done eating, turned and trotted off as Jase wiped his hands along his jeans. He sauntered up to where I stood, idly scratching Lightning’s ear since I dropped my free hand. “You know what I’m talking about, Tess. And I know why you left immediately afterward.”
My first response was to deny, because denial was almost always easier than facing the truth. Especially when the truth was sort of humiliating. But Jase had intimate knowledge of said truth. Right now, denial would just make me look stupid.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tess—”
“I could live happily ever after if I could never hear his name again or have to think about how he was or what it felt like to be with him and think—” My voice unexpectedly cracked, and I forced myself to take a deep, cleansing breath. “I don’t want to remember what all of that felt like.”
There was a moment of silence. “But you know that you’re never going to forget, and you need to understand what Jacob said wasn’t true.”
Sighing, I watched Lightning go for the last of the oats. “What he said was true.”
“No—”
“It is true. I was one of those ‘stupid girls’ who let a guy beat on her.” I laughed, but the sound was grating on my ears. “And I almost ruined my brother’s life because I allowed the situation to get to that point. Trust me, I know.”
“You don’t know shit, apparently.” Jase took my hand in his, brushing the dust from the oats off it. “You did not almost ruin your brother’s life. He made that decision to go after that punk ass. Not you. And I can’t really blame him for doing so. If it had been me, I would’ve put that motherfucker into the ground.”
My gaze swung to him sharply, and all I saw was honesty in his gunmetal eyes. “No. You wouldn’t have, Jase.”
His brows rose. “Uh, yeah, I would’ve. And you know what, that’s wrong as shit, but that would’ve been my choice. Just like it was Cam’s. It is not and never has been your fault. No matter what happened between you and that dick”—he spat the word—“what happened on Thanksgiving is not your fault.”
I stared into his eyes and—oh God—I wanted to believe him. The weight of that nasty guilt was worse than the weight of a future gone to shit. Some of the responsibility lessened, though. That much was true, but I ducked my gaze, following Lightning’s retreat. With the lack of attention, the horse was off chasing Thunder.
Jase still held my hand, his fingers slipping around my wrist. “And you weren’t stupid.”
I bit out a laugh as I lifted my gaze. “Okay. Why are you telling me all this? Why are you trying to make me feel better?”
“Because it’s true.” His lips thinned as a troubled look settled into his striking features. “You were how old when you started dating that guy?”
I shrugged a shoulder.
“How old, Tess?” Determination filled his tone.
Shaking my head, I tried to pull my hand free, but he held on. The whole conversation made me want to crawl under the thick and wide piles of hay behind us. “I was fourteen when we started dating—the summer before my freshman year. Happy with that answer?”
He didn’t look happy. “You were young.”
My fingers curled helplessly inward. “I was, but he . . .”
“He didn’t hit you then?” Jase said it so bluntly that I flinched. The lines softened around his mouth. “When did he first hit you?”