Chapter Eighteen
Lark didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to. Especially when everyone was talking in hushed and grave tones like they didn’t want to be listened to. That made it all the more interesting.
Jill and Sam were there, and so was Jake. They were all talking to Cade.
“Lark!”
She took the last step off the stairs and into the living room. “Yeah?”
“Do you do that a lot?” Cade asked.
“No.” She hesitated. “More lately than normal.”
“Come here.”
She did. She looked from Jill, to Jake, to Sam and back to Cade. They all looked like they’d just buried a family pet.
“Jake came because he had something to tell me,” Cade said.
“Oh?”
Jake stood up and took a deep breath. “I was the one who put the spike under his saddle. I was the one who caused . . . everything.”
Lark felt like she’d been hit in the stomach. All the air was knocked out of her, all the thoughts wiped her from her head. “What? Jake . . . why?”
“Not because I had anything against him,” Jake said, looking back at Cade. “I got offered a lot of money to do it. Which is . . . I’m not excusing it. Or justifying it. I just . . . I’m sorry.” Jake’s face crumpled, and so did Lark’s heart.
Jill got up from the couch and put her arm around him, and Sam stood too, just near him, offering support.
Jake composed himself and turned back to Cade. “If you wanna press charges, I understand.”
Cade stood up, his movements labored, possible a little more than normal. Possibly on purpose.
She got it now. They weren’t burying a pet, but Cade was having to a bury a hatchet she knew he hadn’t wanted to let go of. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Cade said. “From my point of view, you were a kid. A dumbass kid, but a kid. And I used to be one of those too . . . so. If you know who asked you to do it though . . . if you could remember . . .”
“I didn’t get his name. He was a guy in jeans. Belt buckle. Expensive hat and boots. He wasn’t a rider.”
“All right. But if you ever do remember . . . he’s the one I’d press charges against. Not you.”
They all shook hands, and Jill and Sam led Jake from the house, leaving her and Cade alone.
“He did it,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Not Quinn,” she said.
Cade shook his head. “That’s how it looks.”
Lark’s heart splintered. Again. How did a heart break again in the space of a few days? This heartbreak business was balls. “I knew it,” she said, nodding. “I did.”
“I know you did. Which just underlines the fact that he’s an idiot.”
She laughed, a nervous, sad, elated laugh. One borne from feeling too much emotion at one time. “Oh, really?”
“Yes. Really. Because you believed him. No one else did. And look what he did to you. I still think he’s an a*shole. And I don’t take back the punch to the jaw. I would have done that no matter what.”
“Cuz he stole my virtue?”
Cade made a face. “Stop with that. I do not need details. Or any more reason to want to go after him with a branding iron.”
“After years of dealing with your innuendos, I think I’ve earned the right. It’s my turn, Cade. My turn to make you uncomfortable. My one solace in this moment.”
His lip curled. “Find a new solace, please. This one is going to ruin my life.”
There was a knock on the front door, and Cade went to answer it. Then he froze when he swung it open.
“What the hell do you want?”
Lark froze too, because she knew, without even looking, that it could only be one person. Because only one person could earn such a frosty reception from her brother. The only person she wanted desperately to hide from, from here to eternity.
And, perversely, the only person she wanted more than her next breath.
“You know what I want.”
Quinn. It was Quinn, and he was here. And he wanted . . .
He wanted to make sure he was reinstated. That he was no longer barred from competition. She was such a stupid girl. For a half second, she’d been convinced that what he wanted was her. But that wasn’t true.
She’d never been what he wanted, not really. Not deep down. She’d been a nice diversion, but she wasn’t enough for him. Wasn’t enough to bring him out of the pit he seemed determined to live in.
“Jake’s been here already, and I don’t see what I have to do with you and the board at this point,” Cade said, barring the way.
“I got reinstated two days ago,” Quinn said. “Jake’s confession made it pretty immediate. But you know what? I don’t give a damn. Not about any of it. That’s not why I’m here.”
Lark looked up, all the way, and past Cade, her eyes locking with Quinn’s.
Quinn pushed his way into the house, apparently no longer caring about manners, decorum or her brother’s mean right hook.
“Lark.”
“What do you want?” she asked, breathless, hurting.
“You,” he said, his voice thin, strained. “Always you.” He advanced on her, tugged her into his arms and kissed her lips, pouring emotion, pain and longing into it. And she felt it, answered it with all of the emotion, the love, inside of her.
When they parted, they were both breathing hard, Quinn’s eyes intent on hers, dark and glittering with emotion.
“Well.” They both looked back at Cade, who was standing there, staring. He put his hands in his pockets. “Uh . . . well . . . this is awkward.”
“Go away, Cade,” she said, her voice cracking.
He assessed them both, then nodded slowly. “My pleasure.” He walked out the front door, closing it behind him.
“Was it really that easy?” Quinn asked.
“No,” Lark said. “He’s going to give you hell later, then Cole’s going to give it to you twice. And first, I’m going to give it to you. What are you doing here? Why are you kissing me? Like you have a right to put your mouth on mine when you told me that you didn’t want me to love you? When you told me that you didn’t want me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have the right,” his voice was rough, shredded. “I don’t have the right to touch you. To want you. To love you. You deserve someone so much better than me, Lark. And you could find him, easily. But the one thing you won’t find is a man who wants you more than I do. Is a man who will love you more than I do. I have nothing to give you. Nothing but my baggage, nothing but my heart, such as it is. But I will do everything, everything in my power, everything out of it, to make myself worthy of you. To make you happy. If you would have me . . . Lark, I feel like I shouldn’t even ask. But I want to ask. I need to ask. I need you to be with me. Forever.”
“Quinn . . . I don’t . . . I don’t even know . . . what the hell am I supposed to say?”
“Say you love me still.” He held her hands in his, tight, against his chest. “That I didn’t shake it out of you with my stupidity.”
“Of course I love you, you moron.”
He pulled her in and kissed her hard, kissed her until she was dizzy. “I’m so glad to hear you say that.”
“But hang on,” she said. “You have a story to tell me, Quinn Parker, because when last I left you, you told me you didn’t want this.”
“And you told me I was scared. Guess who was right.”
“Well, me, obviously.”
He kissed her nose. “Obviously.” Then he pulled her in close, and just held her, held her so tight she could feel his heart beating. “Lark, it’s so much easier to pretend you know you’re unworthy of love, than to ask for it again, to want it again, and have it denied you. It’s easier to want something like the rodeo, than to want a person, a woman, so much it consumes you inside. I was terrified to love you, and in some ways I still am. But you’re all my missing pieces. Parts of me I’ve been searching for all of my life.”
She pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You are my bravery. Without you, I’ve always been afraid. You are my hope. Without you, I was just sitting in darkness. You are my peace, Lark, without you, I was never at rest. You are the piece of my soul I thought I was simply born without. When the fact of the matter is, you were just there, waiting for me find you. And I was looking in the wrong places.”
She tried to blink back the tears that were blurring her view of his face. His perfect, wonderful face. “Quinn . . . you were always complete. Even without me. You’ve always been enough.”
“I’ve been angry,” he said. “So angry, for most of my life. Angry at my parents for making me feel so ashamed of who I was and how I was born. Angry at your brother. Angry at the world. And I blamed other things, other people, for the parts of me that felt wrong. But it was me. It was my anger. It was my fear. It drove out everything good. I used my anger, for most of my life. I let it drive me, let it push me, and that worked in competition. But when I didn’t have the circuit anymore, it felt a lot more like what it was. Unhappiness. Rage.”
“But you can go back to riding now,” she said. “You can compete again.”
“Yes, and do you know what I felt when I found that out?”
“What?”
“Nothing. I can’t lie to myself anymore. I can’t pretend that’s happiness. I can’t pretend it’s life. I can’t pretend it matters. Not when I’ve been with you. Not when I’ve seen what life can really be like. That? It’s all a shadow compared to what you bring to me.”
“Me?” she asked again, apparently stuck on repeat. “But you’re . . . so sexy. And amazing. And older.”
“Seriously? Again with that?”
“I still think it’s hot. But . . . but I’m a computer geek who was recently a virgin, and who barely lived life away from the screen before you. And somehow . . . I’m the one who brings life to you? You brought it to me, Quinn. You made me brave.”
“Lark Mitchell, how can you question, for one moment, everything you bring to me? You are brave, with or without me. You’re diabolical—leaving your underwear in my bed was plain evil. You’re weird, and beautiful, and you make me laugh, and I can’t remember when I did that and meant it before you came into my life.” He smiled. “There, I thought of something else you are.”
“What?”
“My laughter.”
“Stop it,” she said, a tear sliding down her cheek. “You’re making me melt. I will be melted. You don’t want a melted girlfriend.”
“I don’t know that I want a girlfriend at all.”
“What?”
“I want something a lot more permanent than that. I’d really like a wife, and I’ve never wanted one of those before. But I want to keep you forever and that seems about the most societally acceptable way to go about it, something else I’ve never cared about before.”
“A wife?”
“Scary?”
“Yeah. But . . . but . . . wonderful. And right. But you have to understand something first.”
“What?”
“I never needed you to change. I never needed you to be more. I never needed anything more from you but you being Quinn Parker. You say I’m all these things for you, that I fill all these empty places, but don’t you know you do that for me too? Don’t you know? I was scared of my own shadow before I met you. Afraid to want. Afraid to love. I feel like you broke the cage I was locked in. Like you set me free, like you helped me find . . . me.” She cupped his face, looked into his eyes. “You are enough. Shame on your family for not knowing it. Shame on them for making you feel like less, because they were too afraid, too selfish, to see what a gift they had in you. They made you feel like you were wrong, because they were angry at themselves, and you were the easiest way to express that.”
“You think?”
“Yes. Also, I think I’m a damn good amateur psychologist. I should be charging you by the hour.”
He smiled, a lopsided, genuine grin. “I can afford you.”
“Yes, that’s right, you can.” She paused for a second. “Speaking of affording . . . can my brothers still afford the ranch?”
“You’re just asking me that now?”
“Stupid as it is, I love you no matter what. Whether you ride on the circuit, whether you’ve carried out your vengeance . . . no matter what.”
“Well, they can still afford the ranch, because I told my buddy to leave the contracts be. I actually put a stop to it after you left. Before I found out Jake was the one who put the spike under Cade’s saddle.”
She shook her head. “Big bad Quinn Parker . . . making good decisions and thinking of others. Your street cred is ruined.”
“Don’t let it get around.”
“You better go straight to the tattoo parlor and get a unicorn horn and glitter added to your tattoo.”
“No.”
“But you aren’t angry anymore,” she said, smiling at him. “You aren’t, are you?”
“I’m not. But I’m not getting unicorn tattoo. You get one if you want.”
“Me? A tattoo?”
“Could be pretty damn sexy. Although, you don’t need anything extra to be sexy.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Not even lingerie?”
“I like the lingerie, but you don’t need it.”
“Dalek undies will do?”
“Baby, anything will do, as long as I have you.”
“Even if I’m threatening to exterminate your bits?”
He kissed her lips. “You won’t really do it.”
“I know. They’re too valuable to me.”
“I hope the man attached to the bits is valuable too.”
“I know I already told you how much,” she said, pushing his hat off of his head and onto the floor, weaving her fingers through his hair, “but I’ll say it again until you believe it. Until you know that every drop of your blood is good.”
Quinn closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Lark’s, an intense burst of happiness tearing through him. He’d never felt anything like it. Had never felt so complete. So whole.
Had never simply felt like being, just breathing in air, was enough.
But he did now. With Lark’s arms around him, he did.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
He put his hands on her hips, to keep her near him, to keep himself from falling at her feet. “I’ve never had a place in this world,” he said. “I’ve spent all my life searching.”
“The search is done, Parker. You have a place. In my heart.”
He closed his eyes, a wave of emotion threatening to wash him away. “There is no other place I’d rather be.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
He just held her, felt her warmth, her body. Just her. The woman he loved. The woman who brought him peace. “This is the closest thing to perfect I’ve ever had in my life.”
“What would make it perfect?” she asked.
“If Cade Mitchell wasn’t going to be my brother-in-law.”
She laughed. “I didn’t say yes, you know.”
“Then say yes.”
“Me saying yes to you is how we got into this mess in the first place. The work contract?”
“That’s true. I was thinking of the other times you said yes.”
Her cheeks turned pink and she cleared her throat. “Yeah, well, there was that too.”
“Face it, Lark, good things happen when you say yes to me.”
“Fine, then . . . yes.”
“Yes to what?”
She smiled, and his whole world got brighter. “Yes to forever.”