If he truly did feel for me—still does feel for me—like he says, how was that even possible?
I never had the urge to leave Pine Oak like he did, but I would have for him. For me, I would have given anything to have him be mine. For him, he would have given everything to get out. I thought we were destined to be together, but he wanted only to run.
And I still don’t understand why.
I knew he had dreams of being in the rodeo. Hell, almost every little boy in Texas does, but I always thought that deep down he would join his brother on the ranch and that his rodeo career was just something he did for fun.
I roll over in bed and look out my bedroom window, the sun starting its climb high in the sky. Earl comes back up and curls his big body into mine before he starts to purr loudly. Without looking away from my window, I reach down and start to pet him, wishing that the pain of my confused heart would ease.
“This has to stop, Leigh,” Quinn exasperatingly huffs. “You look like—”
I glance up from the wrench I had been twirling around my hands, waiting for her to stop eating and get back to work, knowing this will be the first thing she forgets to pull under the truck with her. I lift a brow at her. “Finish that sentence and I’m going to beat your head in with this.” She holds her hands up and sticks her tongue out before taking another bite of the strawberry rhubarb pie she had just grabbed off the counter I placed it on when I got here—the second one since she just finished eating one straight from the tin rolling back underneath the truck she’s been working on since I walked into her shop an hour ago. “Shouldn’t you be workin’ instead of eatin’ another pie? I swear, if you ever paid for the crap you keep beggin’ me to come over here and bring you in the middle of the day, I would be a millionaire.”
“And I would be living out of a cardboard box behind the building.”
“At least you wouldn’t go hungry,” I joke, a small smile lifting my lips.
“Ah, I’ve missed that,” she says through the full bite of pie she just shoved in her mouth.
“Missed the pie? You just ate a whole one not even ten minutes ago.”
“Smart-ass,” she says with a pout, taking another bite. “I meant your smile. I haven’t seen that much this week.”
I stop my movements, looking up from the wrench in my hands and into her emerald eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks when my silence persists.
“Not really, Quinn.”
“I think you need to.”
I give up on my avoidance and place the wrench down on her tool bench. I let the silence continue before leaning against the counter in front of where Quinn is sitting and meeting her knowing gaze.
“I’m not really sure what you want to hear, Quinn. I was sad. Then I got confused. Which turned into anger really quick, and now I’m back to sad. I’m all over the place and half of the time I don’t even know what to do with myself. It’s almost as if I’m stuck in some weird purgatory that just won’t let me escape.”
She swallows her bite, looking just as sad as I feel before speaking. “You know, I think that’s the same thing that Maverick told Clay and me a year or two before he left.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
“That he was in a purgatory that wouldn’t let him escape. A pain-filled world that wouldn’t stop striking him down.”
“Quinn—”
She jumps off the counter she had been resting on and walks over to where I’m leaning. “I hate seeing you hurting, Leigh. It cuts me so deep I feel like I’m the one bleeding right along with you. No matter how painful it was helping you heal after Maverick hurt you, that didn’t even hold a candle to how I felt when I would climb into his bed as a kid and hold him tight as he cried in his sleep. I never told you this because I knew how much you hurt back then, but I was glad he left. He needed to, because honest to God, Leighton, being here was killing him.”
I don’t speak, thoughts rushing through my mind so rapidly I can’t even make sense of them.
“He’s always felt things so much stronger than Clay or myself. When our mom left, that void hit him so hard. He was so close to her and then one day she was just gone. When you add that to all the pain our father put him through, he couldn’t win for tryin’. He wasn’t interested in the ranch like Clay was. He wasn’t interested in the shop like I was. The only thing he was interested in was the one thing our father hated almost as much as he hated our mother. When he told him that he wanted to ride, Dad beat him so bad he had to go to the hospital. Told them that he got hurt during ridin’ practice. Can you believe that?”
“Quinn, I don’t think you should be tellin’ me this.” And I didn’t. It seemed like a betrayal to Maverick, and even though I didn’t owe him that, I shouldn’t be learning the secrets they’ve kept buried within their family from his sister because she was trying to play some sort of matchmaking game.
“Probably not, but that doesn’t change that I’m going to. I didn’t tell you this back then because I knew he had to leave, Leigh. He had to. If he hadn’t he would have either killed our father or died trying. There was too much pain there. Maverick never was the same after Mom left, but when he told Dad that he wanted to leave the ranch the old man had worked to grow for his boys to take over—for the rodeo, of all places—it killed the only thing good left inside of him back then. Dad would never forgive him for running off with rodeo dreams in his eyes. Just like Mama. Mama ran off chasin’ the buckle just like Mav.”
“What? You mama wasn’t a rider, Quinn.”
“Not of horses or bulls, but she loved herself a cowboy, and a cowboy with the lights of fame in his face was the only thing she cared about.”
I gasp. “You never told me that, Q.”
She drops the now empty pie tin and looks up at me, sadness and anger swimming behind her gaze. “Because it’s better to say your mama ran off because she couldn’t handle being a mother to three kids and the life of a rancher’s wife than to admit she’s nothin’ but a slut with dollar signs in her eyes.”
“Jesus, Quinn.”
“Yeah, I know. Look, I’m over it, I just wanted you to know there’s a lot more behind Maverick than what you know. I understand you’re upset right now and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be, but I think you need to get over yourself and cowgirl up. You aren’t a quitter and honey, he’s home . . . do something about it. It isn’t too late for you two.”