“Is that all this is about?”
I knew he would see right through me to the bigger picture. Clay’s always been fifteen steps ahead of the rest of us. “What else would this be about?” I respond, playing stupid and avoiding the rest of the topic at hand.
“Leighton.”
I feel my brows rise slowly and I allow my lips to turn up. “What about her?” God, just hearing her name settles me. I’ve been coming out of my skin for days. Not just because of her silence. Everything I’ve told Clay is the truth; I can’t stay at the Davis ranch and stay in Pine Oak because here makes me feel like a caged animal again.
“She’s been through a lot, Maverick. I’m your brother, and because of that, you get my loyalty . . . however, I love that girl like she’s a sister, and brother or not, I will lay you the fuck out if you hurt her again.”
I lift out of the chair, but before my ass was even an inch off the old leather seat in front of my dad’s old desk, Clay holds up his hand to halt my movements.
“Sit the fuck down and listen to me. I understand why you left, Mav. I get it. I know you needed to. That being said, you were so single-mindedly focused on getting the hell out of town that you might as well of been blind as a bat. I can’t change things with Dad. I can’t change what happened with Mama. I can’t give you your career back. But I can give you this. You aren’t the only one who carries scars. You need to learn to forgive Dad, if anything to just let it go and be able to move on. You need to forget about Mama. You did what you could, but she didn’t want us then and she’s never gonna change. You also need to give Leighton everything. One thing us Davises are good at is hidin’ the pain. So you want her land—you need to talk to her about it. I might own it, but I only bought it from her so I could keep her close. She was going through so much and I couldn’t let her leave Pine Oak. We couldn’t lose her too.”
He adds the last part almost as an afterthought. His words hushed and hard to hear, but I did hear him and the thoughts running through my mind are anything but nice.
“Tell me, you and Leigh . . .” I let the unasked question hang in the air.
He looks up from the spot on the desk he had been lost in thought focusing on. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”
“It sounds like there’s something strong between you two.”
“Yeah, you’re damn right there is.”
This time I do come up from my chair. Clay does too and before I realize, we’re chest to chest next to the desk, both of us breathing harshly.
“I will kill you if you touched one hair on her head,” I say with a growl.
“Let me ask you something, big man . . . who do you think was there to pick up the pieces after you stomped all over her that night?”
My anger spikes. Just thinking about my brother with his hands on Leighton makes me want to kill him. Rationally, I know I have no right to feel this way. I knew what I was doing that night, and in doing so, I knew I was breaking her heart, but I never thought about who would happen to be there after I left.
“Clayton,” I seethe.
“You don’t fuckin’ get to be pissed. You left. I told you I understand why you did. We all understood it. You were meant to ride, Mav. Even if you hadn’t felt the need to escape this town, you were born to ride. Even knowing why you left, it doesn’t fix the fact that you went out like a tornado set on destroying everything in the way. You fucked up and because of that I had to come in and fix it all. You gotta lot of balls to sit here and be pissed because we grew closer after you left.”
“How close?”
He pushes back with his chest, but I don’t budge.
“I’d kill for that girl. Even my own damn brother. Hurt her again and I won’t even think twice about it, Maverick.”
“How. Fuckin’. Close?”
Clay’s jaw sets, the hard clamp of his teeth making it flex rapidly. His green eyes turn cold as his lips thin.
“You really want to do this? Fine! You destroyed what little confidence she had in herself. She was already insecure about everythin’, as you know, but her beauty shined through even as she was still comin’ into herself. She’s always had something about her. Even when she was just a young’un, that girl screamed forever and that scream was always directed right at you. You were so busy tryin’ to find a way out—to get away from Dad, chase some bullshit with Mom, and to ride—the only thing you loved at the time, that you didn’t even see that. Or anything else—here at home. Out with friends. With the attention from girls you didn’t want. I only saw you at peace when you were ridin’ or when you were with Leighton. You really think, knowing that, I would move in on her the second you left?”
His words knock some wind out of my sails. The truth I had been avoiding. The pain knowing that one of those things that already brought me peace is gone and the other might never be mine is a very real reminder of the stakes I’m up against to finally be free of the pain that haunts me.
“You gotta focus on one thing at a time, but I’m proud of you for putting that focus where it matters. I can honestly tell you, you fix this shit with her and you two finally live out what you’ve always been destined for, I have a feeling she will be all you need to face the rest of what is haunting you.”
“I never should have pushed her away,” I tell him, voicing the one thing I’ve known deep in my gut since the day I left. “I should have been stronger.”
He takes a deep breath, and clamps his large palm on my shoulder. “You are one of the strongest men I know, Maverick. You could have done things differently, but we both know you did what you had to do in an impossible situation.”
“You stayed,” I whisper. It’s one of the biggest things that’s fucked with my mind over the years. I took the coward’s way out, and in doing so, I left my siblings to battle the beast alone.