The Wild Ones (23 page)

One other big male in the herd turns to run down the beach.  The others follow suit.  It’s then that Trick turns and makes his way back to me.

The smile on his face is so beautiful, so perfectly happy and sanguine, I want to kiss him.  Not in passion, but in…something else.  Maybe the love I’m beginning to think I can’t contain for much longer.  I’m not sure.  The feeling is foreign to me. It’s like I experienced it
with him. 
I was
that
invested in what he was doing, in what it would mean for him to accomplish it. 

And he did it. 

And it’s huge. 

There’s no doubt Trick’s future is with horses.  I just wish I knew if his future was with me, too.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR- Trick

Watching Jenna drive Cami away is more than a little unsettling.  I feel whipped for not wanting to let her go, to keep her with me instead.  I mean, I haven’t known her that long and it was just one weekend.

But, man!  What a weekend.

In a way, I feel like several pieces of my life, of my dreams fell into place all at once.  Introducing Rags to human touch for the first time and having Cami there for the whole thing was just…sublime.  I can’t remember being any happier.  Ever. 

For the first time, I find myself thinking of my future wife with a face.  Cami’s face.  Which makes no sense.  We’re all wrong for each other.  Except in all the ways we’re so right for each other, so good together. 

Damn!  What a conundrum.

When I can no longer see Jenna’s tail lights, I take my bag back to my room. I don’t relish the idea of spending the rest of the evening doing laundry, not when I’d much rather risk my job, something that was one of the most important things in my life just a few weeks ago, to go and find a way to sneak in to see Cami, to hold her and kiss her for just a few more minutes.

You sound like a girl!

I chide myself as I sort dirty clothes into two separate piles and carry them to the wash machine.  I go into Mom’s bathroom to see if she and Grace have any that need washing, but the hamper is empty.  I don’t know when Mom finds the time to do all that she does, but it gets done.  Of course, she’s aged so much since I left for college, she probably doesn’t sleep anymore. 

As it always does, guilt assails me.

I start a load of colored clothes and head back to my room.  I zip my now-empty duffel and put it away.  When I turn back to the bed, I see the thing that Mom left me, the thing she said she wanted me to tend to first when I got back.

It’s a long wooden box with a brand burned into the top.  It reminds me of a ranch symbol or something.  It’s a horseshoe with the letters P, B and H inside it.  My initials.  Yet I’ve never seen the box. 

One side is hinged.  The opposite side has a latch closure.  I flip it open and life the lid.

The contents are covered in a dark red velvet cloth. An envelope sits on top of it.  One word is scrawled across the front—Trick.  It’s my father’s writing.  Even after all this time, I recognize it.

I’m sad and excited and a little nervous as I rip open the envelope and take out the folded piece of paper.  It’s bittersweet to have something new from him after all this time.  But what must it say, for my mother to have kept it from me all these years?

It reads:

Trick,

I know you don’t understand how I could take my own life and leave the family that I love so much.  And I would rather think you’d never have to know my shame, but I also know there might come a time when your mother feels like you should know, that you need to know.  You’re reading this so now is obviously that time.

I’ve written her a much different letter, but one that explains what’s inside this one.  No words, no actions, no amount of regret can take back the pain I’ve caused. I can only hope that my absence will help those hurts to heal.

All my adult life, the only thing I’ve ever loved more than horses was you, your sister and your mom.  Everything I did, I did for you three.  Except for one thing.  One selfish thing, one mistake.  But that’s all it took.  It’s the one thing that has destroyed everything I’ve always tried to protect—my family.

You probably don’t remember that I had a partner for my dreams of breeding thoroughbreds.  You never met him.  When we met, he didn’t know as much about horses as I did, but he was able to get the start-up money that I needed to make our dreams as a family come true.  He’s a good man.  After reading the rest of what I have to say, you’ll see that he’s a much better man than I am.

I met Jack Hines at a horse show.  He was there to learn more about the financial side of the racing and breeding industry, him being a business major and all, while I was there to look at the horses and dream of one day owning my own ranch.  It just so happened that we lived in the same town, although we’d never met.  I’m a few years older than him.  Anyway, long story short, after several more chance encounters, we hit it off and decided to partner and make both our dreams come true—his to manage a successful breeding operation, mine to own, breed and maybe even race champion horseflesh.  And for a while, it looked like we were both going to get what we wanted.

Within the first two years, we had three horses.  You probably remember them. You used to help me with them after school and during the summer.  You’d rather have been there at the stables with those horses than anywhere else.  I hope your love for them never dies.  It’s part of who you are, who you’re going to be.  It’s your destiny.

After being involved in a business together for going on three years, Jack and I finally decided to let people other than our families know of our plans, so we hosted a party to join our two worlds, friends and family.  And that’s when I met Cherlynn, Jack’s wife.

She was beautiful and charming.  She was cultured and sophisticated, all the things that might fascinate a simple man like me.  I’d never really valued those things, but they were appealing in a way that…well, she seduced me without even trying.  I’ll just put it that way.

Trick, I’ve never loved anyone like I loved your mother.  I don’t know what happened inside me that would ever make me betray her the way I did.  But it did.  It happened.  And I broke her heart. I ruined the family I’d always worked so hard to provide for, the family that had always been front and center in my dreams.  I also ruined any chance of those dreams coming true by betraying my partner.

Your mother found out by accident.  I like to think I would’ve been a big enough man to come clean eventually, but I never got the chance.  One day in September, she came to the stables looking for me and found me there with Cherlynn.  Life was never the same after that.  I’d betrayed her trust, our marriage and our family. 

I thought it might blow over, especially if I could stop seeing Cherlynn, but a few weeks later she went to Jack.  He took it a lot better than I probably would have if I’d been in his shoes.  But I’m sure you can imagine that our partnership was over.  And the only way I had to settle up with him financially was to give him the rights to the horses.  All of them.  Then I had to explain it to your mother, how my mistake had cost us everything else, too. We were destitute and broken, fatally broken, and I couldn’t see my way clear.

After that, the only thing I could think to do was to take out an additional insurance policy, one that didn’t have very many restrictions and take the life that ruined ours.  Mine.

I hope one day you can understand that I did it all for you, for my family.  I also hope that one day you can forgive me.  I’m just a man.  And I made a mistake.  Unfortunately, it was a colossal mistake, one that I couldn’t find my way out of without hurting you three even more than I already had.

I had this box made to give you when you turned eighteen, the day I had hoped to give you a Ferrier’s set of your own and a part of the company I’d had a hand in creating from the ground up.  That will never happen now, but I pray you’ll go on to do great things, that you’ll have your own breeding operation and that you’ll use these tools and remember how much I loved you and your mom and your sister.  You really were my whole world. I just lost sight of that for a few irreparable seconds in life.

I love you, son.  Please don’t live in the past.  Go on and have the kind of future that I wanted for you.  And take care of your mom and your sister.  There was a time when the four of us were going to turn the racing world on its ear and you’d all want for nothing.  I can’t make that happen now, but you can. 

Go be a great man, Trick.  Be the man I couldn’t be.

With numb fingers, I set the letter aside and peel back the velvet cover.  Beneath it is a leather case.  I don’t need to open it to know what kinds of things it contains.  I’ve used many a Ferrier kit in my lifetime.  The fact that my father bought this set for me makes all the difference in the world.

I’m still sitting on the bed, working out what I’ve learned and how I feel when Mom gets home.  I hear her open the door.  Her footsteps don’t even pause until she’s standing in my doorway.

She looks at me.  I look at her.  She puts her hands over her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut then her body folds like a house of cards and she drops to her knees.

I have questions.  I know now’s not the time to ask them, though, so I go to the woman who has held the job of two parents all these years and I wrap my arms around her.

She cries for I don’t know how long.  A long time, it feels like.  Then, as if I don’t have enough to think about and worry about and work through, she deals me another bomb. She asks me to make a promise I’m not sure I can keep.  Or that I even want to.

She’s sniffling, her breath hitching in her chest as she gulps air.  “Patrick, promise me one thing.”

“Anything,” I say, and at the time, I mean it.  Until she tells me what it is.

“Stay away from Jack’s daughter.  I don’t ever want to see her again.”

And just like that, she jerks the rug out from under me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE- Cami

Like my last thought before sleep, my first thought upon waking is Trick.  He dominates the vast majority of my available brain space these days.  And it’s only getting worse with each passing second. 

I think of my accidental admission and how much I want to say it for real—sober and intentionally—but how afraid I am that he won’t say it back.  Of course, living in fear is never a good decision to make, but this just feels too…scary to rush right in to, no matter how much I might want to.

But that can wait until tomorrow. Or the day after.  Today, I just want to spend with Trick and the horses.  I want to enjoy every second of the present before I do anything that might ruin what we have. I’m not nearly done with Trick yet.

I’m smiling when I throw back the covers and head for the shower.  Today, I’m gonna knock his socks off!

After showering and shaving everything from my ankles to my armpits—twice—I smooth on a thick layer of lotion that makes my skin look like shimmering caramel and set about putting on my most unsuspectingly sexy outfit.  Snug, low riding jeans with a ragged hem and a hole in one knee coupled with a white cap-sleeved shirt that ties just below my ribs.  My boots are the finishing touch to put me in the right frame of mind to turn Trick’s head.  Rather than go with a hat, I dry my dark red locks and pile them on top of my head in a loose style that looks like I just rolled out of bed.  And out from under Trick.  I grin when I catch my reflection on my way out the door. I hope he likes what he sees.

I dance through the kitchen, kissing Drogheda on the cheek as I pass her.  “No breakfast for me yet, Drogheda.  I’m on my way to the stable.”

“Dressed like that?” she asks, looking me up and down.

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Nothing.  I’m just worried that Sooty will fall off a horse and break something when he sees you.”

I smile.  “That’s exactly what I want to hear.”

“That you could cause Sooty to get hurt?”  She’s clearly outraged, and rightly so.  Even if she’s being ridiculous.

“Yes, Drogheda.  That’s my goal in life. Didn’t I tell you?”

She swats at me with her dish towel.  “Make fun of an old woman, Smart Mouth, and she might surprise you.”

“Oh, you know I’m teasing. Of course I don’t want anyone to get hurt.  But Sooty’s not the one I’m thinking of.”

I wink at Drogheda and she narrows her eyes on me.  “Is this still about the new boy?”