Page 34 of The Last Dance You Saved
“I have no idea how much she knows about him. I do know that both times I suggested she was working for him, she was surprised and pissed.”
“Your judgment isn’t exactly clear when it comes to her.”
It wasn’t. I wouldn’t deny it. I was entranced. Captivated. And I desperately wanted for her to be telling me the truth. I wanted her to be exactly who she said she was, so I could lose myself in her skin a few times without regret. So I could get the taste of her out of my system and go on with my life.
“What else did you find out about the Hatleys?” I asked.
“They seem to be exactly who and what they say they are. Long-standing ties to the Tennessee community they live in. They had an ugly confrontation with the Laredo cartel a little over a year ago. The oldest brother is married to a former NSA agent who helped bring the cartel down. The other brother is the local sheriff.”
“So not the type to get in bed with Puzo.”
“On the surface, no, but who knows what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe the Laredos were muscling in on their turf. If they are into something dirty, they’ve kept it small and local.”
We let that set for a moment. “I may need some help with something else here, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
There’d been something about Adam that had set off my signals earlier. Something more than the resentment he’d tossed my way since we’d been kids. Maybe it was what Fallon had told me about him and Spence arguing the night my brother died, or how he’d tossed Spence’s failure at me with glee. Or maybe I just wanted him to be involved so I didn’t have to live with remorse that was starting to find a home inside me. I wasn’t sure yet.
“You still planning on selling the place?” Steele asked.
My thoughts by the waterfall, of keeping the land whole and safe from developers, returned. Dad had seen it as a duty, keeping the ever-diminishing wild of California safe from the hordes that wanted nothing more than to tear her up and fill her with structures and people. I’d forgotten about it until today—or I’d let myself forget it.
“Unless this dude ranch idea can show me it’s salvageable,” I said and despised how mere minutes back on the ranch had me questioning my plans.
My father had been good at carving uncertainty and doubts into me. He’d taken Spence’s side in every argument, even when we’d all known Spence was wrong. Just like he’d taken my brother’s side over mine when it had come to Lauren. From the moment he’d caught me dating her, he’d told me I was in the wrong. He’d said you didn’t muscle in on your brother’s girl, and I’d known he was right and hadn’t cared. Truth was, my dad’s disapproval had made me all the more determined to win her love.
As I hung up with Steele, I wished for a rare second glass of bourbon. The one I’d downed in Dad’s old office had long since burned through me. My mind whirled with questions, memories of long-lost hopes, and unexpected grief until I finally fell into a fitful sleep where I dreamed of pixies.
They carried me off into the moonlight, spinning me wildly around the falls before dropping me from the clifftop. I landed in nettles that stung my entire body like a whip on bare flesh, and when I woke with a pounding chest in the dark, more memories I despised came with them. The one and only time my dad had used anything but a hand on me, and the way Mom had stepped between me and the horse whip. The way she’d grabbed it, and thrust it back at him, and told him if he ever touched me that way again, he’d lose everything he loved.
I bit my tongue that day, knowing it wasn’t me he cared about losing.
? ? ?
When I left Levi’s cabin the next morning, I was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots I’d dug out from the back of my closet when I’d packed the day before. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn them and wasn’t even sure how I still owned them, but they would serve their purpose this week.
My head craved coffee, and my stomach was objecting to having missed dinner, so I was headed for the main house for food when I was frozen mid-stride by the view of Sadie Hatley sitting on the top rail of the nearest corral. Her face was sheltered by the brim of her black cowboy hat, body encased in jeans and a thin, cotton button-down in a shade of blue that would make those eyes even more vivid.
The sun practically shimmered around her. When I turned to look at what had brought a smile to her face, my heart grew a thousand times. Fallon stood on the back of her horse as it trotted around the ring. She was in jean shorts that barely covered her butt with a short-sleeved shirt knotted just below her chest. She wore bright-pink cowboy boots that matched the cowboy hat sitting on two long braids. Her smile was so large it could have touched the sky.
That grin, that happiness I rarely saw in her anymore, slammed into me, smoothing away the remnants of my sleepless night like a salve.
She spun a lasso above her head before sliding it down around her body and then jumping over it and landing cleanly on the horse’s back. The buckskin quarter horse never broke stride, steady and strong as it made its way around the paddock with its mane, done in a flourish of braids and ribbons, blowing behind it. My daughter moved fluidly from the jump into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin, all while continuing to dance with the lasso.
I finally unstuck my boots, striding over to lean on the rail next to Sadie. I felt rather than saw her look down at me. But when she inched away, it made me want to put my hands on her waist and drag her back so our skin was touching. Instead, I let her go—at least for now.
The only positive of my restless night had been the renewed determination it had left me with when it came to Sadie Hatley. I’d break her just like I’d broken dozens of mares before her. Not brutally. Not even to prove I could. But simply so I could capture every moan and gasp she’d offer up. So she’d be mine, even if it was only for the handful of days she was here. And in those moments, I knew I’d find the truth of her. Good, bad, or ugly.
Fallon drew her horse up into the center of the ring where both she and the horse took a bow. Sadie clapped wildly, put two fingers in her mouth, and whistled. It took a whole hell of a lot of physical control to draw my gaze away from those pretty lips back to my daughter.
Sliding off her horse, Fallon walked over to us with a confident saunter that made me remember those conversations I wanted to have with her mom about dating—or rather, not dating. Her horse followed without even a command, devoted to my daughter. Did Fallon know I felt the same? Had I ever shown her that I would do just about anything to make her happy?
Anything but the one thing she wants the most, my devil taunted.
“That was incredible,” Sadie told her. “How long have you been doing this?”
Fallon took off her hat and placed it on the post rail. “I don’t know. Since I was maybe five?” She looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded.
I may not have been on the ranch, but I knew what went on with my daughter. I’d always made her my business. When Lauren had first told me Fallon was already doing tricks and wanted to take lessons with one of the instructors at the Western riding school, I hadn’t been sure about it. Sending her off to do stunts on a horse felt like the opposite of protecting her. It felt like throwing her outside at night when you knew the wolves were coming.
