Page 9 of Freeing the Wild
DAD
See Goode’s touchdown last night?
My father’s message stares me in the face.A nice little reminder that Dan Goode, a running back I played with at university just started his third season with the Detroit Lions, and he’s having a banner one at that.A reminder that I was so close to that future being mine, before one wrong move changed everything.
Been a little busy with work.Didn’t see the game last night.
DAD
Shame.Could’ve been you, boy.
I grimace, leaving his message unanswered, and put my phone back in my pocket.These days, my dad only messages me when he wants to remind me of all the ways I failed him, to ask for help with something at his house, or when he needsmoney for a track debt.I’m not in the mood for any of those right now.
The other thing about my father is he’ll never let me live down the fact that I blew my knee out during the first year of my free ride to the University of Kentucky.I was the star tight end all through high school.“Destined for great things,” the local papers said.“The next certain NFL draft pick to come from the Wildcats, Haden Westbrook.”All I had to do was make it to my junior year.But I never did.
I still remember the crushing mental weight of lying on that field looking up at the night sky, knowing my knee was fucked, knowing everything I was working toward was in jeopardy.One wrong move and a knee-on-knee tackle had resulted in a torn ACL.The doctors told me it would be a miracle if I ever played at the same level again and they were right.Surgery, ten weeks in a brace, physical therapy for the better part of a year while someone else took my place on the team.And now, all I have left of those days is the dull ache that surfaces sometimes.Like when I hop down off my horse too fast or carry a certain city girl in my arms.
I never even had to try with football.It was just one of those things I was naturally good at.It made my life easy with my studies and with girls, but I fucking hated it.I only did it becausehepushed me to.I did it because I wassupposedto.My dad was convinced I was gonna make us rich one day.“You get to the NFL and that’ll really show your mama for leaving us.”were words I heard more than I care to remember.
I was too young to understand why she left when she did.Hell, I still don’t know.My parents were never married, so she didn’t even need to ask for a divorce.She just left.And all I have from her is a note she left on my dresser.“Be a strong tree, Haden.Stay firmly planted in who you are.Be your own man.”Even at the age of ten, I knew what she meant.Don’t be like my father.
In hindsight, I’m fairly certain he was cheating on her.She was always unhappy and had to work two jobs just to keep us afloat.More than once I remember her sitting on the bathroom or kitchen floor, in what I now know was panic, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face.
When I was playing ball, I thought maybe she’d come back if she saw that I’d made it.Maybe she’d miss me.I hoped she’d be proud.But then I blew my knee out and she never did come back.At twenty-six, I’ve given up on that dream and have accepted the reality that I will never see my mother again.
Last my dad heard from her stepsister a few years back was that she was living in northern Canada, and she’d been married to an older man for the past ten years while I was stuck here with a passive-aggressive, emotionless father.One who still likes to remind me every chance he gets how my being a ranch hand is a complete and utter letdown.
I don’t tell him how I’ve been working with rescue horses on a neighboring ranch to learn how to rehabilitate them, or about the classes I took for a few years through the local community college in Equine Management.I don’t tell him that I’m saving every damn penny to one day have my own rehabilitation facility.I’ve learned that when it comes to my dad, the less he knows, the easier it is for me.Football may have made him happy, but all I want is to be outside in the open air with my favorite horses.
“I’ve shoveled enough shit to last me a year,” Dusty says now as I pass him, entering the main horse barn.
“That’ll ’bout wrap it up.”I clap him on the back.He’s been at it all afternoon and he’s apologized to me at least ten times for earlier.“Maybe just think without your hard-on next time?”
Dusty stands up straight and leans on his shovel, wiping hisbrow with his sleeve.“That’s never happened to me before.She knew exactly what to say and I was …”
“Helpless?”I finish for him.I know, because that’s sort of how I felt too.
“Fuck, yeah exactly,” Dusty agrees.“It was those eyes, those lips.The little devil put me under her spell.”
I flex my fists, not liking the way Dusty’s describing her.She pissed me off, but I don’t need the vivid reminder of those pouty lips all the same.
“This is your get-out-of-jail-free card,” I say sternly.“Find Ben and finish up, hit the showers, and then I’ll take you for a beer or three.You’ve earned them today.”
“Sounds good.Horse and Barrel?I could use a burger, I’m starving,” Dusty replies, tapping off his shovel.I realize I’m starving too.I’ve been going so hard the last three weeks since little Billi was born that I’ve barely had time to sleep, let alone eat a good meal.Half the time I forget to even bring my empty mug of coffee in from the porch in the morning.
I nod before turning to head out of the barn.“Finish up now and meet me at the bar for nine.I’ve just got to stop by Penny’s.”
As I walk, my mind drifts back to the city girl from earlier.There was just something about her, a defiance that made me instantly want to tame her.I catalog her features: those silky spirals of blonde hair hanging down to that small waist, the way those shorts molded to her curves.Those icy blue eyes, soft and sexy.And those hips?Fucking perfection.
Truth be told, I don’t even need Dusty’s reminder of her.I’ve been pushing her from my head since the moment she left my sight.The little menace somehow got under my skin with her snide remarks and her outright insults.It took me a minute to compose myself after she left—after holding her, standing so close to her and breathing in her peachy clean scent while she told me how unattractive she found me.
But the joke’s on her.I saw the way her lips parted as she watched me, the way the flush crept up the column of her slender throat when her face was inches from mine.
I shake my head to push her image from my mind because, hell, my dick’s already twitching again.
Women rarely surprise me, but this one, whose name I don’t even know, has me sporting a semi just thinking about her.I glance in the direction of the pen where I held her, now empty.I shouldn’t be thinking about her.She seemed spoiled, entitled, everything I can’t stand.And I know I’ll probably never see her again.But, much to my annoyance, I find myselfwishingI could.
CHAPTER SIX
