Page 43 of At the Rancher's Pleasure

“Don’t you threaten me,” Rusty growled, wrapping his digits around her finger and squeezing it, a little harder than she expected.

She couldn’t show her fear; if she did, she’d lose this battle so she didn’t try to tug away. “I will spend every last cent I have to protect them, Rusty.”

He pushed her finger back to the point of pain, and Sarabeth managed to hide her wince. “I said, don’t threaten me!” Rusty growled.

“Don’t underestimate me, Rusty. And let me go,” Sarabeth told him, unable to stop a quick gasp of pain from escaping.

“Take your hands off her.”

Sarabeth winced at Brett’s hard as hell voice. She glanced over her shoulder to see him standing to her right, incandescent anger blazing from his eyes.

“Stay out of this, Brett. I have it under control,” Sarabeth told him, returning her gaze to Rusty’s face. He didn’t release her finger, and she knew that if Brett intervened, Rusty would think he’d won and she couldn’t allow that. She’d worked too damn hard to make herself strong, to gather the courage to face him and deal with his contempt and anger.

“Brett, back off.”

“Yeah, listen to Mama, son,” Rusty said, amusement in his voice. Out of the corner of her eye, Sarabeth saw that many of the guests were standing close to the doors leading to the balcony, pretending not to watch them. Damn, their argument was attracting attention. Not what she’d planned for tonight.

“Release her.Now.”

Brett was close to losing it, Sarabeth realized. There was no way he’d allow Rusty to hurt her, not even a little bit. She tried to tug her finger away, but Rusty held it in a hard, tight grip. Sarabeth knew her ex was trying to make a point and because he couldn’t win the verbal argument, he was trying to intimidate her. She needed him to know that it wouldn’t work.

And that she’d never, ever back down from a fight with him again.

“Brett. Leave us alone,” Sarabeth ordered him.

“The hell I will,” Brett replied, reaching them. He looked down at her finger in Rusty’s grip and turned dangerous eyes toward him. “You have a second. Just one.”

“This has nothing to do with you, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Brett ground out, his words dripping with venom. “And, last chance,old man...release her.”

Rusty must’ve seen something in Brett’s eyes that had made him hesitate because he flung her finger away and took a step back. “She’s not worth my time. Never has been, never will be.”

Brett raised his hand, his fist clenched, but Sarabeth jumped between them, not willing to turn this into a bigger circus than it already was. She heard and ignored Brett’s furious growl, and glared at Rusty.

“No, you’re getting it wrong, Rusty. You’re not worth my time, you never were,” Sarabeth told him, her voice dripping with disdain.

Turning her back to Rusty, her eyes collided with Brett’s dark green, and dangerous, scowl. She was standing between her past and what the person she wished could be her future. But he had just shown her that, like Rusty, he didn’t trust her to handle a situation herself, that he saw her as the little woman who needed his intervention, his help.

By not allowing her to deal with Rusty in her own way, by treating her like someone who couldn’t fight her own battles, he’d shown her that he still thought she needed rescuing. She didn’t, and it hurt like hell to realize that his attraction to her was based on him thinking she was another woman who needed his help.

She’d thought they were different but equal, but his actions tonight confirmed that some part of him considered her to be the last in his long line of damsels in distress. She refused to play that part, no matter how much she loved him. She was no longer a mirror, reflecting what people expected.

“I didn’t need your help, Brett. I’m not one of your strays or one of your pet projects. I don’t need you to rescue me. Not tonight and not ever.” Sarabeth held his eyes. Underneath the anger, she could sense his confusion and irritation.

“We’re done. In fact, I’m so done I’m reconsidering staying in Royal. Not because Rusty wants me to leave but because I refuse to stay in a town where I’m seen as being helpless, idiotic and brainless.”

“He had his hands on you, he was hurting—”

Sarabeth cut off his explanation with a sharp jerk of her head. “I had it under control. I asked you to back off. The fact you didn’t tells me that you have no respect for me, no belief in my ability to stand on my own two feet.”

Oh, she regretted breaking up with him in such a public setting—more gossip—but she couldn’t find it in her to care. She was showing Royal, showing her kids that she wasn’t a pushover and she was leaving with her heart dented but not destroyed. That she was strong and independent. Andfierce, dammit.

Brett would be pissed, maybe a little hurt, but soon she’d be replaced. That was the way of the world and she was, as she kept telling everyone, a big girl. She’d deal. If she could cope with her venomous ex-husband, she could certainly cope with a sexy ex-boyfriend.

The difference was that she’d never loved Rusty the way she loved Brett.

“Don’t do this, Sarabeth,” Brett stated, his voice quiet but resolute. “Let’s talk this through, find a solution.”

---