Page 9 of A Reckless Memory

My tongue moved sluggishly like it’d been stung by a bee. “She’s a pageant queen.”

Not that I’d followed Ansen’s life at all. I’d forgotten him. Mostly. Except for the few times I checked on his whereabouts—only to make sure I didn’t move close to where he was working. How long I did the checking was another issue, but I counted the number of occurrences. It was less embarrassing.

“Her family’s loaded and owns one of the biggest horse ranches in Kansas,” I said. “And she leaves cryptic comments about any day now and bling bling.” The fear I’d be nosy and learn they picked June second had kept me far away from her profile. I was already cranky that day—the anniversary of nothing. A day filled with a salty disposition and ice cream.

“Cocksucker.”

“The biggest,” I said with as much authority as possible, even though my chest tightened. What I said to Chad hadn’t been a lie. When a guy knew what he was doing and had the right tool—sex was an experience.

I should’ve been devastated over Lawson, but breaking up with him had been an annoyance. A nuisance. I hadn’t minded moving, and I looked forward to settling into my own slice of paradise. A place no guy had a say over. It was how I’d found myself looking up Ansen last year. I had to make sure he was nowhere near North Dakota if I was moving close to his estranged family.

Sutton punched frantically away on my phone. I poured another drink. Was I up to six? The effects were snowballing and I needed to stop, but there wasn’t much left in the bottle. Still, I didn’t drink enough to handle this amount well.

At the same time, there wasn’t nearly enough booze to get me through this trip down memory lane. Good thing Wilder said he’d give us a ride if we needed it.

She suddenly straightened with a gasp, nearly slipping off her stool. “He’s not getting married.”

“What?” I grabbed for the phone before I could remind myself I didn’t care. Headlines filled the search page. She’d gone online to look him up, and Google was not as kind as all the pictures in the social media apps.

Sutton tipped close. “Her profile says she’s disappointed about how things turned out, but she didn’t elaborate. Her feed’s nothing but her friends calling him a piece of shit.”

I couldn’t spare a moment to be smug. I was reading headlines. “Horse trainer and Gustafson Performance Horses parting ways amid scandal.” Squinting until the words cleared, I kept reciting the clickbait. “No longer welcome in the reined-horse competition world. Cruelty suspected—fingers point toward trainer.” I frowned, suddenly defensive. “That’s just not true. He’d never hurt a horse.”

“You don’t think he would? It’s been a long time.”

I shook my head and swayed in my seat just like Sutton had. “No trainer would stand up to Daddy about expanding training windows to work better with each horse’s personality and then resort to cruelty.” Arguing with Daddy wasn’t something many people walked away from unscathed, but Ansen had kept his job and Daddy had wanted him to marry me.

“If he didn’t deserve it, I’d almost feel bad for him.”

“Almost.” My lips twitched, then my indignation returned. “Did you see her last name?”

“Her profile only says Stephanie Jane.”

“It’s Gustafson. As in, the daughter of the guy he worked for.”

“The plot thickens.” Sutton cocked a brow like she wasn’t going to ask me how I had the dirt because we both knew full well how much I’d cyberstalked him. “He must’ve figured it almost worked once.”

“And it failed him again.” I scrolled through more headlines. “He’s utterly blacklisted. Maybe there’s a ranch in the middle of nowhere with an owner who only has sons who’ll hire him. But I doubt it. He’ll swagger his way into another job, win over some other unsuspecting woman, and be all the better for it. This is nothing but a blip for him.” Just like I was. The ache in my chest was back.

A giggle left Sutton, and she refilled our shot glasses. “Wouldn’t it be funny if you hired him? He’d be your bitch.”

I snickered. “He’d be like an equine Cinderella.” I made my voice high-pitched. “Muck those stalls. Stack those bales. Fix my fence.”

“You’d be the one in charge—the one with the money.”

We laughed, and her smile slipped.

“What?” I asked.

“I have an idea.”

* * *

There was knocking on my door. I cracked an eye open, groaning as I did so. “Yeah?” I said weakly into my pillow, then smacked my lips together, catching some of the pillowcase in my mouth. My tongue was lined with cotton, and the faint flavor of cinnamon managed to be sour.

“I put water on your nightstand last night,” Wilder said on the other side of the guest room door. “I’m going to help Eliot with chores before my shift, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I didn’t drink that much,” I croaked as I rolled up. The room spun, and I put a hand to my aching head.

---