The rough ride, p.29
The Rough Ride, page 29
And he let it close in around him. And he really let himself just wallow in it. And how fucking sorry he felt for himself. And she was gone; she wasn’t holding him up anymore. That’s what she’d been doing.
She’d been a balm for his soul, and she had covered this pain, and now she left him to bleed out.
And he had to feel this. This unending pain that he had been avoiding all this time. Because hadn’t he been through enough?
And who had been there for him?
She was just another person who would let him down... She was just...
She was there. She was there for him.
And it played through his mind like a movie. The joy on her face when he brought her candy. The way that she’d fought him when he pulled her out of the lake.
The way that she looked at him, and smiled and hadn’t recoiled at his scars.
How she’d taken rides on his shoulders. And made him feel like maybe he wasn’t a monster.
How even when she’d been a teenage brat who was too pretty for his own good, she smiled at him.
How she’d become his most cherished fantasy, because she gave him softness when no one else did.
She’s been giving to you.
And there’s this whole story about how you take care of her. But look at her.
Look at all she gave to you. She just wants you to love her. And you want to take from her. You want to tell yourself that taking care of her is just as good. That it’s the same.
But you aren’t giving her what she needs.
Alaina, bright and beautiful, who had brought him back to his humanity. Who had made him want to try. Had made him want to be more than he was. Better.
But in the end he’d fallen short.
She deserved more.
She was right to demand it.
You don’t think you should try to become more?
He growled and dropped down to the floor. Down to his knees.
What the hell were you supposed to do when everything just hurt?
How the hell were you supposed to get through it?
He felt like that burn victim he’d been at thirteen. In endless pain, completely unsure how to get past it.
You don’t. You just have to heal.
You have to let it heal.
And he knew what he had to do. He knew exactly who he had to talk to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I HATE THIS,” Alaina said, the next morning over coffee, with Fia and Rory and Quinn sitting around the table with her.
“You can’t live with a man who doesn’t love you,” Fia said pragmatically.
“No,” Quinn and Rory agreed.
“I’m not sure I can live without him either.”
And for a moment, everything inside of her hurt so much that she wanted to claw it away in a panic. Wanted to solve it. Right now. Today. She wanted to run back to Gus and tell him that she was sorry. That she didn’t mean it. That they could be together. She wanted to go back on all of this. To say that she didn’t deserve to ask for more from him, not after everything he’d given, and see if it would be enough, and if he would take her back, and if she could get rid of this unending pain inside of her.
Except...
That wasn’t the right thing to do.
That was what she used to do. Panic when it hurt. Turn away from it. Run from it. She had to sit in this. She had to sit in it and see where it would go. Because what was the alternative? Half-healed wounds.
Things that never reached their potential.
She had to trust that Gus was strong. And that so was she. That she could withstand this.
No matter what decision he came to.
“I just love him so much,” she said. “And I don’t want to be apart from him. But I just think being his crutch for the rest of my life isn’t doing either of us any favors.”
“Well, your baby will have a passel of the best aunts ever, and we love you. And we support you. And you will never be alone,” Fia said.
“I know. I was so afraid of it. And I just kept... The abandonment stuff, it just... It really got to me. But the real reason I married Gus was that I wanted him. I didn’t have the language for it, or the maturity to understand it, but it’s always been him. I was just afraid of it. Because it was such a deep feeling. We’ve known each other for so long that it wasn’t lust. Not first. It was love first. And it didn’t become romantic until the time was right. But it’s inside out, and that made it hard to recognize. It was certainty before it was butterflies. But the damn butterflies made everything a whole lot more confusing.”
“That’s special,” Fia said. “I don’t think there’s very many people that get to experience love that way.”
“It’s only special if he pulls his head out of his ass,” Quinn said.
She sighed. “It isn’t that. He is so hurt, and I can’t get to the bottom of it. I can’t quite get to the why. I want to, but he won’t let me. He thinks he’s like his dad, but that’s not the thing that’s hurting him. Not really. I just wonder if he’s been lonely for so long he doesn’t actually know how not to be.”
“If he loves you as much as you love him,” Fia said, “he’s going to figure it out.”
“I just have to be strong enough to let him.”
“Good thing you’re a Sullivan. As well as a McCloud. I think there’s enough stubbornness between the two of those names to sustain you.”
Alaina sighed. “And whatever won’t... Well, I have you.”
“You do. Always.”
* * *
“HUNTER,” GUS SAID, standing outside his brother’s front door at 6:00 a.m. and shouting his name.
He’d knocked already, but his brother hadn’t come to the door.
“Hunter,” he shouted again.
He heard heavy footsteps, and the door jerked open, his brother still buttoning his pants. “What the hell?”
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Yeah,” his brother said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You are.”
“Sorry.” He pushed his way inside anyway.
“I don’t think you understand how sacred morning sex is, Gus. The amount of times I have actually... You’re not okay, are you?”
“No,” Gus said.
He stood and looked at his younger brother, and felt about a thousand years old.
“What’s up?” Hunter asked.
“She asked me to love her. And I don’t know how.”
The look in Hunter’s eyes, the pity, hurt, but he had to stand there and take it because he was pitiable right now and even he had to admit it.
“Well, that’s bullshit. You’ve been loving her for years.”
The words just about knocked him flat. “What?”
“You look after her. You protect her. You want her more than you want any other woman. You’ve been faithful to her. You were there for her when she needed you most. You’ve been loving her this whole time.”
He felt like he’d been shocked by a live wire.
He’d loved her.
All along.
From pulling her out of the pond, to seeing her standing at the lake.
Loved her as a protector.
Loved her as a man.
He hadn’t realized.
“Well... What the fuck?”
Hunter put his hand on Gus’s shoulder. “It isn’t that you don’t love her. It’s that you’re just so damn guarded.” He patted him twice, and moved away from him again.
“I don’t know how not to be.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s tough. But...here’s what I know. What I know, Gus, is that you can’t stay safe and be in a relationship. You’ve gotta put it all out there. You’ve gotta be willing to be vulnerable. And I think you’re close. I think the love part is there. But you’re real difficult to pin down, buddy. And it’s hard to feel... It’s hard to get a read on what you feel. She needs more than that. She needs more than that, and you can’t blame her. She needs feelings, some flowers and all that. And mostly, she needs your heart. Because love’s no good if you’re just holding it inside of you and not sharing it. Believe me when I tell you, I get it. I get how hard it is. She left us. I blamed myself. You probably blame yourself. Hell, we probably all do. It’s probably a roulette wheel of self-loathing. Because it’s a vicious cycle. Not wanting to be like Dad, feeling angry at her. It’s not simple. But you have to tell her what you want. Then you have to show her. What you feel.”
“But what I feel is a damn mess,” Gus said.
“So, give her the mess.”
“But...”
And he realized that all of this was about never being disappointed again. All of it was about not being vulnerable again.
Because he was still that little boy holding those army men, whether he kicked them off to the side or not. Because he was still damaged. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, because he had once wanted someone to love him so much that they would upend their lives to be with him. He had loved his mother. And she had never come back for him.
“But she didn’t leave. You know where she is. You know where Alaina is.”
“You’re right,” Gus said. “I... I need her.” Admitting it felt like pushing broken glass into his own chest, and it was stopping short of the truth of it. But those words didn’t come easy, and he would be damned if he said them in front of Hunter before he said them to her. “Dammit. I need her and I... It makes me sick. Because...”
“You don’t want to be hurt.”
“No. And I don’t want to tell her... I don’t want to tell her.” He didn’t tell Hunter what. Because if it was that easy to tell the story, he would’ve done it a long time ago. But somehow, he could see that Hunter knew what he meant. He didn’t want to share that deep trauma. The real one. The one that made him feel ruined.
Because Hunter had his own version of that. Much the same way he was sure they all did.
“You have to, though. Because it’s the thing that breaks it all loose.”
“I’m not sure I want it all loose.”
“Well, that’s the thing. She sacrificed something. To demand everything of you. And now it’s your turn.”
And he felt like he’d sacrificed enough in his life. But he realized right then that for Alaina, he had to sacrifice more.
And he would.
“Quick,” Gus said. “Tell me how to be romantic.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SHE WAS WORKING in the garden at Sullivan’s Point. And it was an interesting exercise. Considering it was a place she’d said she didn’t really want to be. A place she’d said she didn’t really want to work.
And here she was.
Working out all kinds of things.
She was happy to be here. With her sisters. And all right, maybe the pulling of weeds wasn’t exactly her best life, but it was better than...
Well, better than taking half.
Better than letting Gus settle for half.
Maybe. She wasn’t really sure yet. Considering all of the sadness in her body was like a ten-pound weight, constantly settled on her shoulders. And her bladder was being weird. Because there was a baby resting on that. And everything just felt kind of sad and strange and not at all what she wanted.
What a gift, to suddenly know for sure what she wanted. She wanted Gus to love her. She loved Gus.
She didn’t have Gus.
How nice for her.
She straightened and wiped her arm across her forehead. And put her hand on her stomach. “I guess it’s just you and me, little one. Except, I pretty much bet that no matter what, Gus is going to be your dad. Because he said he would.” Her eyes filled with tears. “And one thing I know about him, is that he’ll do what he says. That’s kind of the thing. He can’t say that he loves me because he’s afraid of what it means. And what it doesn’t mean. And he’s a man of his word. So, he takes all that stuff really seriously. Another man might have just said it. To smooth things over. To make me feel better. But not your dad.” Her throat went tight. Gus was this baby’s dad. She knew that. She was confident in it. Even if the two of them couldn’t work anything out...
“I’m not sure that I deserve so much confidence.”
She turned around, and looked beyond the fence that was there to keep the deer out, tall—very tall—because they were persistent, and there was Gus. Standing there with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt that showed off his gorgeous physique, his cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes.
The handsomest man she had ever seen.
“Well. The last couple of days have been touch and go,” she said. “But I know the content of your character. So whether or not this is going the way I want... I have confidence in that.”
“After everything you’ve been through, to be able to have confidence in me says a lot about you. Not really quite so much about me. I’ve been... I’ve been an idiot.”
“Keep talking,” she said, tears pressing against the back of her eyes, her throat going tight. “Really. Please keep talking.”
She walked over to the fence, and he leaned against it. She curled her fingers around the wire, and he did the same, just that fence between them now.
“I have something for you.”
“Oh?”
“Do you want to come out from the garden?”
“I don’t know. The fence is designed to keep pests out, Gus, and the jury is out on you.”
“That’s why you have to come out. I can’t come in.”
“Wow. Okay. That was charming. I’m annoyed you can still charm me.”
She wandered out of the gate, around to where he was. She leaned against one of the long wooden poles and stared at him.
“Just a second.”
He reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a heart-shaped box, a small velvet box and a gigantic teddy bear.
“What...the hell is that?”
“Romance.”
And she couldn’t help it, even with her heart in her throat, she laughed. “Is it?”
“Oh. And these.” He reached in and grabbed a bouquet of flowers. Red roses. “Now it’s romance.”
“I see it now,” she said. “Just the chocolates, the bear and the jewelry didn’t say it. But now that you’ve added the roses I understand what’s happening.”
“Okay, I know it’s cheesy. But I wanted to do that. Because we didn’t have it. We didn’t do romance.”
“Gus,” she said, moving closer to him, and taking the bear from his arms. “We have had romance. When we bought our sugar shaker. And my thrift store wedding dress. And the frying pan. When we went and got the nursery stuff for the baby. I’m not looking for you to be something that you’re not.”
“I am. I’m looking to be something that I’m not. Because I’m desperately afraid that what I am...that what I am falls short of what you want to have.”
“Gus...”
And he sank to his knees. Down on the ground like she’d been that night at the bonfire, when she’d thrown up and he’d come to get her. To protect her, because he always did.
On the ground like she’d been in the parking lot of Smokey’s when he’d taken her home, when he’d been just what she needed even when she hadn’t realized what that meant.
He was on his knees now.
And it was her turn.
“I knew she was going to leave,” he said. “They didn’t fight that night. It was weird. I was ready to read to the boys until... That’s why I read to them. We would sit in a tent on the floor in that room, and I would read to them. I would do my damnedest to drown out the sound of their fighting. Of my dad throwing things. And I’m glad that they remember that. As a happy thing. Because it wasn’t for me. It was a challenge to keep talking. To try and drown it all out. Because I had to take care of them. I had to. To protect them.”
“Oh...”
“One night, she packed everything up. It was quiet in the house, and I went downstairs. She handed me this box of army men.”
“Oh,” she said again, this time the sound coming out as one of distress, because she hadn’t realized.
The army men.
“She said she was gonna come back for me. For us. She left those with me. It was a present. I told her I...loved her. She told me to be strong and take care of them until she got back. And I decided to save the army men for that day.”
Her heart squeezed tight. The box wasn’t opened.
All these years he’d never opened that box.
“But she never came back. And it was just me. I wanted somebody to come back for me. To protect me. I didn’t want to protect everybody. I was scared. I was scared and then...he really did try to kill me. He almost did. And no one did anything about it. No one was coming for me.”
Her stomach sank. “Gus, the rest of the adults on this ranch have a lot to answer for. If they had any idea that this was going on...”
“I don’t know what anyone knew. Except my mother. My own mother. And I know that she was afraid of him. But I didn’t expect... She just let me go ahead and be a sacrifice. And what I wanted more than anything was for her to love me. When you told me that you loved me, Alaina. Finally. Finally, somebody loved me. Because I felt all this time like there was nobody that was there for me. And I just wanted to take it. I didn’t want to tell you I loved you. Because the last person I ever said it to was her. And she left. It didn’t make any difference.”
She crossed the space between them and bent down and wrapped her arms around him. Crushed the flowers and the candy between them, and she didn’t care. “I love you,” she said.
“And I let myself get really angry, that night in the bathtub. And the night you left. I let myself get really angry. About the fact that no one was there for me. No one was there for me. Except for you, Alaina. It was always you. You were my sunshine before I ever knew why.”
