“I’m not talking legally, Liv. I’m talking about a vindictive person trying to hurt another by selling what was dear to him.”
If he’d expected the speech to make a difference in her demeanor, he was disappointed. She continued to stare at him as if he were a nasty slug or something.
Matt rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, feeling like he’d stepped into the twilight zone. Who was this woman? Where was the Liv he’d once known? That nice kid who’d saved his academic life?
Probably scared to death that he was going to take Beckett away from her—which he was, once he figured out how.
“Can I at least see him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s my horse, Matt. I’m keeping him.” Once again anger started to rise, and once again Matt tamped it down. He needed to be careful, not burn bridges.
“What did Trena tell you?” Because it was pretty damned obvious that Trena had told her something that wasn’t true.
Liv shrugged carelessly, but her expression was taut as she said, “It doesn’t matter. I bought the horse. I’m keeping the horse.”
“Liv...”
“It’s time for you to leave.”
“Liv—”
“Now.”
Matt exhaled, told himself to calm down. Not blow this. “I’ll buy him back,” he said. “For ten percent more than you paid.”
She smiled a little at that, the first smile since he’d arrived and it was more of a smirk—an expression he’d never seen on Liv’s face before. “I’m not selling.”
There was a noise from inside the house and Liv glanced over her shoulder then back at Matt. “My dad is not well,” she said, finally explaining why she was guarding the door, “but I think he’d take a good shot at kicking your ass if you don’t get out of here. So unless you want to fight an ailing older man, I’d get into that fancy truck of yours and get the hell out of here.”
And with that, Liv turned and walked back into the house. For a moment Matt stood, staring at the door she pulled shut behind her.
Realizing that standing on the front walk wasn’t doing him any good, Matt started back to his truck, striding down the cracked sidewalk and across the weed-choked gravel, his knee throbbing with each step. Anger solved nothing, but he was pissed as hell when he climbed into the cab of his truck. Yeah, he could hammer on the front door and maybe Tim would try to kick his ass, or he could go home, regroup. Think this through. Figure out a way to get his horse back.
He was going with plan B. It’d be easier on both him and Tim in the long run.
* * *
AN UNEXPECTED SHIVER ran through Liv as she watched Matt Montoya turn his truck around and drive past the barn. Delayed reaction. She rubbed her hands over her upper arms. She would not let Matt have Beckett.
“Who was here?” Her father’s deep voice sounded from behind her. She’d hoped he’d sleep through Matt’s visit, and he had, so thank heavens for small favors.
“Matt Montoya.”
“Did he need a calculus lesson?”
Liv turned back to her father and smiled a little. Rarely did her father make jokes, and even less so now that he was not feeling well. He was tall and lean, his dark hair streaked with silver, and normally he held himself in an almost military posture. Right now, though, his shoulders were slightly hunched, as if he were in pain. Liv hated seeing him that way, hated that he was pretending he was merely recovering from the flu.
“My horse. He had questions about him.” Liv took one last look at the rooster tail of dust from Matt’s truck, then moved away from the window. “Seems he wasn’t in favor of Trena selling Beckett.”
“Good thing she did,” was all Tim said. “Did Matt give you any grief?”
Liv shook her head.
“Good thing,” Tim repeated as he sat in his leather recliner, a chair that had been in the house ever since Liv could remember. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes. Seeing her father in a chair during the day had shocked Liv when she’d first moved home from Billings a week and a half ago—almost as much as the fact that he hadn’t cut the hay on time. Not that he’d let her cut it for him. That would be admitting there was something wrong instead of pretending it was a conscious choice on his part.
She needed to get him to a doctor, but there was no forcing Tim