the same thing had recently happened to her, and trying to think of what on earth she could say, when all she wanted to do was to put her arms around the fifteen-year-old boy who’d just had his world destroyed.
“You’ve never talked to anyone about this?”
“How? What if it got back to my mom?”
“Maybe she knows.”
“And what if she doesn’t?”
Liv could see his point. So for over fifteen years he’d carried the secret...no wonder she’d sensed that there were issues between him and his father.
“And your dad?”
“I...try to have a relationship.”
“Never the same?”
“How could they be?”
Liv reached out to touch him. He caught her hand before it landed on his arm, held her fingers. For contact? Or to keep her from touching him?
All these years and he’d never told anyone. But now he was telling her.
She would think about how much that frightened her later. Right now...right now she needed to think about Matt.
“You know I’ll never whisper a word.”
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t have said anything.”
Emotion tinged again with fear swelled inside of her. She was touched that he’d told, afraid that it meant he was seeing her as more than a friend.
“So you handled the stress by roping,” she finally said.
“I needed to be the better son,” Matt said simply. “I needed to beat my brother, who shouldn’t even have existed.”
But he did and he was Matt’s greatest competition, then and now.
“I couldn’t understand why he—my dad—would knock someone up when I was less than a year old. Wasn’t I enough for him?”
“I’m sure it was an accident.”
“That he was boinking someone in a nearby city?”
“The pregnancy.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Back then, I guess, it pissed me off that my mom and I hadn’t been enough. Then, well, Ryan was so damned good, but he didn’t even try to go national. Until last year he was content staying on the Montana circuit, dominating there. And then when he did go national, he was great.”
“You won world titles.”
“And he came close last year, but I didn’t make enough money to qualify for the NFR. I don’t know if he would have beaten me.”
“So all this is just to beat your brother?”
“Half brother, and no. Some of it is because I don’t have anything else to do for a living. I can’t come back here and ranch with my dad and I don’t have any other training.” A good point. “I can probably land a job, but—” he gave a faint scoffing laugh “—I’ve been spoiled. I want to keep doing what I do well. I like being me.”
Liv laughed a little, trying to take the edge off Matt’s tension. “You are going to have to build a bigger house—one that can contain both you and your ego.”
Matt took her shoulders and gently pushed her back onto the pillows. “Maybe not,” he said as he supported himself with elbows planted on either side of her head. “Craig is supposed to be heading north in another week. That should free up some space for my ego.”
“Will you miss him?” she asked.
He surprised her by saying, “Yes.”
“My heart just officially melted.”
“That’s the way I want you. Melting all over me.”
“Then I’d better be on top.”
“No way, sister,” he said before kissing her long and hard. “You can have the top tomorrow.”
* * *
MATT’S CONFESSION ATE at her. This was supposed to be a casual affair, and Liv promised herself before it began that she would not ignore the red flags as they appeared.
Red flag number one: Matt had told her a secret he’d told no one else. That smacked of deep trust. Fine if she were simply his friend, but when she was also his lover, that muddied the waters—at least as far as she was concerned.
Red flag number two: her heart was breaking for him, both as a boy whose world had been rocked and as a man who was still working out a way to deal with the anger.
He’d never told anyone, except for her.
What did she owe him in return? A shoulder? Moral support? Silence?
The latter would have to do because feeling the need to make it all better for him was seriously seizing her up. Making things better, smoothing the waters were the hallmarks of falling back into the old habits.
Old habits would destroy her. She could not live her mother’s life.
So the next move will be...
Liv hadn’t a clue. She looked forward to her time with Matt. Every time they were together and every time she was able