I nod weakly. “I don’t know what happened, but Dad decided to break away while he could. I was young, still a teenager then. We moved out of the city to the farm. Life was good, and then Mom got ill. Health insurance couldn’t cover everything, much less what she needed to really be comfortable and keep Sellers’ Pumpkins going. So Dad refinanced the place, but it still wasn’t nearly enough.”
I have to stop. Swallow. Blink back the tears.
He reaches over the center console, grasping my hand. “It’s okay. Now that everyone knows where you’re at, including this Grendal trash, we can fix it. The bastard just played his hand.”
It isn’t fair.
How those words coming from a heart in the right place can be so dead wrong.
Doesn’t he understand this isn’t one of his movies?
It isn’t that easy.
The ice-cold confidence in his voice chills me to my toes.
My throat locks up. I squeeze my eyes shut, holding back tears.
Nothing gets better with Clay knowing where we are. I’m sure he knows how to take Ridge apart piece by piece to savage my protector, my shield, my island of sanity.
Because of me, the next article those gossip mills write might be an obituary.
12
No Buts (Ridge)
I give Grace’s hand another squeeze before releasing it to hold the steering wheel, needing both hands to keep the truck steady on the rough unpaved roads between the fields.
She’s had one hell of a day.
It’s my job to make sure it ends without another death blow to her heart.
I have to find those damn horses.
Can’t help but feel partly responsible for this slip up, too, even if looking after Nelson took priority and nobody could’ve remembered what happened in the barn.
I wish I hadn’t jumped to conclusions this morning and barked so much shit at her.
Yeah, I’ve been screwed over by so many women that I’d assumed—expected—her to be like them.
It was arrogant, asinine, and wrong.
The only reason she’s here is because of her dad, not to sell me down the river to coyote muckrakers.
Known by all, scorned by many, still adored by some.
She should want to be here because of me. It’s humbling how egotistical I’ve been, always assuming I could crash into someone else’s life, even with good intentions, and they’d fall to my feet in gratitude.
Maybe I needed that barbed wire tongue lashing to plant my feet back on solid ground.
This is more serious than I realized.
And now I know this freak after her, Nelson, and all of us isn’t some small-time thug with a few hired guns. He’s got the brains and resources to hit us in ways I hadn’t imagined.
No script ever written had stakes this high.
I need to find the horses, get her home, and get a hold of Faulk, ASAP, to dig up everything he can on Clay Grendal.
I’m going to have to talk to Bebe, too.
She’s been blowing up my phone all day, ever since the story broke to the press. I just have to figure out how to spin this leak to my advantage first.
Ideally, to Grace’s advantage, too.
“Ridge! It’s a horse, right over there,” she hisses, sitting up in her seat, pointing to a spot just off the road.
I see the horse she’s pointing at, standing near a grove of trees at the edge of the headlights.
“Wait, wait, that can’t be them,” she says, confused and deflated. “That looks like...a black horse?”
Sure enough. I recognize the beast with the coal-black coat and white streak on his head, his mane billowing in the wind.
“That’s Edison.” A hint of excitement rips through me, and I hit the brake. “Shit, and here I thought he’d stop pulling his Houdini escape tricks sooner or later...”
“Edison?”
“Yep. Drake and Bella Larkin’s old boy. Possibly the smartest horse on the planet if you ask anyone in town. He made quite a ruckus before I showed up here.” I crane my head to see, letting out a soft whistle. “Damn. I think we’re almost to Big Fish Lake. It’s on the other side of those trees.”
We slowly bounce over the snow-packed ruts as I hit the gas again, getting closer to the trees. “Hold up. I had a feeling he wasn’t alone...see between those two big trees, in front of the pines?”
I lift a hand, pointing to the spot.
“Rosie and Stern! Oh my God.” She leans forward, closer to the dashboard, smiling so pretty I could kiss her right