Once a Champion

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Liv rolled onto her back, resolutely tried to close off the racing thoughts, then after another ten minutes, gave up. How many nights had she spent like this over the past year and a half? Awake and wondering, worrying?

Too many after breaking up with Greg.

Liv pulled the flashlight out from under her bed and silently left her room, creeping down the hall to the mudroom where she eased her feet into her barn shoes. When she left the house, she didn’t quite shut the heavy door behind her. Her father had excellent hearing and the last thing she wanted was for him to get up to investigate the sound of the front door closing.

Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she crossed the driveway, the sound unusually loud in the stillness of the night. Once inside the barn, out of view of her father’s window, Liv turned on the flashlight and grabbed a brush out of the grooming box. Beckett’s stall was empty, so she headed for the rear man door, clicking off the flashlight as she went.

Beckett, familiar with the late-night ritual, nickered softly as Liv started across the pasture to where he stood under the Russian olive tree, moonlight bathing his back. He ambled over to meet her halfway and then stopped, obligingly turning his side toward her, waiting for the grooming to begin.

Liv started on his neck, following each flick of the brush with a stroke of her hand. She worked her way over the healed saddle sores on his withers and lower back, now evident only by the white hairs that covered the scars. It still angered her to think about his wounds. Did Matt think a horse was just a tool to be used and abused for his benefit? Did he even care that the saddle he was using didn’t fit or that Beckett’s mouth had been injured from too large of a bit and the way Matt had handled him?

Liv gritted her teeth, the brush flying over Beckett’s coat in quick, agitated movements before she suddenly stopped and leaned against the horse, squeezing her eyes shut as she inhaled deeply. A moment later, Liv set the brush on the ground and started working the tangles out of Beckett’s mane with her fingers. The gelding pulled in a deep breath and then exhaled. A horsey sigh, which Liv echoed. Beckett didn’t like having his mane untangled, but he endured, as he’d endured his abuse.

Now Matt wanted the horse back. Fat chance. If he was stupid enough to come back a third time, Tim would not be the one dealing with him. No. She didn’t want anyone dealing with Matt Montoya except for herself. Andie and Tim...they meant well, but Liv would fight this battle alone. This was one area where she had no qualms about standing her ground.

Once she’d finished with the mane, she ran her hand over Beckett’s nose and the horse pushed against it, snuffling for a treat. She had nothing, but smiled as she ruffled his mane, then wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his solid muscles.

If it hadn’t been for Beckett needing to be rescued, she may not have realized how closely she’d been mirroring her mother’s behavior, or how damaging that could be, until it was too late.

Vivian’s one need in life was to have a man to keep her secure, and in order to hang on to her man, she would become indispensible so they would keep her. Don’t make waves, Liv.

And Liv hadn’t. She’d been the picture of compliance and cooperation for most of her life. Until the situation with Greg had come to a head.

Something inside of her had snapped after he’d essentially told her to choose him or a horse. In a life-changing moment of clarity, Liv had said she chose the horse. She could still see the shocked expression on Greg’s handsome face, feel the twist of her gut as she’d realized what she’d just done. Then he’d laughed. A reprieve, a chance to pretend she’d been making a joke.

She hadn’t felt even a flicker of temptation to recant, which was in itself stunning because until that point she’d considered herself to be madly in love with the man. Maybe she was in love, she’d told herself. Maybe they just needed time to work this out.

Or maybe she’d finally realized that she’d allowed herself to be manipulated and controlled for way too long.

Minutes later Liv had been in her car, driving away, well aware that Greg expected her to return in short order with an apology and the admission that he was right.

Didn’t happen.

But not because Liv wasn’t tempted. Part of her was hopeful they’d work things out. Part of her was outraged that Greg hadn’t discussed the matter—he’d made a decree. She told herself that their relationship would ultimately be better because she had taken her stand. After all, she needed a say in things. But when she told her mother what had happened, Vivian had been horrified. Give up the horse. Go back.

Another of those clarifying moments.

Two days later, Greg called and essentially asked Liv if she’d come to her senses. His tone was gentle and teasing, but the message was still there—do as I say. The difference was that now Liv heard the message, whereas before she hadn’t—or if she had, she’d chosen to ignore it. Liv told him once again that she chose the horse and hung up, her hands shaking, as she wondered if she were giving up her chance for happiness. They were so perfect together...because Liv never asserted herself. She was cooperative, agreeable, didn’t rock the boat...

Greg called back the next day and told her she could keep the horse. He hadn’t realized how important it was to her.

This time it wasn’t so difficult to hang up. It’d taken him three days to “realize” that she was serious and the horse was important to her? Then give his permission for her to buy Beckett? Why did she need his permission? They weren’t yet married.

Liv felt so damned stupid for having not seen the warning signs of a controlling relationship a long time before. And then, when Greg’s campaign to win her back began, Liv became more and more aware of the bullet she’d dodged.

He started off nicely enough, flowers with a note. A stuffed horse left on her desk at work with a please-forgive-me card.

Liv stayed strong. He called. He met her in unexpected places. He even cajoled her into dinner and Liv had gone, thinking that maybe she could convince him she was serious. They were over. But he needed someone compliant in his life and Liv had fit the bill. He was not giving up.

Everywhere she went, Liv expected to run into Greg, to the point that she’d considered a restraining order. When she’d heard word he’d gone out on a date with another woman, she’d been thrilled, until he’d phoned to tell her that no one compared to her. She shuddered to think about it.

If it hadn’t been for Beckett—caring for him, grooming him, riding him, pouring out her guts to him—she didn’t know if she would have made it through those long months. Beckett had helped her stay strong when Greg had pushed his hardest.

And then it struck her.

It wasn’t the stress of wedding shopping or her father’s health that was keeping her awake, or even fear of losing Beckett. It was Matt—Matt, who was behaving just like Greg, refusing to take no for an answer. Pushing.

Déjà vu all over again. She was not going to tolerate a replay of the Greg months. This time it might be over a horse instead of her future, but she didn’t care. Matt was pushing and she was instinctively protecting herself. And rightly so—especially after he’d indicated the situation wasn’t yet concluded to his satisfaction.

“Yes, it is, Montoya.” Beckett’s ear flicked back as Liv spoke. The situation was over and if Matt showed up again, she’d make good on her threat to call the sheriff.

Finally she patted the horse on the rump and headed back to the house, picking her way across the field in the moonlight. The front door was slightly ajar, just as she’d left it, and Liv slipped inside, holding her breath as the heavy oak made a distinctive scraping noise just before the latch caught.

Liv held perfectly still for a few long seconds, her hand still on the doorknob. Then, when no sound came from her father’s room, she walked silently down the hall.

She yawned as she got into bed, hoping now that she’d figured out what was bothering that she could sleep.

It was her last conscious thought.

* * *

LIV OVERSLEPT.

She would have slept even longer if her father hadn’t knocked on her door and asked if she wanted him to fuel up her car before she left. Liv grabbed the clock, which she’d turned toward the wall the night before, and yelped when she saw the time.

“Liv?” Tim called through the door.

“Uh, yes. Thanks. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Thanks to a lack of early-morning traffic and highway patrol officers, Liv arrived at Malinda’s Bridal Boutique only a few minutes after it had opened. She was not surprised to find her mother and Shae already at the racks.

Liv fended off the associate with a quick I’m-with-them gesture, then started across the highly polished parquet floor, feeling awkward, as if arriving at a party late after everyone else had already settled in. As she approached, Shae held up a dress, said something, and her mother laughed, her need-to-please agreeable laugh. Excellent.

“You’re here,” her mother said to Liv, beaming as she reached out to hug her while still holding a beaded oyster-colored dress in one hand. “Right on time.”

Shae smiled and also gave Liv a perfunctory hug, enveloping her in a subtle cloud of fragrance. “Glad you could make it.” She pushed her long dark hair over her shoulder, and Liv couldn’t help but notice how perfectly cut it was.

“Me, too.” Liv had no illusions as to why she was in Shae’s wedding—because it wouldn’t look right if she weren’t. She and Shae were sisters, after all. Stepsisters, but they’d lived together since they were fourteen and should have been closer than they were.

It was hard to be close to someone who intimidated you, however, and from day one, Shae had intimidated Liv—because Liv had allowed herself to be intimidated. She and Shae had little in common, valued different things, and Shae was so very popular while Liv was not. Of course she’d been intimidated.

Their only common ground was that their parents were married, which added to the problem. Vivian wanted her husband happy and her husband’s children happy, so on the occasions when Shae and Liv had disagreed, Liv eventually backed down. For her mother.

To add to the tension, Shae, under coercion, had made a few futile attempts to include Liv in her social activities, but neither had been comfortable with that, so eventually they settled into living parallel lives in the bedroom they shared. There’d been moments when they’d acted like sisters—shared a secret or two, groused about a teacher—but for the most part it was every girl for herself.

“This is the preshop,” Vivian explained, as if Liv weren’t already aware.

“Yes,” Shae said, hanging a pink silk dress. “You can imagine what a free-for-all this would be with seven bridesmaids giving their opinions.”

“We’re going to narrow it down to three choices today,” Vivian said, rejoining the hunt.

Seven bridesmaids? “I thought Reed wanted a small wedding,” Liv said as she casually flipped through a few dresses, wincing at the price tags and realizing that it would be almost impossible for her to come up with seven friends to serve as bridesmaids—not unless she included Beckett and her father.

Shae laughed, that confident yet somehow seductive laugh that Liv envied and had occasionally tried to emulate with little success. “Reed doesn’t know what he wants.”

“He seemed like he knew what he wanted last time I talked to him,” Liv said conversationally. They’d had a fairly decent discussion at the family Easter Sunday dinner. Liv liked Shae’s fiancé, a handsome, mild-mannered guy who still had a backbone. Shae had made a good catch there.

Shae’s smile shifted slightly. “We’ve talked and he’s beginning to see things my way. After all, you only get married once.”

“Unless you’re one of the seventy-five percent of divorcées who remarry,” Liv muttered.

“How on earth do you know that statistic?” Shae asked in the same voice she’d used when Liv had actually known the answers to the questions on the history exams in high school.

“I made it up.”

Shae laughed. A real laugh. Then she turned back to the racks and pulled out a pale green sheath. “How about this?”

“Not bad,” Liv murmured. Except for that six-hundred-dollar price tag. Surely Shae wouldn’t do that to her seven friends. Liv glanced over at her mother and recognized the frozen smile, the make-Shae-happy look.

Shae looked at the price tag. “Wow.”

Liv held her breath.

Shae shrugged and put the dress back on the rack, looking over her shoulder at Vivian as she did so. “This is a possibility.”

Liv felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. Really? A six-hundred-dollar possibility? She made an effort to bite her tongue—for her mother’s sake. This was not a matter of Greg or Matt trying to control her. This was Shae. Shae who always got her way.

After two more racks, Shae turned to Liv and Vivian. “Shall we move on to the next place and see what else we can find?”

“Please,” Liv said with feeling, earning herself a sharp look from her mother. “I think we should explore all options,” she added on a more upbeat note. Vivian’s frown relaxed.

At lunch, Shae shook her head as she dipped a tea bag into a cup of hot water. “I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s impossible to find a decent dress for under three hundred.”

“Can you find something you can tolerate?” Liv asked. She’d seen more expensive dresses than she wanted to think about in the past three hours. Each place they went hammered home the point that the wedding industry was all about spending as much as possible to celebrate what? A union that may or may not last? It was a shameful exploitation of a solemn occasion and Shae was plunging in with both feet, practically shouting, “Here I am! Take my money and provide me with an illusion that has nothing to do with reality!”