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“You can see it however you want,” Wyatt said. “It doesn’t change what I have to do. It doesn’t change that I’m working against the clock because of you.”
“You’re a bull rider, Wyatt. Working against the clock is what you do. So do it now. Complete the ride. If anyone can do it, I think you can.”
Wyatt hung up the phone then. Because he didn’t think his father really believed that.
And there was no amount of whiskey-laden late-night phone calls that could change his assessment of that.
He should go to sleep. There were no decisions made past midnight under the influence of alcohol that were good. That was an absolute fact. There were no scientific breakthroughs, no cures for any diseases, or anything else that came out of this hour and level of sobriety.
But then, even sober, Wyatt Dodge wasn’t going to accomplish any of that. So none of it mattered anyway.
He picked his phone back up and stared at it for a moment.
He was not going to call her. It was late. And he had manners.
But he opened up a new message box and typed in a text.
If you have time tomorrow, we can go for that ride.
He sent the message.
Yeah, he had told her that Jamie would take her out, and he had meant it then. But, now, he was going to do it. This was his business. This was his ranch. His partnership with Grassroots.
And hell, if Lindy could take that winery and make it something bigger, something better, after Damien, there was no reason why he couldn’t make Get Out of Dodge something better than his father had made it.
Maybe his dad didn’t think he could. And hell, maybe Wyatt had never given him a reason to think that he could. But that was going to change. That was going to damn well change.
What time?
The response surprised him. As well as the lack of questioning over why Jamie wasn’t going to be the one leading the ride.
Lunchtime.
Okay.
He groaned and threw his phone down on the couch, heading up the stairs toward his room. There. He had made a decision.
It was about the ranch. He refused to believe that it had anything to do with spending time alone with Lindy. That something about that conversation with his father had riled up the devil in him.
As long as the devil was productive, he didn’t much care.
CHAPTER FIVE (#udf1a6109-358b-58a2-91a7-45f19f3f8bb8)
EARLY THE NEXT morning Lindy couldn’t figure out what had possessed her to agree to go on a trail ride with Wyatt Dodge today.
Originally, the plan had been for Jamie to take her. They had discussed that. But somehow, when she had still been awake, tossing and turning, her phone had dinged, and she had looked at it. She had seen his name and she had...
She didn’t know what she had wanted. Didn’t know what she had hoped.
She hadn’t expected an invitation to go riding. But she had found herself agreeing.
And then she had fallen into a fitful sleep, where she had dreamed of weird arguments with Wyatt, where they were bickering over where Grant was going to take her out to dinner.
Then she had woken up, relieved that she wasn’t actually going to dinner with Grant, but not all that relieved that she was going for a ride with Wyatt.
She scrubbed at her face and rolled out from beneath her down-filled duvet and grimaced as the chill in her bedroom settled over her skin.
One of the first things she had done when she had thrown Damien out was get a new mattress and a whole new bedroom set.
First of all, because she had always wanted a lovely, white bedspread with some artful accent pillows, and Damien had insisted they have something that was “for both of them and not just her.” Which had clearly meant, for him. Darker colors, to go with the heavy, dark wood frame that had gone with the bed. As he had gone, so had that.
But, she had also needed a new mattress, because she had very little confidence that he had never taken another woman to their bed, and she would be damned if she was spending one more moment sleeping on a mattress her husband had had sex with someone else on.
There were a great many chances to experience indignity in life, and she had been on the receiving end of that a few times. Damien was just lucky she had offered him the mattress instead of burning it like she had initially wanted to do.
She knew people didn’t believe it. Even her own mother thought she had just married Damien for his money. And that she had happily cut and run when she’d discovered his infidelity in part because she had never wanted him.
But she had. She had loved him. She had believed that he had loved her too. That he hadn’t cared where she had come from. That she had been enough for him.
What an idiot she’d turned out to be.
She wasn’t sure what was worse: letting everyone know just what an idiot she was, or letting them continue to believe that she was a heartless gold digger.
She had a feeling that public opinion on her was split down the middle.
But Wyatt thought that Damien was an idiot.
Which was perhaps why she felt even the tiniest bit charitable toward him. Was perhaps why she wasn’t so completely opposed to going on a trail ride with him today.
She ruminated on that while she got dressed. She found a pair of nice jeans—much more casual than she would normally wear—and a dark-colored button-up top that wouldn’t show any dirt she might pick up during the ride.
She pinned her blond hair back in a low bun and looked at her reflection critically. She was hardly recognizable as the person she used to be. The person she’d been before she had started dating Damien.
She was sleeker now. Much more sophisticated.
She used to be proud of that. The distance she had put between herself and what she’d been. Now, it felt a little bit like a poisoned chalice. After all, she was partly who she was because of Damien. And she... In the end, she despised what he stood for. What he could allow. What had been acceptable to him.
He had asked her one time to forgive him. Had told her that she was making a big mistake throwing their marriage away over a physical relationship.
He had said that sex didn’t matter.
But sex had mattered when she’d been a twenty-year-old virgin, cautiously giving him her body. He had said that it meant the world then. And that even though he had been with a couple of other women they didn’t matter, not in light of what sex between them meant. Because he’d said that with her it had been love. It had been everything.
After being married to the man for ten years she was supposed to believe that sex could also be nothing. As long as it was shared with someone else. Even though he had made vows to her.
She had wanted to scream. She had wanted to cry. To let her inner trailer park out, throw something at him, call him a string of foul names. But she hadn’t been able to. She’d been frozen. Frozen inside the body, inside the image that they had created together.
She hadn’t shed a single tear. Not then, not after.
She had simply told him no. That there was nothing left for them. That there would be no future for the two of them. Not after a betrayal like that.
He had gotten angry after that. He had blamed the dissolution of their marriage on her.
And after that...he had told her there was no other chance to get back with him. That he was leaving her for the other woman. That he was in love with her, and it didn’t mean nothing. That she was the most important relationship in his life.
Not Lindy.
She sighed heavily, turning away from her reflection. She wasn’t going to bother with any makeup beyond a tiny bit of mascara and some clear lipgloss anyway.
Odds were high that she’d end up with allergies, and she didn’t need a whole ton of eye makeup running down her face thanks to the horse and the pollen that would no doubt be swirling around them in the vineyard.
It was warm out, but still, she debated whether or not she should put out a pair of boots or a pair of tennis shoes. Ultimately, she decided on the tennis shoes, even though they did not make her outfit look as sharp as the boots would have.
She made her way downstairs, walking through the large, empty house, taking in the details. They spoke to the fact that it was now her house, and not a shared dwelling.
Her foot hit the landing and she made for the front door.
“Good morning,” came a scratchy, male voice coming from the direction of the dining area.
She jumped, pressing her hand to her chest. Then she remembered that she wasn’t alone.
“Dane,” she snapped, making her way from the entry and into the dining room, where her brother sat, his hat on the table in front of him, a cup of coffee on his left. The table was long, and always far too formal-looking. But with Dane at it, it bordered on ludicrous. “I forgot you were here.”
“Sorry.”
“Then don’t look so amused.”
“Sorry,” he said again.
“When are you heading out?”
“In about an hour. It’s a bit of a drive.”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
“Where are you headed? In jeans,” he said, lifting his brows.
He had known her when they were kids. When holey jeans and sneakers were her uniform. If even Dane was surprised to see her dressed down now, she truly had changed.
“I have to go in to my office.” Her office, which was just across the property in the back of the Grassroots dining room. “And then I’m going for a sample trail ride.”
“A sample trail ride, huh?”
“Yes. I need to know exactly what we are offering our guests, after all.”
“Very responsible.”
“I like to think I am.”
“Are you happy?”
She blinked, regarding her younger brother closely. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like it means. Are you happy?”
“No,” she said. “I mean... What’s happiness, Dane?”
“If I remember back to what they taught us in kindergarten, it’s a feeling.”
“You know what I mean. I’m tired right now. This has been a stressful couple of years. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But I’m accomplishing things. I’m taking this... I’m making it mine.” Suddenly, she realized how important that was. To be more than Damien’s creation. For this winery to be more than his creation.
For her life to be more than his creation.
“Sure,” Dane said, reaching out and pressing his hand over the top of his cowboy hat. Then, he lifted it and put it on his head. “Just don’t forget to have fun sometimes.”
“You have enough fun for the both of us, I think.” She tried not to sound bitter about that, she really did. She was pretty sure she failed.
“No one said you couldn’t have fun, Lin,” he said, standing up and moving over to where she was rooted by the doorway.
“I ...” She sighed, feeling defensive and hating that she did. “It’s not the same. For me. You’ve made success out of being kind of a rebel. That’s not going to work for...”
“For someone who wasn’t a bull rider.”
“For a woman,” she finished. “Anyway. I already have enough working against me. I can’t go out and be crazy. I just... I want to make this place so successful that people forget what I used to be. I want to go so far beyond what Damien ever would have done that no one will think of it as something I took from him. Because they’ll know that he could never have achieved all of this.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“I’ve never been afraid of a challenge.”
“Now, that is true,” Dane said. “If you were a rider, the bulls would be afraid of you.”
“Thank you,” she said, not caring if he meant it as a compliment or not. She took it as one.
“You’re scary.”
She sighed heavily. “Thank you. Again.” She edged toward the door and Dane took that as a solid cue.
“See you later,” he said.
“See you.” She hesitated for a second, and then she stepped forward and gave him a hug. “Be careful, okay?” Dane went tense for a moment, then rested an uneasy hand on the center of her back, his interpretation of a hug, she supposed.
“Lindy, I can’t be careful. It’s literally my job to go out and do something stupid now.”
“I know. I love you, Dane. I want you to be safe.”
“I’ll be as safe as I can be.”
He tipped his hat, and she shoved his chest. That was about as sincere as they got.
