“I said no. I’m not fucking her for crying out loud!” He raised his voice and when he did, she heard him. She heard the denial, and something else too. Was it shame? Was he ashamed of her?
Tears welled up in her eyes. She tugged her shoes on quickly. She didn’t want to look at him. He watched her cautiously and picked up his pace.
“Francine, I have to go. Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you.” He broke out in a run chasing her through the pastures, “Peyton! Wait!”
“Get away from me!” she screamed out over her shoulder as she kept running for the house, the barn, and anyone she might find in the house or the barn.
“Wait! Let me explain!” he screamed out behind her. He tried to catch up with her but her legs carried her well ahead of him. “Damn it, Peyton Storm! Stop now!”
“Stay away!” she screamed, anger lacing her words, and holding a threat. “I don’t want you near me!” She picked up her pace, weeping so hard she thought she’d throw up before she made it back to the barn. She caught him in her peripheral vision. He couldn’t keep up her pace. Soon, he doubled over with his hands on his knees.
“Damn it, Peyton! It’s not what you think!”
“I know what I… heard!” This time she didn’t shout out as loudly as before. This time, her heart broke into a million pieces. He denied he slept with her and played the age card too. He was ashamed of her. Screw him! She jogged into the breezeway, where she immediately collapsed into Evan’s arms. She wept in his shirt with a final note of heartbreak. “I know what I heard.”
Kane finally made it to the barn a few minutes later. Out of breath, he was mad as hell now too. He jogged around back, hearing her whimper, sensing her sadness, aching to hold her or maybe even shake her.
“Peyton!”
“Don’t.” Braden put his prize stallion in the cross-ties.
“You don’t know what happened,” Kane said.
“She’s throwing up. You made her sick at her stomach. I told you to leave her alone, and you wouldn’t. Then, you didn’t wait even a day before you called Francine.”
“I didn’t call Francine.”
“She called you and you told her Peyton meant nothing to you, even called her a kid.”
“I never said-”
“Did you or did you not use the word kid and Peyton in a recent conversation with Francine?”
“I never said she meant nothing to me.”
“Might as well have!” Peyton shouted as she sprinted back into the barn.
“Shit. Peyton…” He tried to grab her arm but she hurriedly rushed right by him.
“Don’t touch me!” She glared at him. Worse, she glared at all of them. She shook her little finger in their faces. “Don’t any of you ever touch me again! I’m not going down this road! Do you hear me?”
Braden looked down at his shoes. Evan studied her carefully, and Kane stared off into the distance. Only minutes before, she was skipping rocks, her hair flowing in the wind, her voice loud with cheer as she hummed something familiar, only sweeter because the melody fell from her lips.
Her mouth turned nearly inside out now as she fought against the core of sadness. Her little chin quivered, and she ran three fingers over her forehead. “I’m moving out.”
“You’re what?” Braden’s head snapped to attention.
“I can’t let you do that.” Kane refused her before Braden had too. Besides, the responsibility fell on his shoulders to some degree.
She stormed to the cross-ties and studied the magnificent creature tied up there. Evan moved closer, anticipating the same thing Kane did, no doubt. She patted Quizzard, stroked him as he tried to bite at her hand. The damn horse was as ornery as the woman petting him.
Braden must’ve believed she feared his horse because he didn’t seem to notice her sudden interest in the unruly beast. “Peyton, we’ll all sit down and talk about this.”
“No! I am not talking to him.” She shook her finger in Kane’s direction, waved it around in the air and then glanced back at Evan. “And you! For the record! I wouldn’t blow you with someone else’s jaws!”
Evan’s lips curved in an easy smile. “Last night, you didn’t need someone else’s. Yours were ready to go to work. If we hadn’t had an audience, darlin’, I promise you, my cock would’ve swelled in between those sweet cheeks long enough for you to drink in every last drop.”
Damn it! Kane gawked at Evan. “Got a way with the ladies, don’t ‘cha?”
Peyton’s mouth opened but she closed it immediately, and the tears really poured now. “See! That’s it! That’s it! I’m out of here.”
Kane turned around, and then walked maybe two steps, three at the most. Evidently, Evan turned away at the same time and before either of them knew what happened, she was on Quizzard’s back galloping out of the barn.
“What the…” Braden rushed into the tack room and pulled out a horse tranquilizer. They’d need it to stop him. “Bareback? That’s suicide on that horse!”
Kane grabbed his mare out of a nearby stall, and with nothing more than a lead rope, jumped on her back as Evan hopped on a dirt bike and headed for the gates.
Kane called out behind him as he galloped up the pavement. “Get up to the road, Braden! That crazy animal of yours is headed for the damn highway!”
She waited for the pendulum of time to stop altogether. The dripping sound remained in the distance as the tick-tock, tick-tock continued to move closer. Back and forth, back and forth, something there in her hospital room kept a precise time.
Braden kept his voice down. “Is she going to be all right?”
“Maybe, if you boys can keep her off of your horses, she will. Who the hell let her have that stallion of yours?” The doctor she heard in the distance sounded like their neighbor. Right now she couldn’t think of his name.
He was a handsome thing. Single, available, probably in his early thirties and…weird. She’d never noticed it before. Now she did. She had time to think about it. He didn’t look at her like other men looked at her. She wondered why sometimes. Not now. She didn’t care why he didn’t look then. Every bone in her body felt shattered beyond repair so gaining or keeping a man’s attention proved irrelevant.
She blinked. “Doctor?”
“Yes, child.”
“Oh shit, he did not just call me child.” She rolled her head from side to side and that’s when she saw Vicky.
Evan laughed in the distance. “Act like one and wear the title, kid.”
“You like keeping these guys on their toes, I hear.” The doctor moved closer.
Vicky patted her arm. “You scared them too death, is what you did. How many times have they told you? Braden’s horse doesn’t like you.”
“Ouch!” Peyton hollered when she tried to move. “He loves me, can’t you tell?” With another moan or two, she tried to sit up. “What happened?”
She heard a loud groan. Braden walked out of the room.
Kane studied her from the corner. “He threw you.”
“I got that part, Kane. Leave.” She turned back to Vicky, “What happened?”
“He dumped you on the highway, right Evan?” Vicky asked.
Evan agreed. “Yeah and Braden is ready to put him down, teach him a final lesson for misbehaving.”
“What?” Peyton didn’t understand.
Kane crossed his arms over his chest. “Braden is so pissed at you and his stupid horse right now. Care to guess which one he’s taking it out on? He wants to put the horse down, put him to sleep, out of his misery.”
“Tell him to put me down instead,” she moaned.
Vicky looked rather amused. “You?”
“There’s an idea,” Evan said.
“I’m serious.” She motioned for Braden as he reappeared in the doorway. “You can’t put him down, Braden. I couldn’t live with myself if you did. There’s no way. This is all my fault.”
“No it isn’t. The damn horse is crazy. I knew it when I bought him. He was abused by his previous owners and he’s nuts. One of these days, Peyton, he’s going to kill someone. I couldn’t live if the someone he chose-”