Page 93 of Awaiting the Storm
“I appreciate it,” I say, “but no.”
“You sure? I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I know.” I glance out the office window, toward the training paddock, where the colts are running laps. Dani standing in the center with a training stick. The rope floating through the air. “But I don’t want to lie to her. Or play with her emotions. She knows I want to see her. She knows I want to talk. But it’s gotta be her choice.”
“And you’re just gonna let her keepsilent?”
“It’s not about letting her do anything,” I say. “It’s about respecting her enough to accept what she decides. I’ve reached out several times. All I can do now is wait.”
Holland leans back, his face full of sympathy and something else—guilt maybe.
“She’s tough,” he says after a pause. “Stubborn as they come. Has been since she was just a little thing. Got that Storm pride running through her veins.”
“I know.”
“But she’s not heartless, son. I’m sure she’s hurting.”
“That makes two of us.”
He falls silent again. The only sounds in the office are the rustling of papers as the heat kicks on and blows from the vent overhead, mingling with the distant calls of the ranch hands through the barns.
“You haven’t been yourself this week,” he finally says.
I huff out a bitter laugh. “No, I haven’t.” I cut my eyes to him. “That obvious, huh?”
“Only to folks who know you.” He studies me for a long second. “Which isn’t many. But I see it.”
I nod. I feel it too. Every day that goes by without hearing her voice, without seeing her name light up my phone, feels like a rock in my chest. I’ve never felt anything quite like it before. Not even when things ended badly with other women in my life. That was regret. This is something else.
I keep thinking back to that night at The Soused Cow. How beautiful she was when she walked through that door—beautiful but guarded. I watched her walls come down brick by brick that night. And then the night of Albert’s medical scare, another brick. Every time I looked at her, that wall got smaller. Every time I touched her—until it wasn’t there anymore. She let me see the real, raw Maitland Storm, and it was sweetness and fire and everything I’d ever wanted.
“I saw the real Matty, and I fell hard. I thought maybe she felt the same. That she saw the real me.”
“She did,” Holland says quietly. “I have no doubt about that.”
“Then why does it feel like I lost something that I barely got the chance to hold?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he looks toward the floor, like he’s gathering his words.
“Because it was real,” he says finally. “And when something’s real, it’s fragile. Fake can stand a lot. It can handle being tossed around and neglected now and then. But you don’t get many chances to screw up real.”
I nod slowly. That sounds about right.
“She’s got every right to be angry,” I admit. “I told myself I could keep the business separate. That I could get close enough to convince her to sell without getting too close. But I couldn’t. I didn’t just blur the line. I erased it.”
“I’m sorry about that, son. I had no idea when I had you go after Wildhaven Storm …” Holland says and then stops and shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not true. I did know. I mean, look at you. Smart, handsome, and dripping in that Galloway charm. I knew exactly what I was doing, sending you over there. You were my secret weapon.”
I snort. “Well, it worked.”
“I knew it would. Just not that damn good. I need to be more careful, wielding you in the future.”
“Yeah”—my voice cracks a little on the word—“remember that.”
There’s a knock on the door. One of the junior trainers pokes his head in to let me know the vet’s here early and we need to get the new geldings into the holding pen. I nod and tell him I’ll be right out.
When the door closes, Holland stands and crosses to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “It’ll sort itself out, Caison. You’re not the first man to have to sit and wait while a woman makes him suffer.”
I smirk despite myself. “You speaking from experience, old man?”
