Page 48 of Wrangling Hearts
I couldn’t look at Golden Bridle as I walked back to the house. I didn’t even want to look at Circle M. It all felt wrong. When I walked inside, Mount was in the living room, watching an old western with his leg propped up.
Might as well rip off the Band-Aid. “We got the partnership with Cavendish,” I said as I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. I needed one—or twelve—to figure out how to break the news to Claire if they haven’t already. I was half expecting her to kick my door down any minute, and as much as I loved seeing her angry, I wouldn’t love any second of that.
He muted the TV. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
I expected a snide remark, a screaming tangent, hell, I even expected throwing things. What I absolutely did not anticipate was asmile. I couldn’t remember the last time my father smiled at me, but he was now, and it felt…
Empty. Insignificant. Hollow.
“Well, I’ll be damned. My boy did it.”
My boy. How many times had I heard him use the same expression with Colt? With Weston and Joseph, who weren’teven biologically his? How many times had I sat in silent envy as he lavished them with praise I never got?
I didn’t want to be his boy if it meant crushing Claire’s dreams.
“I’m proud of you, Beaumont.”
My stomach twisted, and I swallowed back bile, forced the bitter taste away with my beer. I’d spent thirty-five years chasing those five damn words. And now that I had them? All I felt was shame. I thought it’d be some spectacular moment—releasing the doves, the clouds parting, key to the city type shit—but it was meaningless.
It was meaningless because I wasn’t proud of myself. I was ashamed. Yes, I worked hard for this, but it wasn’t for the right reasons. I didn’t have the passion or the skill for horses like Claire and Joseph did. I think a part of me only did it to prove that I could, and that…it made me feel god-fucking-awful.
“Don’t be,” I muttered, eyes locked on the granite counter. I let out a shaky breath. “I’m talking to Joseph, and I’m rescinding the offer.”
Mount sat upright, frowning. “Now why the hell would you do that?”
“I don’t want it anymore.” I wasn’t sure that I ever wanted it. I certainly never wanted it the way Claire did. She deserved this; she earned it with her blood, sweat, and tears. Nothing and no one could convince me to change my mind.
“Don’t tell me you’re throwin’ this away for that girl.”
My hand curled into a fist on the counter, knuckles white. “That girlhas a name, and you better treat her with some respect or things are gonna get real ugly real fast.”
My father just stared at me, cold and hard and long. That contemptuous glare sent my blood boiling. I was done cowering to him. Done chasing his coattails like some desperate kid begging for scraps. Done trying to be him. I was never goingto be enough for him, and I just didn’t have it in me to care anymore.
Mount narrowed his eyes at me from where he sat. “You think she’d do the same for you? Give this up if the tables were turned?”
“I’d never ask her to.”
He sucked his teeth, shaking his head. “And here I thought I finally made a man outta you. And you’re throwin’ it away for a girl—for ClaireHayes.” There was the Mount I knew.
“I love her, Dad,” I said through gritted teeth. I hated him even more when I realized that the first time I said it out loud was to him, not the person who deserved to hear it most.
“Those people were going to screw us over?—”
“We didn’t even exist then!” I yelled, and his mouth snapped shut. Not once had I ever raised my voice at my father, but I refused to let him speak poorly about Claire when he didn’t even know her. All because of her last name.
“I’m telling you that I found the person I want to spend my life with, and you have to bring up that fucking merger again? Let it go!”
He slammed his fist on the arm of his recliner, face red. “Now listen ‘ere, boy. I poured my soul into this ranch. Gave my life over to it just like every generation before me. It would’ve crumbled because of that merger, because ofthatfamily.” He flung a pointed finger at Golden Bridle. “And now you wanna risk its future over some girl with a dying ranch just ‘cause she batted her lashes at you and let you up her skirt? That ain’t love, son, that’s gettin’ played, and you fell for it like the weak fool you always have been.”
I saw red. The bottle flew from my hand and smashed against the cabinet, sending glass everywhere and beer dripping down the wood. “Get the fuck out of my house!” I roared, reaching my last straw.
I grabbed my keys off the counter, glass crunching under my boots, and stopped in front of his recliner, so livid my hand shook as I pointed at him. “When I get back, you better be gone. I don’t want to see your sorry face for the rest of my goddamn life. Not until you learn how to act like a decent fucking human being.”
He chuckled, not believing me.
“I mean it, Dad. You’ve been calling me weak my whole life, and I believed you.” I scoffed. “God, I believed you. I bent over backwards tryin’ to prove I was worth somethin’ to you; took on this partnership I didn’t even want to prove it. But the truth is, I’m not the weak one. You are. You’re lost in the past, so bitter and close-minded that you can’t see what’s in front of you. Mama would bedisgustedwith what’s become of you. Absolutely fucking disgusted. I know I am.”
