A Cowgirl's Secret(3)
“Is that what I am to you?” Wrapping cold fingers around the warm mug, she searched for the right way to explain that only after she’d left Weed Gulch had she felt even a fraction of sanity. “Just some lost soul, wandering? Looking for a home? Because if that is what you think, you’re wrong. I’ve clawed my way out of hell to forge a great life, and—”
“Cut the theatrics. Buckhorn Ranch has every conceivable luxury. I’d hardly equate it with hell.”
Shifting on the stool, she snapped, “That’s because you don’t know what I went through.”
“So tell me. What are we talking? A few adolescent fights with your mom? Having to do chores? Homework?” Removing the whole chicken from the package, he rinsed it under running water. “Wish I could say I feel sorry for you, but nothing justifies the pain you’ve caused your family for the past ten years. Nothing.”
He’d commandeered her cutting board and a knife. If he chopped any harder on the carrots for the soup, he’d slice through the counter.
Forcing a breath, she hopped off the stool, rounding the bar to pause alongside him, placing her hand over his. Ignoring the instant jolt of awareness that after all those years was apparently alive and well, she said, “Please stop.”
“I can’t. I’m so freakin’ pissed.” Chop, chop, chop. “Putting aside the hurt you caused your mom, what about me, Daisy? Do you have any idea how many nights I stared at my ceiling? Wondering if you were even alive—and if so, what horrible things might’ve happened to you?”
Throat aching from the effort of holding back tears, she managed to whisper, “That’s what I need to explain.” She cleared her throat. “What you—no one—understands is that right there in the supposed safety of my home, I lived out the sometimes daily nightmare of those things. The kinds of issues no one wants to talk about, or if they do, it’s only in shocked whispers.”
Putting down the knife to face her, he said, “You’re scaring me. What the hell happened that was so bad you couldn’t even share the burden with me?”
“I was—” Her mouth went dry as summer sun-scorched Buckhorn Ranch land. She tried speaking, but the words wouldn’t come. She’d told her therapist about it. Her boss and best friend, Barb. Even a few of her old sorority sisters knew. So why couldn’t she tell the one man she’d ever truly loved?
Pulse racing, she struggled past waves of fear.
Ten years later, Daisy still deeply cared what Luke thought of her. It didn’t matter that Julie Smith had been named one of San Francisco’s top ten young attorneys. Julie having graduated with honors didn’t do a thing for Daisy, either. Julie owned this fabulous loft. Julie lived a charmed life. Julie was an amazing mother to her son. Poor little Daisy Buckhorn had been gone for a long, long time and that was just the way Julie liked it.
Abandoning his busywork, Luke locked his gaze with hers before taking her by the hand, guiding her toward the couch.
“You’re burning up with fever,” he noted once they’d both sat down. “From just touching your hand it’s easy enough to tell. As soon as you spill this apparent deep, dark secret, I want you to take a couple of ibuprofen and go to bed.”
She nodded.
Repositioning, he winced before pulling an action figure out from beneath him. Holding it up for inspection, he asked, “Closet toy fanatic?” His stab at lightening the mood proved an epic failure. Tears stung her eyes again.
Squeezing her fingers, he urged, “Come on. There’s not a thing you could tell me I won’t be able to handle.”
Daisy longed for Luke’s reaction to her secret to be swift and wholly in her favor. She wanted outrage to send him jumping up from the sofa to return to Weed Gulch that second to beat the old coot black and blue. That’s what she wanted, but since no words escaped her tight throat, she, instead, sat ramrod-straight, deathly still save for clenching her hands.
“Well?” he urged. “Now’s as good a time as any to say something—anything—to convince me you had a plausible reason to almost destroy every soul who’s ever loved you.”
Tears fell, but though her cheeks were damp, her dry mouth refused to speak.
“I don’t owe you squat, but unlike you, I’m going to at least have the decency to tell you up front that all the tears in the world aren’t going to change my mind. Putting my feelings aside, your leaving damn near killed your mother. Who knows, maybe it even contributed to your daddy’s death. You’ve got a lot of nerve—”