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She huffed. “Loved me so much that he had to fake a relationshipwith a horsejust to get away from me.”
“He wasn’t trying to get away from you, honey.” Duke’s tone softened. “He was trying to let you get awayfrom him. You have to understand. Those boys, all three of them, were deserted not just by their no-good fathers, but their own mother, too. She’s my daughter, and I’ll always love her, but I’m still disappointed in the way she so callously abandoned her sons. She did something to each of them—broke them in a way only a mother could. But know this—Chevy didn’t break up with you. He let you go.”
“Why? I loved him. I would have stayed with him forever.”
“But that’s exactly why. He couldn’t let you do that. From the way he tells it, you didn’t listen when he told you to go to that fancy college and leave him behind, so he had to take drastic measures. And apparently Jolene was the measure he landed on.”
The roar of an engine had them both looking up as Chevy’s truck came barreling down the street and screeched to a halt in front of the house. He was out of the door and crossing the lawn before the engine barely had time to stop.
“Gramps,” Chevy said, apparently not losing all his senses as he nodded his head to his grandfather.
“About time you got here, son,” Duke told him, dropping a hand on his grandson’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I’ll git out of here and let you two talk.” He gave Leni a one-armed hug, leaning in to whisper, “Remember what I said.”
She and Chevy didn’t say anything as they watched Duke amble toward his pickup and drive away.
Then she turned to Chevy. “I’m so mad at you. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear anything you have to say.” She left him standing on the porch and walked into the house.
He followed her inside and shut the door behind him. “Then you need to get ready, because I have plenty to tell you.”
She started to open the door again, but he reached over her head to push it shut, fencing her in between him and the back of the door. “Please Leni, just listen to me,” he pleaded as he looked down at her.
She was caged between him and the door, but not in a scary way. He would never hurt her. She didn’t feel threatened, but being this close to him, the scent of him surrounding her, already had her defenses faltering. She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out a hip to show her defiance. “I’m listening.”
He leaned his head down, slowly, deliberately, until his forehead touched hers. “First of all, I’m sorry, Leni. I’m so damn sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” He let out a breath. “Well, I guess that’s not true. I did mean to hurt you. I wanted you to hate me.”
“Why?”
“Because you had to hate me if I was ever gonna get you to leave.”
“You bastard. You pushed me away, broke my heart and ruined me for any other man, and for ten years, you made me believe that you met someone else, and that she was better than I was. That I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, or sweet enough for a guy like you.”
“Good lord, Leni, you were too good, toopretty,too everythingfor a guy like me.”
“So, what then? You just didn’t love me enough to stay with me?”
He sighed. “I loved youtoomuch. If I had my way, I would have stayed with you forever. But that wouldn’t have been fair to you.”
“You think it wasfairto tell me you didn’t love me anymore and that you’d found someone else who needed you more?”
“No, of course not. Although, to be honest, Jolene really did need me. Her mama died giving birth to her, and I bottle-fed her for months.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you really trying to argue that I should be feeling sorry for that horse right now?”
He huffed out a small laugh. “No. I’m not trying to argue at all. I’m trying to tell you that I was an idiot. And I’m sorry. I was a kid, a teenage boy, who was in love with the smartest girl in the school, the smartest person he’d ever met. A girl who’d dreamed of space and building rockets and was so damn brilliant that she was offered a scholarship to one of the best schools in the nation and had a chance to leave me and this small town and make those dreams of hers come true. I knew, even then, that I never deserved you. I got to love you, for a little while, and I loved you with everything I had, but I always knew that I wasn’t the kind of guy who got to have someone like you. I wasn’t the kind of guy worth giving up a stick of gum for, let alone lifelong dreams that you had a real shot of turning into a reality. And I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let you give up everything for me.”
“So, you broke up with me for your horse?” Her tone was still annoyed, but his words had touched her heart.
“No, I broke up with you foryou. So you could have all those things you always dreamed of.”
She reached up to touch his cheek. He was so sweet, so damn handsome. How could he ever think he didn’t deserve to be loved? “Oh Chevy, how could you ever think you weren’t worth staying for?”
His voice was quiet as he answered, “Because nobody has ever stayed for me before.”
His words hit her straight in the heart.
She knew the feeling. That was why it was so hard for her to trust a man. Not one of them had ever stuck around—not her father and not the first boy she gave her heart to. Which was why she had chosen to never give it away again.
He let out a heavy breath as he scrubbed a hand over his cheek. “It’s just a hell of a lot easier to push people awaybeforethey have a chance to walk out on you.”
