SWNOVELS Downpour: Chapter 20
“Thanks for the ride,” I said to CJ as we trotted back into the barn. Each drop of Indy’s hooves made me wince.
My entire body ached.
When CJ showed up at Ray’s back deck with Anarchy and Independence tacked up, I couldn’t refuse. But I also couldn’t explain why I was walking like I had already gone on a miles-long ride.
Ray, the asshole, just sat on his back deck and smirked while I settled into the saddle.
At least it was a short ride. CJ took me out to the construction site where the lodge and restaurant were being built, around the paths that looped around the west side, then back to the south side of the ranch where Ray’s house was.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t get lost the next time I went out on my own.
“You did good,” CJ said as he hopped off Anny and led her into a stall where food and water waited. “You’re a natural.”
I dismounted Indy and bit my lip, trying to suppress a groan. With each step I took, I could still feel Ray inside of me.
“Do you think you’ll get Ray to come to family dinner again?” he asked.
An old, mottled cat peeked out from Indy’s stall.
“Oh, hello there,” I said as I bent down to pick it up.
The tomcat yowled as soon as I touched it.
“Aren’t you a fluffy fellow.” I brought the screaming cat to my chest.
CJ whipped around. “Brooke—no—”
It was too late. The cat swiped at me with a vicious one-two punch. Claws sank into my face, chest, and arms as it tried to scramble away.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I soothed despite the cat’s hissing. “I’m nice, I promise.”
CJ ripped the cat out of my hands and tossed it into a pile of hay. “Yeah, but Dusty isn’t. That thing is an asshole, but she keeps the mice away.”
He assessed the rips in my shirt, the scratches covering my skin, and the blood trickling down my body. “Ray’s gonna fucking kill me. I said I’d bring you back in one piece.”
“It’s fine. It’s just a little scratch,” I said, waving it off. “I’ll get her to like me eventually.”
CJ chuckled and shook his head as he helped me remove Indy’s gear. “You’re an animal person.”
I grinned as I started brushing Indy’s gorgeous coat. “I love them. And plants. And kids. And old people.”
He snickered. “I’d love to see you and Cass locked in a room together.”
I shuddered. “She’s terrifying.”
“Yeah, that’s what most people say.” He paused for a moment. “How’s Ray?”
“You should ask him,” I chirped.
Ray never said it outright, but I knew it bothered him when people talked around him, about him, but not to him. Frankly, it was rude.
CJ raised an eyebrow. “You work with him.”
“No, I work for him. Ray’s my boss.”
CJ paused. “Fair. Point taken.”
I glanced at the old clock hanging on the wall. “I should probably head back to the house. What else do I need to do?”
“You’re good. I’ll finish up.”
I left CJ with the horses and made my way back up the path to Ray’s house. The moment I stepped back inside, I knew I had made a mistake.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell happened to you?” Ray shouted across the living room. “I thought you were going on a trail ride? Why the fuck are you bleeding? I swear, I’m going to kill CJ—”
“Ray, stop,” I said, laughing. “I’m fine. I tried to pick up the barn cat and it got a little sassy with me.”
Ray paused, huffed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re going to give me blood pressure issues, you know that?”
I giggled as I took off my shoes at the door and opened the fridge. “You worry too much.”
“I think it’s justified.”
I pulled a soda from the fridge door and cracked it open. Before I could turn and shut the door, hands were on me.
“What—”
Ray pulled me down into his lap. He pushed the wheels backward and closed the fridge door. “You need to take better care of yourself, Sunnyside.”
“It’s just a few scratches.”
“That barn cat has been around since high school. I’ve seen the people she’s fucked up, and I’ve been one of them.” Ray’s hands roamed over my arms and shoulders, checking the scratches. He let out a soft exhale. “They don’t look too deep.”
“Told you.”
Ray gave me a sharp glare. “Do you need help cleaning them up?”
“I was going to rinse off anyway. I smell like sweat and horses.”
His hand curled around my hip. “You smell good to me.”
I laughed and pushed his chest. “Weirdo.”
He cracked a smile. “I’m just saying. It suits you.”
Ray gave me a ride to the bathroom as I sipped my drink. He placed me in the shower before throwing a clean towel at me from the dryer. After I rinsed off and disinfected the cat scratches, I found him on the couch with his laptop.
Every time I saw him sitting on the couch instead of the recliner, my heart swelled. It was an unspoken invitation to join him. The recliner was his alone, but I was welcome on the couch.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked as I curled up beside him, working a wide comb through my water-logged curls.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, attempting to close a video streaming app.
But he couldn’t hide what he had been watching.
“Do you miss it?” I asked, staring at the paused thumbnail of a rider on the back of a massive bull.
His silence spoke volumes. The answer was evident in the clenched flex of his jaw. “My old manager wanted me to watch this kid ride and send back some critique.”
I snorted. “Sounds like he’s slacking off.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, but that was all.
“I miss it,” he admitted. “I hate watching it from this fucking couch. I know I’m supposed to believe that there was a purpose for my accident. You know—all that positivity bullshit that Christian can spew at the drop of a hat.” He sighed and closed his computer. “But I don’t see the good in it. And I don’t think I ever will. I still can’t write my own damn name, and it’s only three letters.”
I curled into his side and rested my head on his shoulder. “I don’t think you have to find the good in it. Sometimes there is no good to be found.”
Ray looked at me curiously. “Did you fall and hit your head on that ride, Sunnyside?”
I laughed. “No. I just…” I sighed. “My parents died. My grandma died. I don’t have a family. I have shitty roommates who kind of scare me, and I wake up every day just hoping to get through the next twenty-four hours so I’m one day closer to accessing my trust and having a life. There’s no good in that. There’s no good in you getting thrown off a bull and having your career end. You don’t have to pretend there’s some greater meaning in it all. Sometimes life just sucks.”
“Is this where you tell me to enjoy the little things and be grateful for what I have left?”
I shrugged. “What you do with what you have is your business. I’m not saying you have to pretend your accident or your diagnosis was good. But I am saying that good things still exist.”
Ray found my hand and squeezed.
I studied the contrast of black ink that danced across his light skin. “Darkness and light exist together in the same moments. We find it in sunrises and sunsets. It’s the clash that people trek across mountains to experience.”
The house was quiet. Too quiet. Ray was jittery. Frankly, so was I.
“Let’s get out of here.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? Where?”
“Who cares where we go? What else do we have to do? You don’t have PT until tomorrow afternoon.”
He blinked for a moment, and I could tell he was mulling it over in his mind. “Pack a bag. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”
“Take the next right and get on the highway.”
The truck engine growled as we sped through town without giving anyone on the ranch a heads-up that we were leaving.
“You gonna tell me where I’m driving us?” I asked as I fiddled with the radio.
Ray swatted my hands away. “Ten and two, Evel Knievel.” He found the station I was looking for and turned up the volume. “And no. You get directions, not a destination. You’d just get lost anyway.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ye of little faith.”
“I’m making educated guesses based on previous patterns of behavior.” He slid his hand down my arm and peeled my hand off the steering wheel when I settled into the right lane on the highway. Ray wrapped his hand around mine. “We’re going east.”
“Alright, Lewis and Clark. What are we going to do out east?”
The heat in his eyes was positively carnivorous. “Getting out of town for the night.”
I squeezed my thighs together. “How much rope did you bring?”
Ray let out a loud, long laugh. It was a sharp contrast to the haunted man from earlier who had been contemplating the trajectory of his life. “I didn’t bring any. Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’m not disappointed,” I blurted out.
Oh my god. It was so obvious that I was actually disappointed.
Ray snickered.
“Okay, fine. Maybe I’m a little disappointed.” I briefly took my eyes off the road. “Is a repeat of yesterday on the table?”
He licked his lips. “Eyes on the road, Sunnyside.”
I huffed and focused on driving.
“Is that… something you want? With me, I mean.”
“Sex? Um. Yes, please? I thought that was pretty obvious.”
“It’s not.”
“Obvious?”
Ray clenched his jaw, and his stormy expression returned. “I’ll give you what you want. I just need to know what it is.”
Him. I wanted him.
The thought startled me with its immediacy. “What do you want?” I countered.
Ray shook his head. “That’s not what I asked. Take the next exit.”
Did he seriously just give me directions? He was being so nonchalant about a conversation that should have been highly intimate.
If he wasn’t going to be brave, I would be. “I like you,” I confessed. “A lot. And maybe that’s weird since I work for you and we don’t have much in common. But I like hanging out with you. And I’m pretty sure you’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met in person.”
Ray raised an eyebrow. “In person?”
I shrugged. “I mean, Ryan Reynolds exists.”
He cracked a smile. “That’s fair.”
I held his hand a little tighter as I exited the highway and made the left turn he pointed out. “I don’t want to get my hopes up because I know you probably don’t want what I want. So if you just want sex, that’s fine.”
“What do you want, Brooke?”
“I want to be with you. To see where things go. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But at least we tried.”
“You want to date me?”
I hated his tone, as if it was strange to want to date. He could probably have any woman he wanted.
“You don’t have to sound so appalled.”
“I’m not appalled.” Ray sighed. “The end game of dating is marriage, and I’m not the marrying kind.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“Why? Because you don’t want it?” I laughed. “I’m not walking down the aisle any time soon. I didn’t pack a white dress and I’m not driving us to the courthouse.”
He let go of my hand and raked his fingers through his hair. “Don’t play this fucking game with me. I thought you were better than that.”
“What game?”
“The thing people do where they pretend like I’m not paraplegic. I am. That’s not changing. The game where people pretend like it doesn’t affect everything. I can’t drive you on dates. I can’t walk beside you and hold your hand. I can’t dance with you at a wedding. I can’t be the one to take you to the hospital when you’re in labor with our babies. I’m not putting someone I love through that. I’m not going to make you take on a dependent when you should have a partner. I’m not going to be selfish, no matter how much I want to be.”
Oh. He… He said a lot of things.
I veered into a fast food parking lot and slammed on the brakes. “Did you just say you love me?”
Ray pressed his head against the headrest. “Really? That’s what you got from all of that?”
“Yes or no.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. Isn’t that something people promise to each other? For better or worse? In sickness and in health?”
He stared out the window. “They promise those things before they happen. It’s a frivolous insurance policy that doesn’t apply to pre-existing conditions.”
I pushed the gear shift into park and turned in the seat. “Ray…”
“You know, I was excited to retire in a few years,” he admitted with a heartbreaking crack in his voice. “I wanted to settle down and have kids. Taking care of my nieces when they were little and needed someone put that fire in me. I wanted to have the kind of family I had growing up.”
“You can still have all those things. You’re the man who figures it out and makes it work. I’m not saying it would be with me. Hell, we might hate each other by the time we get home tomorrow. You’re forgetting that you don’t need me. Remember?”
His eyes were soft and glassy. “I think I was wrong.”