A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (36 page)

Georgia rolled the barn door open a
couple of feet and dragged over a bale of hay. The wind had come up, so she
huddled in her daddy’s jacket and watched the darkened sky continue its assault
on the parched land. Somewhere close to her, the wind caught a gap in the barn’s
siding at just the right angle to create a breathy whistle that provided a flat
melody line. The constant whoosh outside delivered the lower end of the tune
punctuated by the drumming of the rain. In the distance, lightning flashed. She
counted eight before the thunder rumbled.

She still had problems, but she felt
damned good about getting her daughter on a healing path. For the moment, that
was enough.

Georgia picked at the hay. Her plan to
make a family with Daniel had taken up a lot of real estate in her head this
summer. She was a little surprised at how easily she’d let go of the idea. Of
course, he’d shocked her to her senses with the ring Tracy was now wearing.

Since no other candidates waited in the
wings, the plan to create a family for Eden was officially dead. Georgia
doubted she’d have the enthusiasm to pursue it anyway, now that she’d figured
out she was still in love with her frustrating, annoying, sometimes obnoxious
ex-husband. Even knowing she might have blown it with Sol, she wasn’t
interested in anyone else. What was she going to do about him?

A spear of lightning crashed across the
sky. She counted, not quite reaching seven before the thunder followed.

The storm made her feel insignificant but
in a good way. If she wasn’t that important in the grander scheme, then how
could her problems matter so much? The world would keep on turning, rain would
fall, or the sun would shine, no matter how things worked out for her.

The gap between the lightning and the
thunder was down to five seconds, and she was still feeling philosophically
melancholy when her phone rang.

She dug it from her jacket pocket. When
she saw Sol’s name on the display, an attack of nerves hit her.

“Hey, Georgia,” Sol said when she
answered. “Have you got some spare time today?”

Alarm bells went off, jacking up her
nerves. “Yeah, I can find a few minutes. Why?”

“We need to talk.”

That sentence just never boded well.
Oh,
hell.
She might as well get it over with. “I can come now if that works for
you. You’re at home, right?”

“Yup. I’ll be waiting.”

She hung up but didn’t move immediately.
Lightning flashed. “One. Two. Three. F—” Yeah. The storm was moving closer. She
got up and went to kiss her daughter good-bye.

###

Georgia huddled on his front step,
waiting for him to answer her knock. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees
in the few minutes it took her to drive to Sol’s, the sky was so dark, it felt
like night was falling, and the rain was coming down in sheets.

The door opened and she jumped forward,
nearly knocking him down in her hurry to be out of the cold and damp.

“That was quick,” Sol said. He glanced
out the door. “It’s gotten wicked out there.”

“Yes, it has, but I was already at the
ranch.”

“Oh.” He shut the door. “Seeing Eden?”

“Yes.” Georgia couldn’t repress a small
smile fueled by the pride of a mother’s job well done. “She’s in the horse barn
as we speak.”

Sol’s eyes widened. “With Spitfire?”

She nodded.

“Thank God. Do you want some coffee?”

Bleck.
But at least it would be hot. The weather had stolen her
heat and left her shivering.

“Or . . . cocoa maybe?”
Sol offered.

Oh, yes, cocoa. Much better.
Instead she said, “Whatever you’re
having is fine.”
Let it be cocoa.

“Cocoa it is, then.”

Her boots were muddy, so she pulled them
off before sitting down. At his kitchen table, she balanced one heel on the
edge of the seat, and rested her chin on her knee. He already had a pan on the
stove. Georgia would have nuked it herself, but Sol had been raised doing
things the old-fashioned way.

“I guess this proves you were right.” He
poured milk into the pan and turned on the burner. “I don’t know squat about
being a parent. I couldn’t get her within a hundred yards of any of the horses.”
His voice was soft, but Georgia thought she detected a hint of sadness as
though he was disappointed with his performance as a father.

“It doesn’t prove anything,” she said. “She
wasn’t ready until today. I got lucky.” Should she tell him Eden was losing her
best friend? But that would mean she would have to mention Daniel. Then again,
if she told him Daniel was marrying Tracy . . . They were being
so careful of each other. So polite. She decided not to risk upsetting things
until she knew what he was thinking.

“Lucky?” He scoffed as he got out a spoon
and set it beside the stove.

“Yes, lucky. I wasn’t sure it would work,
but . . . I thought it might. I thought maybe she was ready, but
I could have been wrong. Stop beating yourself up about it.”

He nodded but the corner of his mouth had
a grim cast.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that a
watched pot never boils? Come sit down.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I
don’t want it to boil. If it boils, the milk will scorch.”

Why were they talking about milk? Should
she push him toward whatever he wanted to say or let him get to it in his own
time? She wasn’t eager to argue again, so she let it slide.

“How’s your mama doing?” he asked.

“She’s better.”

He picked up the spoon and stirred the
milk. “So you’ll make it home for the start of your school year?”

“It looks that way.” The thought of
returning to Dallas made her feel empty. Eden wasn’t the only one who was
losing a friend. What a difference a few months made. “Bethany talked it over
with Daddy while I was—” She almost said
while I was in Mesquite,
but
she was afraid that would remind Sol of their last fight. Not that he probably
needed reminding. “They talked it over yesterday and decided Bethany could take
care of them again if Daddy could get someone else to take Mama to her therapy
sessions.”

He received the news with silence.

The wind whistled around the trailer.
Georgia glanced out the window and saw lightning split the sky. It was even
darker than when she got there.

She let the storm lull her. Warm and
sheltered from the storm made the trailer seem almost cozy. The occasional
clink of metal on metal as Sol stirred the milk soothed her as well. She almost
didn’t notice when he set the cup in front of her, but the rich scent of
chocolate pulled her back into the room.

He sat across from her as she took a sip.
Mm.
She set it down and looked at him. There was no reason to put this
off any longer.

“What did you want to talk about?”

His mug sat on the table, and he turned
the cup, his fingers on the rim. And turned it. And turned it. And turned it
again. “I’m sorry I walked away from you last night. I think . . .
You weren’t done saying your piece. I should have stayed and listened.”

The only thing that had gone unsaid was
that she loved him. She doubted he’d have been receptive to that now.

Miniature marshmallows floated in the
cocoa. Georgia poked at one, pushing it down, watching it bob back up. Was she
willing to go out on a limb and say it now? If she wanted him, did she have a
choice? She was working up her courage when he spoke.

“I want you to know something.” His
fingers stilled, but he didn’t look up. “I never loved riding more than you.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, blurring her
vision. She wasn’t sure if they were tears of relief or of regret. Maybe both.
She looked up, fighting to keep them from falling.

“I want you to know, though, what you
would’ve really been asking for.” His hand tightened on his mug for a second
then he rose from the table as if it was asking too much of him to be still. He
stood for a moment, the way he might have if he’d walked into the room and
forgotten what he’d come for, then strode across the kitchen only to turn and
come back. When he sat back down, he started toying with his cup again.

Through it all, Georgia waited. The tears
that threatened dried up, but she could feel them waiting behind her eyes,
except now she knew what emotion held them there; she was afraid.

“I liked riding bulls in high school.”
His voice was soft and contained, almost as if he were talking about someone
else. “It was something I was good at.” His mouth twisted with a sort of wry
amusement. “Hell, I thought I was king of the hill. It was even better when you
started coming to watch me. I loved showing off for you. When I won, you looked
at me like I was some kind of hero. I liked that. Hell, I loved that.”

He finally lifted his mug and took a sip.
“And then after we got married and I started riding in real rodeos, riding
against guys who were better than me, more seasoned, I found out I’d been a big
fish in a little pond. But you still looked at me like I was a hero, so I was
determined to do better. To keep you looking at me like that.”

Georgia swallowed. She hadn’t known he’d
felt this way.

“I guess it must have been after Bill got
hurt you stopped looking at me that way when I rode, but I didn’t make that
connection until last night. I thought . . .” He licked his lips
as if his mouth had gone dry. “I thought I needed to work harder.”

She lifted her hands, pressed together as
if in prayer, to cover her nose and mouth.
No. Oh, no.

His gaze fixed on the mug as it turned
under his hand. “When you left, it made me more determined to be good at it. So
maybe you’d be proud of me and come back.”

The tears were threatening again.

“Or maybe I just didn’t know what else to
do.” He drew a deep breath. “And then . . . When you didn’t come
back. When I got it through my thick skull that maybe you never would . . .
Riding was the only thing I had left. That eight seconds on a bull’s back, that
was the only time I didn’t miss you.”

His eyes lifted to meet hers. “So yeah,
all you ever had to do was come back and ask me to quit.”

“Oh, God,” she muttered behind the
barrier of her hands. “It’s my fault. If I had—”

She saw from the look on his face that
her words were too muffled for him to understand. Did she want him to? If he
understood how much she was to blame, would that be the last straw? But she
owed it to him. All these years, he’d assumed he’d done something wrong when
all he’d tried to do was make her happy, make her proud. He deserved better
than that from her. She dropped her hands to her lap.

“I’m sorry. If I had talked to you— If I
had told you how I felt. How scared I was every time you rode. I should have
told you. We could have made our marriage work. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She hadn’t expected her long-overdue
apology would make him happy. Not exactly. But she had expected his tension to
ease a little. Instead, his face tightened as though she’d just made things
worse.

Part of him wanted to stop right there, to
accept Georgia’s apology, to let her shoulder the burden of their failed
marriage. She’d only done what she’d had to. Maybe some part of her had sensed
she couldn’t count on him. But if he was the man he thought he was, he couldn’t
let her think it was all her fault.

Sol pushed out of his chair, knowing it
would be easier to start the next chapter of this discussion if he didn’t have
to look at her. He opened a cupboard, searching for something that would go with
the cocoa. Graham crackers? No, those went with milk. Oreos? Those were for
dipping in milk, too, but they were still his best option.

“There’s more you should know,” he said
as he pulled out a plate for the cookies, wondering as he did so what his next
sentence should be.

He could never have put into words at the
time what riding meant to him, though he’d tried once when Georgia had asked
him about it. He’d dressed it all up and tried to make it sound noble, but it
really hadn’t been. He never would have admitted it to her—hell, he wouldn’t
have admitted it to himself back then, even if he’d understood it and could
have found the words, but at the ripe old age of thirty, he saw it more
clearly.

“When we were married . . .”
The cookies were on the plate now, but he didn’t pick it up or turn toward the
table. Instead, he took a deep breath to steel himself for this revelation that
he hadn’t planned to share with her. “You weren’t the only one who was scared.”

“You were never scared of anything,”
Georgia said on a breath.

If only that were true. He picked up the
plate and turned toward her. Dimples appeared above the inside curl of her
eyebrows, the way they always did when she was distressed. He hadn’t seen them
in so long, he’d forgotten about them, but there they were. He wanted to kiss
them away, but now was the time to give her soul-searing honesty, not kisses. “No,
I was. I was scared to death.”

“Of what?” Georgia’s voice wobbled, but
that didn’t mask the note of skepticism.

He took three steps to the table and set
the plate down. “Of not being a man,” he said, careful not to look at her.

She sniffled but it was a sniffle of
recovery rather than impending tears. “What are you talking about?”

He sighed and sat down. “We got married
almost on impulse. I was eighteen. That may be more than a boy, but it’s not
quite a man. And about a week after we got home from Vegas, it hit me.” He
glanced at her then quickly away. “I had a wife.”

There was no way he could explain how
that had felt, but he tried anyway. “It was the most wonderful thing I could
imagine because it was you. But it was also scary as hell.”

“Why would that scare you?” Georgia asked
softly.

He couldn’t tell if she was patronizing
him or not. “It was my job as a man to take care of you, to make sure we had a
roof over our heads, food to eat, a car to get around, and I’d never done
anything but work for Daddy on the ranch.”

“Sol, we were never going to starve or be
homeless,” she said. “Your parents wouldn’t have let that happen.”

He’d known this was going to be hard to
explain. What he hadn’t known was that it still touched a sensitive spot inside
him. He stood and paced across the kitchen. Five whole steps. It wasn’t far
enough. He spun around. “I know that.” His voice came out too loud. He
throttled it back. “But it wasn’t their job to give us those things. It was
mine.
”
He pounded his fist against his chest on the last word. “
My
job.”
Another blow. “
My
responsibility.” And again.

“
I
was the man. Except I’d never
even taken care of myself. How was I supposed to know whether or not I could
take care of
us?
Hell, we were living here, in a trailer my folks own.”
He held out his hands, encompassing the walls that surrounded them. “We didn’t
even have to pay rent. It felt . . .” His hands fell to his sides.
He couldn’t begin to explain how many times he’d felt like a little kid playing
house. How he’d felt so unsure of himself in the role he’d so badly wanted to
fill. “I wanted to be a man for you. One you could count on.”

Lightning flashed outside. A second
later, the lights inside flickered. Even their breathing seemed to hang in
suspense as they waited to see what would happen. Then the power stabilized.

“You never said anything,” Georgia said.

“Geez, Georgia, I couldn’t even
articulate it to myself back then. I just . . .
felt
it.”

“So . . .” She hesitated
and bit one side of her lower lip.

Sol waited for the ax to drop. What was
going through her mind that she needed to phrase so carefully?

“How did riding bulls help?”

Sol drew a deep breath. This was the part
that wasn’t going to make sense to her. He knew because it barely made sense to
him. “I thought bull riders were real men. When I hung out with them, when they
accepted me as one of their own, I didn’t feel like such a fraud. It felt like
proof I could be the man I wanted to be. For you.”

“Well, that was pretty dumb.” Georgia’s
hand leaped up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide.

Sol barked a laugh. Leave it to Georgia
to call him on that. “Yeah, it
was
dumb. But it also worked.” He leaned
his butt against the counter. “I was out there, taking responsibility for
myself. When I got thrown, Daddy wasn’t there to pick me up. When I was broke
from not winning, Mama wasn’t there to feed me. I picked myself up, managed to
keep body and soul together, and I always made the next rodeo. Knowing I could
survive made me a man. I could take care of myself and anyone else I needed to.”

He risked a glance at her, but her face
told him nothing except that she was listening intently to what he was saying. “If
I’d quit rodeoing for you . . . If I’d lived inside the safety
net of the ranch, I’d have always wondered how I’d manage if everything went
wrong somehow. Would I be able to take care of you and the kids we’d’ve had? I
don’t think I’d’ve liked myself if I couldn’t answer that question. I don’t
think I’d have been the man you deserved.”

He swallowed once, hard, then said the
most difficult words of his life. “You were right to leave me.”

###

Sol thought she’d done the right thing.

Georgia felt as if her lung capacity had
shrunk by half. Odd, that, because her chest felt hollow. There should have
been plenty of room to draw a deep breath, but it still felt beyond her
ability.

How? How could he think that?

Had he really been that afraid?

She flashed on one of the more memorable
moments in their marriage, one she’d treasured at the time. Sol had come home
for the midday meal, but they hadn’t eaten. Instead, they’d ended up in the
bedroom. Afterward, as Georgia was tucking her T-shirt into her jeans, she’d
looked up to find Sol sitting on the edge of the bed, his lips parted slightly
while his eyes slowly scanned her as if he’d never really seen her before.

She cocked her head at him questioningly.

“I can’t believe it,” he’d said softly.

“Can’t believe what?”

“You really married me.”

“Ten days ago. In Las Vegas. You were
there, remember?”

“Yeah, but . . . You
really did it.”

She knelt on the bed, straddling his lap,
and looked down into his eyes, so soft a gray, they made her think of the
burned-out embers of a campfire. “Yes, I really did. Why are you acting so
surprised?”

“I don’t know. It just hit me. Georgia
Carsten married me. Georgia Carsten
McKnight
is my wife.” He took a deep
breath. “I’m her husband.” He traced her jaw with his fingertips, his touch so
light, it felt like a whisper. “I keep pinching myself ‘coz this has to be a
dream, but then I do, and it’s not, and it kinda takes my breath away.”

Georgia smiled, remembering their first
kiss when she’d literally knocked the breath from him by falling on top of him.
“Should I give you mouth-to-mouth?”

His smile widened. “Yes, please.”

So she’d kissed him. And he’d started
taking off the clothes she’d just put on, and their usually athletic lovemaking
had instead been tender and gentle as Sol had touched her with adoring hands
and taken her excruciatingly slowly to the highest mountaintop before he’d let
her free-fall under him.

And now, all these years later, she had a
glimpse of what that really meant to him.

So maybe she’d had a clue.

Lightning lit the sky outside, the
thunder following almost immediately. Georgia jumped, returning to the present
and the big question that still remained. Was it too late for them?

A second later, the power went out. Damn,
it was dark out here in the country.

“Fuck,” Sol muttered. She heard him push
his chair back, then a drawer slid open, and she could hear him stirring things
around inside.

She’d convinced herself she needed to see
his face when they finally got to this point, but now she wasn’t so sure. He
thought she’d been right to leave him. What if he thought they should stay
apart? Could she really stand to see that on his face? The darkness suddenly
felt like a friend.

Now was the time to say the things she
needed to. She started softly. “All summer, people have been telling me I was
still in love with you.”

The sounds of Sol’s fumbling in the
drawer stopped.

“Tommy, then Bethany, even Daniel.” Yes,
even Daniel, who’d never met Sol before Eden’s rodeo, had known. “I thought
they were all nuts. I mean . . . Wouldn’t I have known?”

In the darkness, the small sounds she
hadn’t been aware of before seemed amplified. The rain hitting the window, the
wind curling around the trailer. But nothing from Sol’s direction. A lighting
strike gave her a strobe-lit view of him standing in front of the open drawer.

“I meant to marry Daniel. I told myself
he’d make a good father for Eden. That we could show her how men and women
should be together.”

The drawer shut. Not a slam, but in the
dark, the sound cracked.

“It was a silly idea. It didn’t even occur
to me until after Mama’s stroke.” She swallowed. “Until I knew I was coming
back here for the summer.” And she’d never even wondered why it was suddenly so
appealing.

Without light, the space inside the
trailer felt amplified and hollow. She almost expected her words to echo.

“I used Daniel as a shield because I
needed someone standing between us. Maybe that’s what Tommy was, too.”

Finally, a sound from Sol. The scrape of
a match, followed by a yellow flame. The flame doubled as it caught on the wick
of a taper.

She watched as he shook out the match and
threw it in the sink. He tilted the candle over a saucer, letting the wax drip
into a puddle. Without looking up, he said, “He has a ring for you.”

She drew a breath. “No. The ring was
never for me. He’s back with his ex-wife. He . . . He thought
you needed your chain yanked.”

Sol’s head turned toward her, but in the
candlelight, his expression was unreadable. Sitting beyond the circle of light,
she doubted he could read her face any better.

After another few drips, he affixed the
candle to saucer and brought it to the table, the flame flickering, sending
wild shadows everywhere.

She looked out the window, but all she
could see in the dark pane was the reflection of the candle. The flame
steadied, flickering only a little every once in a while.

She touched the flame’s reflection,
almost expecting to feel heat, but she found only cold, smooth glass.

“It turns out everyone was right. I’ve
never stopped loving you.”

Lightning flashed again, erasing the
candle in the window.

Unable to bear the silence from his side
of the table, she said, “I went to the rodeo Saturday to see if I could stand
watching you ride.” She didn’t want to look at him, but she couldn’t stop
herself. His eyes were dark pools, impossible to read. “It wasn’t easy but I
did it. And I can do it again. As often as I need to.”

What more was there to say? Begging would
only embarrass them both. So she waited.

For what seemed forever.

At last, in a tentative voice, he said, “Are
you saying . . . ?”

“Yes,” Georgia said, surprised by how
strong her voice was. “I want to come home.”

###

“You want to come home?” Sol felt like an
idiot, repeating Georgia, but after everything they’d been through this summer,
she couldn’t mean that the way it sounded. Was that hope in her eyes? The
lighting made it hard to tell, but why would she doubt that he’d take her back?
He had to be misinterpreting her meaning. “You mean you want to move back to
Hero Creek?” he asked tentatively.

“Sol, I—” She wet her lips, and her voice
softened. “I want to come home. To you.” She dropped her gaze to the candle. “If
you’ll have me.”