Busting Loose (23 page)

Or, well, actually she did need them. Now that she was going back.

“Let's go for a ride.”

“Now?” She glanced at the clock. It was midafternoon.

He grinned, as if knowing what she was thinking. “Most of the hands are out working on the cattle right now. And a few are transporting a horse, so no one's around the barn. Peyton's having lunch at the big house. It's safe. I'll just go saddle up and walk out to the back. Get dressed and meet me downstairs in twenty.”

One more ride for the road. She'd never have time for riding out in LA. Might as well. “Yeah, okay. See you in twenty.”

 

Bea let Lover Boy have his head. Trace kept easy pace with her on Lad, and they simply rode. Rode against the wind so it rushed into her face, blew her hair back, stung her eyes. And it was exactly what she needed.

Trace veered off a little, and she followed, giving Lover Boy the pressure he needed with her legs to make the turn. When Trace slowed to a walk by an old silo, she squinted. And then he disappeared behind it.

“Trace?” She nudged Lover Boy on ahead. “Is this the part in the ride when you disappear and a crazed psycho with a chainsaw for a hand comes after me?”

“I'll have to look into that chainsaw thing. Might be efficient.” Peyton and Ninja, her horse, rounded the silo, with Trace right behind.

Bea's eyes widened, then narrowed. “You bastard. What the hell is this, an intervention?”

Peyton eyed her critically. For a moment, Bea straightened in the saddle, improving her posture and form. And then immediately slouched again. Hell if she was going to pretend Peyton was giving her a freaking riding lesson like she was a five-year-old on her first pony.

“So . . .” Peyton finally said.

“So?” Was that defiance in her voice? Or just bitterness.

“You ride.”

“I ride,” Bea mocked.

“You ride like hell,” Peyton added.

Bea opened her mouth with another sarcastic comment, then closed it. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you ride like you were born doing it. Which I damn well know you weren't. So who taught you? Some stunt rider in California?”

Bea rolled her eyes. Figured. “Yes. Some big, burly stunt man took me in and showed me his Western ways,” she bit off.

“Bea,” Trace said quietly. “We just wanna know.”

“Then how about we get down from the saddle? I feel like a cliché up here having it out.” She swung down without a word, landing softly and looping the reins over Lover Boy's head. Trace dismounted as well and held out his gloved hand for them.

“I'll watch them. You guys go.”

“I only want to say it once,” she said.

“I can hear. Just, go.”

Peyton was already crashing through some tall grass that came up to her sister's waist. “She does that to annoy me, doesn't she?”

“Probably.” With a gentle push between her shoulder blades, Trace sent her off to follow her big sister.

“H
ow long?” Peyton asked when Bea finally caught up. Her sister had short legs, but she could move like the wind. Bea rested her hands on her knees and breathed for a second.

“God, you've been here like a year, and you're still sucking wind walking?”

“Thanks for . . . waiting. You could have . . . slowed down,” she gasped. “How is it you have legs that short and you move that fast?”

“Focus, Bea.” Peyton pinched the bridge of her nose. “Have you always been able to ride?”

“Since I was about six.” She shrugged when Peyton's mouth dropped open. “What?”

“There's no way. A six-year-old can't teach herself to ride.”

“Remember that hand we had back then? Caffy? He came in before Tiny.”

“Cafrey,” Peyton said quietly. Her eyes scanned over the edge of the tall grass, as if she was trying to bring his image to her memory. “His name was Cafrey.”

“But when he started, I was only about four. I couldn't say Cafrey, so he was Caffy to me. He never minded.”

“How the hell did you even meet him?” Peyton shook her head like a dog removing water. “This makes no sense. You were a toddler. Cafrey wasn't one of the main hands. He was there for a few years, then gone. He wouldn't have spent time in the main house. How would you have—”

“I used to sneak down to the barn after everyone was in bed.” She grinned at the memory. It had been so simple to wait until everyone was asleep, slip down the stairs in her nightgown and a pair of Peyton's old boots, and race to the barn to look at all the pretty horses. To touch the ones that would bend their heads over the stall doors and say hello, especially the gentler brood mares and older geldings. To feel like she was free to ride . . . if she could.

And then Caffy caught her.

“He knew I wanted to ride, and knew Sylvia, crazy ass that she was, would never let me. I think he saw my desperation to have something outside of her.” Bea closed her eyes for a second against her regret. “So he taught me when I would sneak out. I'm sure Daddy would have skinned him alive if he'd found out. But he didn't, and it was fine. He taught me how to saddle the horses, though it was too hard for me at that age. But I got older, figured out how to saddle my own horse, and could take off when I wanted to.”

She stretched her arms out, eyes still closed. Her fingertips brushed over the edges of the grass. “God, it was like, the definition of liberation to me as a kid.”

Peyton said nothing, but when Bea opened her eyes again, her sister was staring at her, arms crossed.

“Why did you hide it? Why didn't you ask for lessons with Trace? He would have been old enough by then to show you how to ride. Or even Daddy, when he wasn't busy.”

“Which was when?” Bea shot back. Peyton nodded after a moment, acknowledging the hit. “Daddy wasn't really keen on spending time with me. It was almost like he and Mama had an unspoken agreement. Daddy got you and Trace, and Mama got me. Split custody, without the split.”

Peyton blinked, as if it had just dawned on her. “You think Daddy didn't want you?”

“Not that he didn't want me, but . . .” She held out her hands, palms up. “Didn't know what to do with me. I was raised as Mama's china doll. It's what I knew. Daddy had no clue what to do with a priss like me.”

“Neither did I,” Peyton admitted. “You confused the hell out of me. You were so . . . white.”

Bea choked on a laugh.

“I mean, you were always wearing white. I rolled you over once, when you were a baby. Just playing a game. You laughed, you loved it. And Mama screamed at me for getting you dirty.” Peyton grimaced. “You really were like a doll. One of those stupid collectable things you put in a glass case and never touch. I started figuring you didn't want to play, because you were always inside and never followed us out.”

“Mama kept me in.” Kept her from so much. “She told me once she'd had one girl, but Daddy stole her. So I was her do-over.”

Peyton's eyes widened. “That woman was insane.”

“Basically,” Bea agreed easily. Who knew better than the one stuck with her? “I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not about to go walking around like you do all the time, looking like you rolled in a pig pile,” she added, and Peyton scowled at her. She grinned back. More solid ground there. “I don't really get the whole ranching business. I don't want to get it.”

“That's not true,” Trace said quietly from behind. She gasped and turned. “Sorry, just had to check and make sure you weren't going to kill each other.”

“Not today.” Peyton shrugged. “Just filling in some gaps that we all seemed to miss as kids.”

“My childhood wasn't a gap,” Bea snapped. She didn't want their pity. Yeah, she missed out on doing some of the things she'd wanted to do. But she wasn't suffering.

“Is that why you went into acting?” Peyton kicked at a stone, which barely made it a foot before being stopped by a clump of weeds.

“I went into acting because . . . it seemed natural.” She couldn't explain it. Not the way she wanted to. It was too difficult to form into words. “It was what I had been doing my whole life anyway, so it was an easy shift. And I think I was good at it, which only made it easier to keep going. And it got me away from her. It was good work.”

Until they didn't want her. And then she realized it was more freeing than disappointing. But to keep up the façade . . .

God, it was exhausting even thinking about it.

“I'm not living a double life or anything. It's not like I'm freaking Wild Horse Annie. I just like to ride. And I'm not as grossed out by the stables as I might have pretended.” Immediately she regretted the admission when Peyton's sharp grin spread.

“So you can start mucking out a stall or two. Be useful.”

“Don't get your hopes up for free manual labor.” She plucked the tips off several strands of grass, held them out in her palm, and let the wind take them. “I'm heading back.”

“Back to the house?” Peyton glanced at Trace, who had moved back and was staring up at the sky like he wasn't at all eavesdropping. What bull.

“Back to LA. Back to work.”

“You work here. You've got the job with Morgan. And we can always pay you minimum wage to muck out a stall.” Peyton smiled, but the smile was hesitant, as if she wasn't sure how it would go over. “So stay and put your sweat into the place.”

“I do. But you haven't noticed anything I've done in the main house.” Her temper was starting to rise, in direct correlation to her frustration. “You didn't even notice I stepped up and went with Trace to a show when I had no clue what I was doing there.”

“I noticed.” Her sister's quiet voice threw a bucket of cold water on her overheated temper. “I'm grateful. I don't know that I say it often—”

“Try never,” Bea added.

“But I mean it,” Peyton finished through clenched teeth. “Stay. We have . . . stuff. Stuff to work out and shit to fix.” She kicked another rock, watched it barely roll to the same weed patch.

“I have an audition back . . .” She couldn't call it home. Not right here, looking at her sister, who was all but begging her to stay. A sister who had never begged for anything. Before today, Bea would have bet her life savings that Peyton would never have wanted her around for more than five minutes. “I have an audition,” she finished.

“So go, and come back.” Trace kept staring at the sky, like that made him invisible.

“Go check on the horses,” Peyton said with a shooing motion. She waited until Trace rolled his eyes and tromped off back toward the silo. “He's going to miss the hell out of you.”

“I'll miss him. Maybe you, too.” She grinned when Peyton raised a brow. “Come on, things can't all change.”

“Do you feel like this is just something you have to do? Why are you leaving us? Why are you leaving
him
?” her sister added, with such emphasis Bea couldn't possibly pretend to not know whom she was talking about.

“Some people are meant for this lifestyle. I just don't think I'm one of them. I wasn't raised to want this.”

“You were raised by a narcissistic bitch with delusions of grandeur.” Peyton bent over to pick up a rock and heave it. The stone whizzed through the air until she couldn't see where it landed.

“And look how I turned out? Is that the punch line?”

“You're not any of that. You're selfish sometimes, but you're not narcissistic. You can be bitchy, but you're not a bitch. The delusions of grandeur . . .” Peyton tilted her hand back and forth. “Maybe.”

Bea flipped her off.

“The point is, you're not our mother. She was . . . a piece of work. She was selfish to the bone, she was a liar, a cheat, and was never a good mom, either. Maybe that's breaking a commandment or something to say it, but it's true. And if she made you feel like you couldn't even learn to ride a freaking horse as a kid, she deserves about as much consideration in the afterlife from us as she gave us when she was alive.”

“None?” Bea guessed.

“Just about.” Peyton took her hat off and rubbed the back of one wrist over her forehead. Her braid flopped around between her shoulder blades, and her shoulders were hunched over, as if she was about to bend at the waist to catch her breath. She looked . . .

Defeated.

That couldn't be true. “Is the ranch okay?”

She looked up, surprised. “More than. We're not out of the woods, but we're aiming in the right direction, and we can feel the sun. It's going to be okay,” she said fiercely.

And Bea believed her. “So you don't need me.”

“Maybe I just want my sister.”

Bea blinked rapidly to hold back the tears.
No. No, no, no. Not now. Don't do this to me now.
“I . . . Peyton.” She turned away and covered her face with one hand. “Don't you dare take another step toward me.”

“Or you'll what, beat me up? You're a stick. I'd kick your ass in a minute.” Peyton wound one arm around her. It was the closest they'd come to a hug since Bea could ever remember. “Morgan loves you.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“It's gonna kill him when you leave.”

She said nothing.

“But don't let that be the reason you stay. You have to stay for you. Is it gonna kill
you
to leave?”

It just might.

Peyton squeezed her a little. Their difference in height made the position awkward, but more friendly than they'd been in years. “Just keep an open mind, okay? While you're packing up your four hundred pairs of shoes and shit, just think about it. There's work to be done here, work that has your name written all over it.”

“If you're talking about manure,” she warned.

“I was talking about the shelter.” Peyton considered for a moment. “But if you really want a crack at manure . . .”

Bea swatted her sister's hat so it flew several feet in the wind before landing. Peyton cursed and kicked out, but Bea jumped away with a laugh and sprinted toward Trace. Juvenile, but they'd skipped this step in the sibling process. And she wasn't above being immature when the situation called for it.

 

Bea let Peyton and Trace set the pace for home—which was meandering with a side of boring sauce—because she just didn't have it in her to race. Sorry, Lover Boy, but you got your run in earlier. Now she needed time to think.

Or not think. Bea closed her eyes and let the gentle sway of the horse beneath her saddle lull her for a moment. If she wanted to, she could just fall asleep right there, sitting upright. Let it all go and take a nap.

Naps solved everything.

Of course, when she fell on her head from the saddle, she would wake up and find nothing was solved at all. She was still leaving a family she'd barely connected with. She was leaving a job she'd all but created with her own imagination and passion. And she was leaving love.

Bea fisted one hand around the reins, then forced her hand to relax. Love. She had to say it, didn't she? Love. Four letter word. And she was smack in the middle of it.

But so was Morgan. So if she was going to suffer, she'd suffer with someone.

No, actually she wouldn't. He would move on. Because he was one of the best men she'd ever known, and someone would snatch him up in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, she would be in LA reading scripts, being shot down for parts, and—God forbid—going back to a crap job to pay the overpriced rent. Even if the series worked out, there was no telling if it would be there the next day, or the day after that. Or if she would get killed off again.

Morgan would be there. Morgan loved her. Morgan wanted her. And she wanted him. And the job. And her family. And Marshall, God bless its ass-backward country heart.

If a neon sign had crash-landed at Lover Boy's feet, she wouldn't have been more startled.

“Oh my God.”

Peyton turned around, a smug smile on her face. Trace looked a tad more concerned. “What's wrong, Bea Bea?”

“I have to go.” She blinked at them, but their forms faded and blurred until she had to blink some more to clear the tears. “No, I can't go. I screwed up. He must hate me.”

“Oh, please,” Peyton said dryly. “Biggest load of horse sh—”

“Peyton,” Trace muttered. “Bea, can you use more words? I'm not understanding what's going on.”

“Just go,” Peyton advised. “I'll catch him up on the way home.”