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CHAPTER THREE

DEACON

BEFORE

Every person who’s ever hurt me was a man.

Women, on the other hand, haven’t been anything but good to me.

It started with Amie, my foster mother, way back when I was John Williamson, not yet Deacon Ryder. Amie wanted two boys, but she only gave birth to one. I was the rejected twelve year old she landed on to fill that empty spot. God knows why. I’d been given back after an adoption and kicked around the foster system for years.

I was trouble. Even I knew that.

Her husband, Phil, was awful. Good women like Amie usually end up with awful men like Phil. It’s the way of things. He fucked around on her, fucked up her life, and fathered a piece of shit son to keep her from leaving.

He hated me. Amie told me it wasn’t my fault—we were just too alike.

Fifteen years old, I sit on the back of the ranch’s prize stallion, Deacon. Phil bought him a few years back and never did anything with him. Then, I started working with him every day in the morning before chores, on my own time. A year later, I won a state championship and a lot of money with him.

Turned out, I was the best trainer in that part of Montana—I just hadn’t discovered it yet.

Now, I train all the horses, and Phil cashes the checks.

The front door opens, and Henderson walks out, hat pulled low. He’s the biological son of Phil, the heir of Three Point Ranch. He’s like Phil but meaner than a snake, just tied up in knots about everything and everyone.

Behind him comes Phil. He used to kick me around and holler at me until I put his ranch on the map with Deacon and the other horses. Now, I’m the favored son, and Henderson is chopped fucking liver because he doesn’t bring in any income. I don’t like that much.

“John,” Phil barks.

“Yes, sir?” I take my baseball cap off, shoving it in my coat pocket.

“Paperwork’s done,” he says. “We’re going to the courthouse.”

Henderson gives me a disgusted glance and slinks away. My stomach turns over. I slide down and bring Deacon into the barn to strip his tack off. Phil joins me, holding out a handful of papers. There’s a coffee stain on the corner from where they sat at the breakfast table.

I stare down at them. I’ve never had a real name. John is the one the nurse who found me on the hospital steps gave me. I’ve never considered it mine. It doesn’t fit my face.

On the top line of the second document is a new name.

Deacon Ryder.

I stare at it, mouth dry. I know who John Williamson is. I’ve been him all my life. He’s a hard headed troublemaker with a talent for horses. I don’t know this Deacon Ryder.

I also don’t know why I couldn’t just have Phil and Amie’s surname. That would make the most sense.

“Why not your last name?” I ask.

“We’ll see how much you make at the fair next weekend,” Phil says, taking Deacon into his stall and shutting the gate .

It clicks into place—Deacon’s rider. That’s what I am to Phil, just the person who put his ranch on the map. He’s made so much money in stud fees from Deacon, it makes me half sick to think about.

“You should be thanking me,” Phil says. “I gave you a home.”

I clear my throat. “Thank you, sir.”

Phil walks past me. “Come on, Deacon Ryder. Get in the truck so we can get this finalized.”

I’m not too torn up over it. I’ve never been loved, so I don’t know what I’m missing, even if, deep down, I want it. Amie tries to love me, and I’m always kind to her because she’s a good woman, but the damage is done.

I’ve got thick armor, and Deacon Ryder is a hell of a name.

I’m freshly eighteen when something happens that changes everything. Phil is sick, Amie gone. Henderson is thinking he might go to college, but Phil says he’s lazy and it’s no use. I tell him college won’t do shit for him out here, and he tries to hit me in the face.

We end up fighting in the barn, and Phil pulls us apart, but only after we both have split lips and black eyes.

I go inside after Phil chews us out. Henderson and I fight all the time now. The hint of camaraderie that grew between us before Phil found out I was a cash cow is dead, killed by jealousy. Amie’s death was the nail in the coffin. We were pretending to get along for her, but there’s no point in it now.

I go upstairs and pull my shirt off to splash water on my bloody nose.

A car door slams. I hear a woman’s voice. Intrigued, I go to the window. Henderson stands in the yard, still bloody from my fists. There’s a pretty blonde girl in the open door of a pickup.

She’s mad, waving her arms. Henderson yells back, the veins in his neck popping. Cowed, she backs up, but he closes the gap.

I pull my shirt over my wet torso and go downstairs to the porch.

“You alright?” I call.

Henderson lifts a hand at me. “You fucking stay out of this. ”

Warning bells go off in my head. I’ve seen Phil look that way at Amie a few too many times. Not doing anything about it is the biggest regret I have now that she’s gone.

“Get in the truck,” I say, coming down the steps.

“What the hell?” Henderson turns on me.

“Not talking to you,” I say, turning to the blonde gazing open-mouthed at me. “You get in that truck and go. Don’t come around him anymore.”

Henderson is speechless. I stare the girl down until she obeys and the truck’s engine roars down the drive. I go inside before Henderson can fly off the handle again. Dinner that night is a cold half hour, and then I go to bed.

The next day, I go to the gas station to refill a propane tank. I’m standing in the parking lot, talking and smoking with one of the men from the auction in Knifley, when I see a flash of blonde disappear into the store.

I flick that cigarette away and head inside.

Everything changes after I lose my virginity to Henderson’s ex-girlfriend in the bed of my truck parked in a field behind the gas station.

After that, it’s like a whole new world.

Men either like me or they don’t. I got buddies who barrel race, people I can drink with on the weekends, and I like them fine. Then, there’s Phil and Henderson and all the other men who’ve fucked me over and fucked me up.

Until now, I’ve been so busy trying to survive that I haven’t had any time to do more than look at women.

Turns out, women are so much better in real life. I’ve never experienced intimacy before, and I can’t get enough of skin on skin. They’re soft, they’re sweet, and God, do they feel good when they come on my dick. Even that pales in comparison, though, when I figure out they’ll let me put my head between their legs. That’s better than liquor, maybe better than barrel racing.

I have a new purpose in life .

I’m good at two things: making women come and raising the best barrel racers in the state of Montana. It tracks that Henderson can do neither. When he finds out I’m fucking his ex, he’s livid.

So, I fuck all the rest of them. He’s worked his way through all the girls he graduated with at this point. The town is small.

In retrospect, it was an asshole move, but he made it so easy by being the biggest piece of shit in the county.

I’m twenty one when Phil dies and leaves the farm to both of us. Henderson is back together with Calli, the girl I lost my virginity to, and it’s put a rift between us to the point we barely speak. She tells him to mend it, he screams at her, and she breaks up with him.

An hour later, she’s in my bed with her thighs wrapped around my head.

Henderson and I go back and forth, fighting over her, because Phil was an asshole who used his love like currency to manipulate us. He breaks my nose three times, and I don’t have to retaliate, because I am everything he wants to be. I’m bigger, smarter, and I run the ranch and train the horses that sell for hundreds of thousands.

He can’t seem to get anything off the ground.

And I fuck his women when he’s done with them. That’s the thing that keeps us at each other’s throats.

Until it goes too far, and I do something that ends this cold war once and for all.

I carry that ugly, terrible thing inside me forever.

NOW

I’m standing in the dirty alley between the café and the general store. It’s ice cold, the air dead. There’s a point in winter out here when the cold doesn’t ache. It stands still, drier than dust, too cold for more snow to fall.

That’s January in north-west Montana, specifically Knifley, unbuffered by the mountains.

My fingers aren’t cold. They’re too fucked for that. I flick my lighter and hold it to the tip of my cigarette. It flares, I inhale .

From here, I can see the back door of the café. It has two parts: a side for hot coffee and a side for ice cream in the summer. I smoke here once a week when I come into town to pick up cattle and horse feed. Andy, my manager, goes into the general store to get whatever his wife, Ginny, wants. I stay outside to have a quick cigarette.

Today is the first time anybody has ever walked out the back door of the ice cream parlor. I see it from the corner of my eye—the swing of the metal door, a flash of fern-green, the brightest ice blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

All at once, I’m wide awake.

The person who just stepped into the alley, her cold hand wrapped around a steaming paper cup, is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. My breath hitches. I take the cigarette out of my mouth. I don’t want her to see me smoking.

I don’t think I want her to see me at all. I need a chance to gawk, so I step back until I’m behind the corner of the building. She’s visible, but she can’t see me around the edge.

She’s got a petite but curvy body—a narrow waist, thick hips and thighs. My eyes drag higher, over her tight, fern-green sweater, over the swell of her hips, and linger on her breasts. I can’t help it. They’re perfect. I’ve always had a type, and she’s it—short, sweet, and sturdy.

And pretty.

Goddamn, she’s a knockout. Big, pale blue eyes with stark lashes. A small nose with a straight bridge, a heart shaped face, a full mouth. Her hair is rich bark brown. It’s braided, but it’s clear she’s got a head of curls by the bits around her ears.

She leans against the dirty wall. Her fingers tighten around the cup.

There’s something sad about her, like the last breath of autumn before a freeze. Her skin looks cold, her mouth pale pink. Her lashes flutter, her eyes turning up to fix overhead. I glance up, taking in a flock of geese cutting through the winter sky.

She looks up at them like she wishes she could hitch a ride.

I don’t think she was made for this cold .

Entranced, I flick away my cigarette and lean against the corner. She takes a sip from her paper cup. The back door opens, and the store owner, Tracy, leans her head out and says something to her. She nods before the door shuts.

I consider walking up and introducing myself. After all, there’s no cure like just doing it. I’ve always been straightforward.

But something holds me back.

Something tells me this is different.

She flicks away something on her cheek. Then, she throws out the dregs of her cup and pulls open the heavy door, disappearing. My stomach sinks, and the heaviest disappointment I’ve felt in years sets in. I’ve always relied on my instincts. They’ve gotten me to forty without letting me down, And my instincts are telling me not to walk away.

“You alright?”

I look up. Andy stands at the corner, four bags hanging from his hands. He’s a tall, wiry man with white hair. Today, he’s wrapped up in a thick coat, the collar poking up to his jawline.

“Hell, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, just cold. You go on to the truck, and I’ll grab a coffee.”

“Get me one,” he says, skirting around me.

He heads to the back parking lot. I give myself a short pep talk and cross the side street, alighting at the curb on the opposite side. When I circle around to the front window of the café, the crowd has died down. I pull open the door and step into the cramped space.

It’s just Tracy standing behind the counter. We’ve spoken at city meetings plenty of times before. She’s a kind woman of about sixty who owns a handful of businesses downtown. The café is her baby, so she spends most of her time here. It surprises me she hired someone to help.

There’s a man waiting ahead. He wants to shoot the shit with Tracy. He keeps talking about the weather, and it’s really fucking grating on me, but I stand as patiently as I can until he heads out the door .

Tracy looks up, tucking a strand of reddish hair behind her ear. “Look who the devil dragged in,” she says.

I lean on the counter. “I know a coffee is two dollars, but how much is information?”

Her brows push together. She goes to fill a paper cup with black coffee.

“What do you want to know?”

“You hired somebody,” I point out. “Make that two coffees. I got Andy in the truck.”

She nods. “I did, from the new family who moved here from Kentucky. What about it?”

“I want to know about her,” I say firmly.

Tracy sets my cup down, brow raised. “No.”

“What?”

“No,” she says. “You’re a bit of a whore. And a menace.”

“Tracy,” I say, giving her my best pleading eyes. “That hurts.”

She presses her lips together and crosses her arms. I’m losing her, I can tell.

“I just want to ask. I won’t touch,” I promise.

I’m lying. I’d like to touch that girl, maybe convince her to let me take her out and spend some time touching her in my truck.

Or take her home.

That trips me up. I never take women home. Ever. I prefer to fornicate in neutral locations, like the bathrooms of bars or sex clubs. The realization that I’d like to take this girl to my home, bring her up to my bed, after a single look at her is unsettling.

This isn’t normal for me. My eyes drop, and everything comes to a screeching halt. There’s a ribbon on the countertop. Fern-green, one side velvet. The shade is so familiar, but I can’t place where I know it from.

“Deacon?”

I bring my focus back to Tracy. She’s watching me with a pitying expression.

“What’s her name?” I press.

Her lips thin. “Freya Hatfield. ”

Her face swims into my mind. It’s the perfect name for a girl like her—soft but strong. A little wild.

“I know she’s pretty, Deacon,” she says, “but she’s been through a lot. I don’t want you making it worse. I like her. She’s real sweet, the customers love her. I’m hoping she can be trained to run the shop on her own a few days a week.”

She must be special. Tracy’s territorial about her café.

“I won’t fuck around with her,” I say. “I just want to talk.”

“Deacon…” Tracy says, voice lowering. “She’s twenty-two. Maybe stay away from this one.”

I have all the excuses in the world about that. I could bring up how Andy and his wife have twelve years between them, but I don’t.

“Just one thing,” I say.

Her jaw works. “Fine, I’ll tell you something that scares you right off,” she says. “She goes to the Methodist church on the state route.”

My interest is piqued. “So she’s religious?”

Tracy gives a heavy sigh, like she’s giving up. “Not so much. She’s more of a social religious person. She told me she went growing up because she could walk there and it was a way to get out of the house.”

I open my mouth to ask another question, but she frowns.

“You stop wheedling away at me,” she says. “I’ve told you too much already. That coffee is free if you take yourself out of my shop and stop trying to sleep with my employees.”

I set four dollars on the counter. “I won’t hurt her, I promise. Whose ribbon is that?”

She frowns, following where I point. “Freya’s. She left it here.”

“Mine now.” I shove it in my pocket and grab the coffee. “Thanks.”

Tracy watches, jaw slack, as I leave the shop. I’m quiet all the way back to Ryder Ranch. The ribbon burns a hole in my pocket. Andy sits in the passenger side, leafing through the Farmer’s Almanac and rambling about the weather. It feels like all everybody is talking about today is the weather. It bothers me because I want to discuss what happened to me when I laid eyes on that girl.

I’m all shaken up, down in my bones .

That night, I don’t sleep. After a while, I get up and pull my sweats on and go downstairs. The gas fireplace in the living room glows orange, and I pour a little whiskey in the bottom of a glass and sink down before it.

My house is big and empty, a lonely fortress on a lonely hill.

The firelight glimmers.

Maybe I could do it right this time. I know I’m rough, too old for her. But maybe if I do it right this time and don’t come on too strong, I could have a possibility of a relationship. I’ve always been headstrong and brash. It’s how I survived years of being on my own as a child. Those walls keep me safe.

But they’ve also kept people out.

I don’t want that anymore. I have a dark empty house. I want a wife, I want kids.

I think I want her specifically.

The next morning, I peel myself off the couch where I fell asleep and go out to get my chores done. Andy is already up, breaking the ice in the paddock. I go into the barn, where Bones And All, my stallion, waits.

I run my hand over his nose, and he bops my palm. Andy’s boots crunch on the gravel as he enters the barn.

“Do you know about the family from Kentucky?” I ask.

“What’s that?”

I turn, leaning on the stall door. “Do you know about the family who moved here from Kentucky?”

Andy takes off his hat and sinks onto a straw bale. “The Hatfields. They’re the ones who bought the land to the west of you. Not the southern strip you’re having problems with, the one up above the main road, closest to our western side.”

It’s been a year of fighting back encroachments on my land. A few years ago, the man who owned the enormous ranch to the south-west of Ryder Ranch parceled it up and sold it off. It’s caused me thousands in lawyer fees and surveyors to keep developers from moving up from the south and putting houses between me and the highway. The last thing I want is to drive through a subdivision to get into town.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

I run a hand over my face. “So they bought the land that goes up to the McClaine’s ranch?”

Andy nods. “I never paid much attention to it because it’s not all that much acreage. It doesn’t seem to be much of a threat to you. It’s just a strip between the highway and the McClaine’s.”

I know the land. It shouldn’t bother me much to have a small farm sitting there. The only thing I need to keep an eye on is if the Hatfields start getting friendly with the McClaines.

The McClaines have been trying to turn their land into a housing development for over a year. They lacked the funds. I need to make sure they don’t get an idea to make an unholy alliance with the Hatfields.

That would provide a clear path to the main road.

“So Deacon’s Hill is the only thing between those two farms,” I say. “Means my land touches theirs a bit.”

Andy nods again, rising. Deacon’s Hill, named for my first horse, is the furthermost northern corner of Ryder Ranch. It’s a strip of land that tapers to a point where the land gets rocky. Underneath is a cave system. In the winter, the animals congregate there because it’s dry and sheltered from the wind with all the high rocks. Just below is a little valley with a stream running through it for a water source.

It’s also sandwiched right between the Hatfields and the McClaines.

“Why do you want to know?” Andy asks.

I shrug. “Just keeping stock of who’s in the neighborhood.”

The breakfast bell rings in the main housing area. To the left of my house, about a half mile down, is my employee housing. I only need a staff of about forty people full time, and they all live on site. During the branding and breeding seasons, we borrow wranglers from the surrounding ranches.

“You go on to breakfast,” I say. “I’ll feed the horses. ”

He disappears, and I finish up with the barn chores. Instead of going to eat with everyone else, I head to town. Knifely is only about thirty minutes down the highway. The roads are clear, the sun is out, and it gives me time to think.

I’ve had a copious amount of sex in my life, but I’ve never dated anybody. I know it involves asking a girl out for coffee or something, but I don’t know the etiquette.

Maybe I’m scared I’ll come on too strong. I don’t want to fuck this up.

In Knifley, I park my truck across from the café. She’s inside. I see her through the window. This time, she wears a tight plaid skirt that falls to her knee. Her boots come up, and there’s a strip of fern-green tights showing. They match her green sweater—and the ribbon in my pocket.

I lean back and watch her through the window as she works.

And the next day, I do it again.

This time, I park my truck in a different spot so she doesn’t notice it two days in a row. I get a coffee in a paper cup from the diner and drink it so I have something to do with my hands.

The ribbon burns against my thigh.

My chest is tight, like my heart beats sideways.

She’s quiet but animated, a far cry from the cold, pale face in the alley where nobody could see her sadness. When she’s at work, she smiles sweetly and listens as customers talk. She’s patient, she’s kind. She’s everything I’m not.

And that makes me want her more.

My cup is empty when I finally start my truck’s engine and head back to Ryder Ranch. Once there, I go inside and start pulling my keys out of my pocket to toss them on the table. The ribbon comes out along with them.

I hold it to my face.

Warm vanilla, the way a home should smell.

Something in me breaks. Still in my boots and coat, I head up the stairs and down the hall. At the end is the attic room. I climb the steps and walk down the center of the large room with vaulted ceilings.

When I built the blueprints of this room, I intended for it to be for the woman I married. While I laid down the floorboards, I saw her watching me, curled up on the couch in the corner, gazing at me sleepily while I worked. I swear, I felt her presence, like I knew her already.

I know it was all rooted in my loneliness, my desire to finally have a home.

But it felt like a real possibility at the time.

I planned this room out, but I only got as far as painting the walls. In a haze, my boots carry me across the floor to the far wall. I lift the ribbon and place it against the paint.

It’s the same shade. The color of ferns, deep in the woods.

A dark, peaceful shade for a beautiful woman.

I shake my head hard. Either I’m getting some kind of sign from the universe, or I’m so horny, I’m making connections that aren’t there.

I stand in the attic by the window and watch the snow fall for a while. The house is quiet. I’m alone again, and I’m sick of it. I think, whether it’s a sign or not, I’m going to make it one.

She could be mine. All I have to do is play my cards right, and I can make it happen. I have a place for her already built. She’s the missing piece, I’m sure of it.

I go downstairs to my bathroom to get undressed and wash up for bed. When I was younger, I picked up a lot of tattoos, some when I was sober, most when I was drunk or high. I went through a phase where I did a lot of coke and spent too much money on ink. They’re stuck on me now. I don’t hate them, but I do wish I’d been more careful.

Over the last ten years, I’ve fixed my arms with cover ups, but I still need to figure out what to do with my chest and stomach.

My mind dips into my baser thoughts.

If I meet her and she’s willing to see me, like a date, the way regular people do, it could lead to more. To sex, where she sees all of me. The scars, the smashed knuckles, the scars on my thigh and shoulder—a reminder of the worst moment of my life.

A moment I came back from.

I should have died, but I didn’t.

Maybe that means I can do this and do it right.

I splash my face with cold water to bring myself back. The ribbon sits on the sink, staring at me while I dry my neck and chest. I pick it up and bring it to my face again, inhaling.

This time, a surge of arousal follows the warm scent. In my boxer briefs, my cock lengthens and goes rock hard. I push my free hand in them and grip it, groaning softly at the pressure.

It’s been a while since I got laid, and I have a feeling it’ll be a while until I do again.

I’m going to wait for her.

My eyes shut, and the image of her burned onto my eyelids swims into focus. Beautiful curves on display as she leans across the counter. Tapered waist. Full hips and thighs. Full breasts. An elegant neck with curls falling around it.

Goddamn it.

I come all over the sink, three and a half strokes in.

That’s when I realize I’m fucked. It hammers it home when I get up the next day and do that again before getting dressed. I put the ribbon beneath my pillow because I don’t want her scent to wear off in my pocket.

When chores are done, I find myself in my truck on the way to town. This time, I tell myself, I’ve got a good excuse, but I can’t remember what it was when I park and sit down at the diner across from the café. From my seat by the window, I can see her standing on the doorstep with Tracy.

She’s in the same fern-green sweater and skirt with a mug in her hand. Her hair is loose, out in the sun there’s a little red in it. She wears these brown boots with laces and tights that show off her legs.

Tracy says something. Freya laughs, flashing a row of white teeth. Then she shifts, like she’s nervous showing emotion .

I like those little plaid skirts on her. Maybe I like the thought of pushing her up against something, sliding my hand underneath, and tugging those tights down. Bending her over and getting on my knees behind her—

I need to stop.

They’re talking about the shop window. I can see Tracy gesturing at the lettering. I want to go over and introduce myself, but I can’t, and not just because Tracy will run me off with a broom. No, there’s a real possibility that if I play my cards right, I can get everything I’ve ever wanted.

I didn’t realize up until now that that was Freya.

The next day, I have coffee in town again. She wears jeans this time and a cream sweatshirt. The next day, it’s a skirt and tights again.

I have a lot of coffee that week. By the end of it, I’m wired and horny.

A week later, I decide not to go into town after morning chores. It’s Sunday, and the ranch is quiet. I wake up feeling frustrated. I’ve got plenty going on with the land to the north-west of Ryder Ranch. I’ve seen a few friends about it this week, one of them being my lawyer.

Truthfully, I got a glimpse of something good. Now, I’m bored with everything else. I’m dying for a glimpse of Freya.

I think, for the first time in my life, I’ll go to church. I won’t go inside—that’s a step too far—but I’ll watch her walk in. When I realize that, it starts to sink in that this is real, and I’m ready to do some desperate things.