Page 27

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ronnie

“A CHO!” I sneezed, loud enough to wake the lazy mare from her deep slumber.

Max’s head reeled up from her pile of hay where she turned to send me a lingering glare.

“It’s not my fault, you won’t move your lazy ass,” I growled, tempted to poke her with the pitch fork right in the backside. Unfortunately, I knew better.

Instead, I just returned her glare and went back to work, ignoring her. I shoveled all her dirty hay from around her, leaving the little island of hay she refused to get up from, determined to get in the way of my work.

Max had never been cooperative, but this was just pure stubbornness.

“Should’ve just made you into glue,” I grumbled under my breath.

Her ears twitched, but otherwise, she didn’t catch my comment.

Tutting, I rolled the wheelbarrow over, my back aching and sore from overwork as I continued with my task.

Smart people would say I was punishing myself for the small seed of regret that had buried itself deep in my chest last night when I’d all but strapped Jax to the cross and left him to be crucified.

I could feel that niggling thought at the back of mind, the one saying I wanted to take back the words I’d said, and even worse, the thought saying I wanted to go and apologize. But logic told me to ignore it.

It wasn’t like I was wrong after all…

All those things I had said were true. I did blame him for leaving me behind. I blamed him for making me feel like I failed him when I didn’t follow him. And that I deserved to be where I was because I was the idiot who let my real love get away.

But every rider must have a horse.

I wasn’t innocent either. Blaming Jax for things I was too cowardly to fight. Too stubborn to accept. And too persecuting to see the truth.

That I was responsible for my actions. Whatever led to them had a part, but ultimately, it was me who made my choices, and it was unfair for me to shove that entire burden onto Jax.

A huge sigh took the last of my strength from my arms as I propped up my fork and buried my head into its handle. I ground my skull against the wood, a headache brewing inside. “Why do I have to have such a temper?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

I froze.

My body screamed to turn around, but not a single muscle moved. Like a monster creeping up behind me, I couldn’t break through the ice-cold fear trapping me to even look in his direction.

People said that your heart rate rises in fear. But mine didn’t. The slow, heavy thud in my ears grew slower and slower until I wasn’t even sure I could hear it anymore. I believed I was dead until I heard that heavy thrum ripple over my deathly still body.

Max bolted to her feet, kicking against her stall, chuffing and wailing.

Her ripples sent the stall gate swinging shut between me, the barrel, and her. It would have been better to have her on my side, but a horse was creature of flight, not fight, and as much as I wished she could protect me, I didn’t want to drag her into a fight with a beast. Not when I didn’t even know what it was capable of anymore. Or if it was even human to begin with.

“Isn’t my beloved wife going to look at her husband’s face?” He spat the words with venom under the guise of his soft southern twang.

My weak grip caused the pitchfork to slip from my fingers and clatter against the side of the stall gate.

The noise jolted my body, and before my cowardice could hold me back, my eyes jerked from my feet to the face that haunted my nightmares.

His jet-black Stetson sat atop his cropped dark hair, dark eyes overshadowed from its brim, but not reaching low enough to cover the warm-toned lips curved into a Cheshire cat’s smile. The cry of Texas sung from his clothes: an unchanging traditional man, bolo tie, embroidered shirt, and tight jeans. Even his goddamn boots.

Not a single hair was out of place.

“ Jacob ,” I whispered, like a curse that should never have been spoken. The sick churning in my stomach as the words came out of my mouth had reality setting down hard on top of me.

This was no longer a nightmare.

He was here.

He found me.

“What’s this?” he purred, his crooked grin widening even more. “You don’t look happy to see me?” Like a wild jackal cornering his prey, his boots stalked closer one step at a time. “Surely, you knew I’d find you eventually.”

The backboard of the pens slammed up against my spine, startling the breath from my lungs. I hadn’t even noticed I had been moving farther and farther away from him. “ Please… no. Leave me alone,” I whispered, the boards rubbing up against my back as my legs slid beneath me. My side throbbed with a distant pain, one that robbed me of my strength, but felt numb and crippling under the emotional pain consuming my every thought.

“Did you think you were free?” He loosened his bolo with a thin hand that hadn’t seen a day of work in his life. “Did you think you could live a happy life out here? With him ?”

“Jax…,” I whispered, the word like a bucket of cold water dousing over me.

Jax! He can help me. If I call him, he’ll come for sure! If only I could get to my phone or—

“He’s not coming,” Jacob interrupted.

My face spun toward him without hesitation this time. My eyes, for the first time, seeing his deep black irises, the unending cold radiating from them like a grip around my throat. But beyond that, his words rested on my heart.

“What have you done to him?” I lunged forward.

Surprised, Jacob dodged back, taking a clear step away from me as I righted myself to my feet. “If you’ve done something to him, Jacob, I sw—”

“Here I thought I’d tamed you well. But only a few months with him, and you’ve already reverted back to that wild, uncouth personality.” Jacob sneered, raking his eyes up and down me. “I had to admit, I had thought you’d just climbed onto the saddle of one of those biker retards, but I was surprised when I saw a familiar face. No matter how many years have passed, you still go running to him like a starving dog to meat.”

“Jaco—”

“DO NOT TALK BACK TO ME!” he roared, and my body swallowed down in instinct. I made myself as small as possible, and even Max had gone deathly quiet within her confines.

“You came begging at my feet like a worthless animal to let you protect the horses and the farm. That you’d give your everything to me. Even if it meant becoming my wife.” His feet paced back and forth around the barn, hay being kicked up around him. “What a poor excuse of wife you were. You were supposed to serve me at every moment. You were to do only what I told you. And you were to produce me an heir.” He shook his head. “You couldn’t even do the one thing of worth on that pathetic man-body of yours.”

“I—”

“You have turned out to be nothing but a whore in the end, after all,” he growled. “You were my wife, but the second you smelled his scent, you were already opening your legs. Why must Jackson have everything of mine?”

“The farm, the praise, the girls.” Jacob sneered. “I thought even if I could take one of his possessions away, that it’d be enough.” He took a step into my space, his leg fitting between mine. My hands shoved out, but I was too weak to budge him. He pressed against me harder until I was ground between the wall and his wide body.

“Jacob—”

“Fuckin’ whore,” His hands wound up around my neck, pinning me in place.

My hands snapped to his thick wrists, wanting to break free but not having the strength to do so. Even though he never worked on a farm, he worked at a fancy gym and kept his body fit for the sake of having all the praise that a man with a six-pack could have at thirty.

And just like that, with such falsified strength, he overwhelmed me in an instant.

“Jacob!” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Let me go!”

“If only you had died that night. Then I wouldn’t have had to chase you around like this. I could have been a grieving man and remarried under the stupid eyes of the church. Instead I had to face the gossip and rumors of an unfaithful wife leaving me for another man. I became pathetic in the eyes of every man, woman, and child I saw!” His grip tightened. Black dots danced around the edges of my vision and I could hear the faint whinnies and cries of Max growing more distant.

“But it’s fine.”

His grip released, and I slammed hard into the floor, my limp weak body panting in an effort to breathe. My throat burned like razor blades, the walls of my chest like they were collapsing in on top of me.

“You did that on purpose…,” I wheezed. “All because I couldn’t bear you a child?”

“It was the one thing you should have been useful for.” He turned and looked down on me, the shadow over his face unable to hide the piercing glare weighing down on top of me. “The one thing I could take away from Jackson.”

All of this… everything he put me… all the pressure for a child… just to get back at Jax…?

“ When will your obsession with him end?” I wanted to cry, but the noise barely came out as a cracked whisper.

“Today,” he answered, simple and content. The calmness in his voice had my breath stopping. “Because today is both his and your last day.”

He reached down to me, and despite my attempt to resist, it was barely enough to swat him away as his thick paw of a hand came around my wrist and dragged me to my feet.

Max gave a shrieking whiney, but it wasn’t enough to deter Jacob as he all but dragged me across the barn floor.

“It’s time to take Jackson away from you once and for all.”