He kept strumming that damn guitar.
“Talk to me, Nick. I’m your friend. I care about you.”
She put Pugsly on the grass and grabbed the neck of his guitar. He glowered at her, but she didn’t care. She tore it from his hands and put it in the grass, scrambling onto his lap. Goldie and Rowdy jumped up on all fours as she wound her arms around Nick’s neck, clinging to him.
“Trixie,” he warned. “Get up.”
“No. I’m sitting here until you talk to me.”
He gritted his teeth. “Get your ass up.”
“Nope.” She held him tighter. “Tell me what happened all those years ago.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I do. I know you’re hurting, and that hurts me.”
“The only thing that’s going to be hurting is your ass if you keep sitting there.”
Before she could process his threat, he grabbed her by the waist and plopped her down on the grass. He shot to his feet, sending the dogs into an excited flurry of commotion. “Stop bringing up shit I don’t want to talk about,” he growled as he walked away.
She ran in front of him, blocking his path. “No. Like it or not, I care about your feelings.”
“Then stop pissing me off.” He stepped around her.
She followed him. “I just want to help, Nick. Maybe talking about it will help.”
“Help what?” he shouted, stalking toward her. “What do you want to hear, Trixie? That my brothers left a fucking black hole in everyone’s lives? That not only did our family lose Tory, who was at our house every damn day from the time she was a little kid, like a sister to all of us, but then we also lost Beau and Zev? And then Carly when she left for good? That my fucking mother cried at night worrying that she’d lost her sons forever? Or that Jilly cried for weeks because she thought she’d never see them again? That she begged me to go after them? But I couldn’t leave because someone had to pick up the fucking pieces they left behind.” He loomed over her, hands fisted. “What part of that are you going to help with? The past is the past, Trixie. I was fine then, and I’m fine now.”
Tears burned her eyes at the pain and anger coming out of him, but the walls he put up, the temporary-at-best women he saw, were all suddenly making sense. “You were there for everyone else, but who was there to pick up your pieces?”
His eyes bored into her. “I didn’t have any fucking pieces.”
“Bullshit.” She lifted her chin, trying to keep her lower lip from quivering. “You suffered the same losses. You’re so close to your family, Nick. I’ve heard stories about how close you and Beau were as teenagers, how competitive and there for each other you were, and how you watched over Zev. You must have been devastated, losing them.”
“So what? My parents had enough shit on their plates. They didn’t need to hear that one more person missed the two sons they couldn’t bring home. I wasn’t a kid when Beau and Zev left. I knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. They loved too much, and it broke them. I don’t blame them for being too weak to stick around.”
“That’s not weak, Nick; it’s brokenhearted.”
His jaw clenched. “Same fucking thing.”
Her heart was breaking for him. He was so angry, so insistent that he was some kind of unfeeling robot, when she knew otherwise. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “No, it’s not.”
“Aw, come on. Don’t fucking cry.”
“I can’t help it,” she said angrily. “You’re one of my best friends, and now I think everything your family went through broke you, too.”
His expression softened. “I’m not broken, Trix. I like my life just the way it is. I created it the way I wanted it.” He gathered her in his arms.
“Yeah, without anyone around you.” Her voice cracked. “Alone on your ranch, when you should be surrounded by friends and family.”
“Don’t be sad, darlin’. I’ve got friends around me all the time; they’re just different from what other people have. I’ve got Pugs, Goldie, and Rowdy. I’ve got Lady and Romeo and the rest of my buds.” He tipped her chin up, gazing into her eyes with that pleading look he got on the rare occasion when she was sad. “I’ve got the best female friend a guy could have. Why do I need some other chick eating my burgers and giving me shit?”
“Because you have so much love in you, Nick. You deserve to know what it’s like to be loved.”
“That’s what family’s for.”
“I’m pretty sure your family doesn’t want to climb into a hot shower with you at the end of a long day and wash your back or lie naked in your arms beneath the stars after you’ve made love in the field, dreaming of the future.”
He almost smiled. “Yeah, that’d be weird.”
She stepped out of his arms, a dull ache brewing in the pit of her stomach. “You really don’t want to know what it feels like to be loved so deeply that you’re everything to someone else? The center of their world? Or what it’s like to love someone so much that you think about them and want to be with them every second?”
“I’ve already got that.” He picked up Pugsly and kissed his head. “Right, Pugs?”
“That makes me sad. I look at my parents, and Brindle and Trace, and Morgyn and Graham, and I see how happy they are, and I want that. And yes, love hurts sometimes, but Beau found love again, and Zev and Carly never lost their love for each other. Look at your parents, Nick. You describe how broken they were, but their love pulled them through. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Sure. I’m happy for all of them. But you know me, darlin’.”
“Yeah, I do.” You love hard and unconditionally. You put your needs last after all creatures—big, small, two legged, and four legged.
He draped an arm over her shoulder, heading for the fence. “I’m a selfish, arrogant prick, and I sure as hell don’t believe in fairy tales.” He let out a loud whistle and hollered, “Yayaya! Come on, guys!”
The horses ran in from the dark corners of the pasture, their gorgeous manes flying in the moonlight. Nick never ended a night—rain, sleet, or snow—without saying good night to them. The horses crowded around him at the fence, tossing their heads and pawing impatiently as he loved them up one by one, speaking in a warmer tone than he did to most humans. The horses in the back of the herd pushed forward, craning their necks, vying for a fair share of his attention. Trixie wanted to be right up there with them.
She was wrong about Nick. He wasn’t broken. But he was the one who was misguided. Or maybe he was just fearful of being vulnerable and appearing weak. Either way, she’d never known a stronger man, and if anyone deserved a fairy tale, it was the guy who took on everyone else’s burdens as his own and expected nothing in return—and that was Nick Bullheaded Braden to a T.
Chapter Six
NICK GREETED SUNDAY morning the same way he greeted most days, sipping coffee on the veranda between the house and the garage as the sun crept over the mountains, serenaded by birds chirping and the gentle shuffling of leaves rustling in the trees. Ribbons of gold, orange, and yellow bled into the dusky sky, spreading light over the horses grazing in the pasture. Goldie and Rowdy were already hard at work, doing their rounds down by the chickens and goats, and Pugsly lay snoring on Nick’s lap.