A Brand New Ending (Page 19)

His father regarded him with distaste. “You don’t order me around, boy. Now, either you can call the vet down so it’s done humanely, or I can take care of it myself.”

The years of frustration and pain twisted tight in his gut and spilled out the poison that had been trapped for too long. “Old man, if you dare to lay a finger on Lucy, I swear to God, I’ll kill you. Don’t you care about anything? I have to try and save her. Can’t you give me this one thing?”

Patrick lurched from the chair. An empty bottle of Scotch dropped and rolled from his grip, and he stumbled forward. His green eyes misted with familiar rage. “How dare you question me? I gave you a roof over your head and food in your stomach. I wiped your ass when you were young, took care of your needs, and was forced to look at you every damn day and remember how you killed her. I chose her, but she chose you and gave you life. And shit like this proves she made the wrong choice.”

The venom shot across the room and buckled his knees.

He’d always known the story, of course. Instead of hearing about fairy tales with princes and knights slaying dragons, he’d learned about how his mother chose to save her baby rather than her own life during childbirth. His father had begged the doctors to save his wife and let the baby go, but his mother refused. Even then, she’d loved him.

But that meant he’d been the cause of her death—his father never forgave him. Kyle’s face was a constant reminder of the loss, driving Patrick to the bottle to forget.

His entire childhood consisted of being silently resented. He’d always carried a grim sense of duty. There’d been no love. He’d found that down the road—first with the horses, then Ophelia. He’d found it in books and music and movies. He’d hung on with the determination to finally escape his hellhole of an existence and lead a big life—a life of luxury and adoration and purpose. But right now, with his father’s words echoing in his ears, the realization of his pathetic existence slammed through him and exploded like bullet fragments, tearing away the last of his heart.

He straightened to his full height and looked his father dead in the eye. “I’d rather she was dead than alive to see what you’ve turned into.”

His father’s eyes widened in shock. Then he drew his arm back and slammed his fist into Kyle’s cheek.

He staggered back, falling to his knees, pain blossoming in his face. Blinking furiously, he gathered every last bit of strength and managed to stand back up. For one brief moment, he recognized the grief and regret glinting from his father’s green eyes, but it was already too late. For either of them. “If you touch Lucy, I’ll make you regret it. Just leave us both alone.”

Kyle walked out slowly, with dignity, and kept going. The sun was sinking below the horizon, throwing the valley into a shimmering rainbow of earth tones. His feet measured every step on the path that he could have walked blindfolded, until the clean white-and-blue Victorian farmhouse hovered like a queen on its throne before him.

He went to the door, knocked, and prayed she was there. His insides were shifting and breaking apart, and he didn’t know how much time he had left before he allowed the wound to bleed.

She opened the door. “Hey, I wasn’t expecting you—Kyle? Oh my God, what happened?”

He lifted his hand to his cheek and stared at the blood pooling over his fingers. He blinked. Tried to speak. The words were stuck, along with the festering pain tearing him apart. His body shook.

“Ophelia.” Her name broke from his lips.

She opened the door and gathered him in her arms. Slowly, she led him inside. The scents of freshly baked bread and lemon sun tea wafted in the air, guiding him down the hall to her room. She grabbed a damp towel from the bathroom and pressed it to the wound, guiding him down on the bed to cradle him in her lap. She stroked his hair, kissed his head, and murmured nothings in his ear in her beautiful, musical voice that reached deep inside his empty spaces and began to fill them.

And Kyle cried for the first time with the woman he loved for everything that was lost.

He blinked, and suddenly he was back in his room, staring at the words on the screen. Amid every painful event he’d experienced, there was one person who he could trust. One person who was his own personal sanctuary in a world that cared little for the broken and lost. One person he’d loved with every bit of his heart and soul.

Ophelia.

Seeing his father made him realize he couldn’t lose her again. He had to find a way to convince her to give him a second chance.

He had to find a way to make her love him again.

Chapter Ten

Ophelia propped her arms on top of the stable and peered down at her sister, who was working on Flower’s horseshoe. As usual, Harper was in the zone with her work, her fingers deftly scraping some junk from the sweet mare’s foot, occasionally swatting away the horse’s nibbling teeth as Flower showed her affection.

“Hey, Harp.”

Her sister looked up, startled. “Hey, what are you doing out here?”

“Just taking a walk. Figured I’d check up on you and see what’s going on in the barn. Where’s Ethan?”

“He went with Mia to the city—they’ll be back later. Are we still having dinner tonight?”

“Yes, I have a great meal planned,” she said with a grin. They all looked forward to her big dinners, which happened on most Sundays—not least because they provided them all with leftover food for the week. Neither Ethan nor Harper had inherited her love for cooking, but she never minded. Ophelia loved their time together, when everyone got caught up and properly nourished. “Whatcha doing?”

“Some odds and ends. Miss Flower has delicate feet, so winter is definitely not her favorite season.” The pretty mare whinnied, then nipped again at Harper’s hair in affection. “I also need to work out Phoenix, but he seems to be a fair-weather type of horse, too.” A smile curved her lips. “He throws a bit of a temper tantrum if I try to exercise him when it’s too cold.”

Ophelia laughed. “Now that’s a big turnaround. I can’t believe a few months ago he wouldn’t even let anyone ride him. You really have made progress.”

Her sister’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Ethan did the healing work, and now I’m taking over his training. There’s something different about that horse. He’s got a fire and heart I’ve rarely seen. I think he’s a winner.”

“Derby possibility?”

Her sister brushed mud from her jeans. “Not sure. We’ll see.” She sighed. “I’m just happy things around here have been relatively quiet. I need a break before we hit the spring season and everything explodes.”

“Same here.”

Ophelia studied her sister’s calm aura and steady hands. Harper had always been different. She was the only one in the family with the Black Irish gene, which skipped the pale skin, red hair, and endless freckles. Her dark hair was kept short, curving sleekly under her chin for minimum effort, and her eyes were a stunning sea green. With her olive skin tone and staggering height at over six feet, she was beautiful, but with a quiet presence that sometimes got ignored.

She was only two years younger than Ophelia. She had always been more comfortable around animals than people, preferring to stay away from social groups and to bury her nose in a book in the barn. Sometimes, Ophelia felt like they worked in two different worlds since she rarely came into the barns and Harper only visited the inn when there was a family meal.