The Wild Ones (The Wild Ones #1)(45)
Author: M. Leighton

I thought it might blow over, especially if I could stop seeing Cherlynn, but a few weeks later she went to Jack. He took it a lot better than I probably would have if I’d been in his shoes. But I’m sure you can imagine that our partnership was over. And the only way I had to settle up with him financially was to give him the rights to the horses. All of them. Then I had to explain it to your mother, how my mistake had cost us everything else, too. We were destitute and broken, fatally broken, and I couldn’t see my way clear.

After that, the only thing I could think to do was to take out an additional insurance policy, one that didn’t have very many restrictions and take the life that ruined ours. Mine.

I hope one day you can understand that I did it all for you, for my family. I also hope that one day you can forgive me. I’m just a man. And I made a mistake. Unfortunately, it was a colossal mistake, one that I couldn’t find my way out of without hurting you three even more than I already had.

I had this box made to give you when you turned eighteen, the day I had hoped to give you a Ferrier’s set of your own and a part of the company I’d had a hand in creating from the ground up. That will never happen now, but I pray you’ll go on to do great things, that you’ll have your own breeding operation and that you’ll use these tools and remember how much I loved you and your mom and your sister. You really were my whole world. I just lost sight of that for a few irreparable seconds in life.

I love you, son. Please don’t live in the past. Go on and have the kind of future that I wanted for you. And take care of your mom and your sister. There was a time when the four of us were going to turn the racing world on its ear and you’d all want for nothing. I can’t make that happen now, but you can.

Go be a great man, Trick. Be the man I couldn’t be.

With numb fingers, I set the letter aside and peel back the velvet cover. Beneath it is a leather case. I don’t need to open it to know what kinds of things it contains. I’ve used many a Ferrier kit in my lifetime. The fact that my father bought this set for me makes all the difference in the world.

I’m still sitting on the bed, working out what I’ve learned and how I feel when Mom gets home. I hear her open the door. Her footsteps don’t even pause until she’s standing in my doorway.

She looks at me. I look at her. She puts her hands over her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut then her body folds like a house of cards and she drops to her knees.

I have questions. I know now’s not the time to ask them, though, so I go to the woman who has held the job of two parents all these years and I wrap my arms around her.

She cries for I don’t know how long. A long time, it feels like. Then, as if I don’t have enough to think about and worry about and work through, she deals me another bomb. She asks me to make a promise I’m not sure I can keep. Or that I even want to.

She’s sniffling, her breath hitching in her chest as she gulps air. “Patrick, promise me one thing.”

“Anything,” I say, and at the time, I mean it. Until she tells me what it is.

“Stay away from Jack’s daughter. I don’t ever want to see her again.”

And just like that, she jerks the rug out from under me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE – Cami

Like my last thought before sleep, my first thought upon waking is Trick. He dominates the vast majority of my available brain space these days. And it’s only getting worse with each passing second.

I think of my accidental admission and how much I want to say it for real—sober and intentionally—but how afraid I am that he won’t say it back. Of course, living in fear is never a good decision to make, but this just feels too…scary to rush right in to, no matter how much I might want to.

But that can wait until tomorrow. Or the day after. Today, I just want to spend with Trick and the horses. I want to enjoy every second of the present before I do anything that might ruin what we have. I’m not nearly done with Trick yet.

I’m smiling when I throw back the covers and head for the shower. Today, I’m gonna knock his socks off!

After showering and shaving everything from my ankles to my armpits—twice—I smooth on a thick layer of lotion that makes my skin look like shimmering caramel and set about putting on my most unsuspectingly sexy outfit. Snug, low riding jeans with a ragged hem and a hole in one knee coupled with a white cap-sleeved shirt that ties just below my ribs. My boots are the finishing touch to put me in the right frame of mind to turn Trick’s head. Rather than go with a hat, I dry my dark red locks and pile them on top of my head in a loose style that looks like I just rolled out of bed. And out from under Trick. I grin when I catch my reflection on my way out the door. I hope he likes what he sees.

I dance through the kitchen, kissing Drogheda on the cheek as I pass her. “No breakfast for me yet, Drogheda. I’m on my way to the stable.”

“Dressed like that?” she asks, looking me up and down.

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Nothing. I’m just worried that Sooty will fall off a horse and break something when he sees you.”

I smile. “That’s exactly what I want to hear.”

“That you could cause Sooty to get hurt?” She’s clearly outraged, and rightly so. Even if she’s being ridiculous.

“Yes, Drogheda. That’s my goal in life. Didn’t I tell you?”

She swats at me with her dish towel. “Make fun of an old woman, Smart Mouth, and she might surprise you.”

“Oh, you know I’m teasing. Of course I don’t want anyone to get hurt. But Sooty’s not the one I’m thinking of.”

I wink at Drogheda and she narrows her eyes on me. “Is this still about the new boy?”

“You can’t tell Daddy. Promise me.”

She rolls her eyes. “You know I hate it when you ask me to do that.”

“It’s important. Daddy’s being crazy and if Trick loses his job, his family will be in a lot of trouble.”

Drogheda has a soft spot for stories like that, not having come from a wealthy family herself. She worked the first many years of her life to support her younger sisters until they were married and well cared for. By then, according to Drogheda, she was a spinster, so she decided to make her life keeping other people’s families. And thank God she did. She’s been like a mother to me for a long time.

“Is that his name? You didn’t tell me before.”