Riding Red (14 page)

He forced out a ragged breath, and it misted against the window, before disappearing.

“Me and my brothers—we never talk about the accident. It was as if we made a silent pact to never go there. I think for them, they don’t want to relive the nightmare that I almost died. As for me, I try not to think of all that I lost because of one reckless, foolish, careless mistake. You see, I picked a bull that no one would touch, that many warned me against, but I was cocky and arrogant. It threw me right out of the gate and trampled me within seconds. The doctors didn’t think I’d make it through the night, and that even if I did, I still would never be able to walk again.”

His lips curved into a sardonic grin that lacked even an ounce of humour. “But I’m a stubborn cuss. I was in the hospital for months, physical therapy for a year. That’s just the Downing way—we never give up—and eventually, I recovered and was able to walk again. In time I was able to do everything I’d once done before, but my doctor discouraged me from bull riding professionally again.” He chuckled, and like his grin, it was humourless. “Everyone thought I’d have to be forced to give up riding, but it was the opposite. I quietly retired and walked away from it all. After everything that had happened, I just wasn’t the same man after that. How could I be?”

He spun around then, folding his arms across his chest. Even though he faced her, Jeff still didn’t look at her. He looked in her direction, but over her head, never once meeting her gaze.

“You called me a player, and you were right to judge me harshly for my past actions, but I wasn’t always that man. At one point I wanted the wife, and the kids, and the dog and the picket fence. Before the accident, I’d actually planned to propose to my long-time girlfriend at the end of the riding season. I’d been with Angel for almost two years and thought she was the one—that we’d get married within a year, and when I was finally done with riding, we’d start a family.”

A derisive sound rose out of him as he shook his head. “Angel disappeared almost as soon as we found out there was a snowball’s chance in hell that I would ever father a child. I think that was simply the last straw for her. She didn’t know if I was ever gonna ride again, let alone walk. Hearing that I might never be able to get it up again, and would probably never be able to give her a kid… I think it was just too overwhelming, and I couldn’t blame her.”

Couldn’t blame her?
It took all of Teresa’s willpower to stifle the long litany of curses that now hovered on the tip of her tongue. Jeff didn’t blame the woman, but Teresa sure did. Who abandons the man they claim to love when he needs them the most? An
angel
this woman definitely was not, but better that Jeff had seen her for who she really was
before
he’d made the mistake of marrying her.

“The good thing about Angel leaving was it taught me a valuable lesson early on. Not knowing if I would ever make a full recovery, I was forced to accept the truth and that was, no woman wants to marry an impotent cripple—”

“Jeff, don’t—”

His eyes silenced her. “Even after I recovered, I didn’t let myself forget that. I know it was a cynical, even pessimistic take on my life, but it kept me from hoping for too much, for wanting more than I could give in return. It kept me from being hurt or disappointed…or so I thought.”

At the pain she glimpsed in his eyes, she opened her mouth to say something,
anything
to stop him, her expression revealing he did not have to continue, but he shook his head before she could utter a word.

He wanted to tell her this. He
needed
her to understand.

“I fucked everything that moved because I told myself I just didn’t give a shit anymore. I was like a spoilt kid who knows he’s never going to get what he wants, so he just pretends he doesn’t care anymore, that what he desires most doesn’t matter, but it was a lie and I always knew it—”

His voice broke, and the muffled, almost silent sound wrenched out her heart as it trembled through her entire being.

Without hesitation, she closed the distance between them and settled her palm against his chest, over his heart.

He didn’t push her away, but neither did he move to touch her. It was all right. She simply needed him to know she was there, to comfort him if he needed her.

“For years, I thought I was less than a man, that the only thing I could ever really offer a woman was a great time in bed. Even though I wanted something deeper, something real, I was afraid that, like my ex, any woman I got serious with would be out of there in a heartbeat when she found out I couldn’t father kids. It seemed easier that way—keep things causal and stick to no strings affairs. And for a long time, that was all I seemed to be capable of…until I met you.”

With her head cocked to the side, she peered up at him with searching eyes.

“Why was I different?” She considered a thought, one that made her blood run cold. “Was it because I was older? And you simply thought I wouldn’t want kids at my age—?”

“C’mon Red.” Jeff glared at her. “I thought we were past this. Eight years is nothing. It’s
never
been an issue for me, and I hope it will stop being an issue for you.”

He touched her for the first time when he settled his hands atop her shoulders, his fingers lightly caressing her skin. Just the simple, almost unconscious act awakened her desires, and she had to struggle to focus on what he was saying with shocks of heat now storming through her.

“You were different, because you were
you.
There was just something about you from the moment I met you that I couldn’t ignore. And believe me, I tried.” His eyes flashed. “But you got under my skin real quick, Red, and once you were there, I couldn’t seem to shake this thing I had for you, so eventually, I just stopped trying and accepted that I wouldn’t be satisfied until you were
mine
. Now I must admit, I really didn’t think it would take me a year to get you into bed, but whether it took a year or a day, I was never going to stop pursuing you. That’s just the Downing way.”

Teresa had to smile at Jeff’s sheepish grin when he spoke of the infamous stubbornness possessed by the men in his family.

“I’ve never been one for fate, or karma, or all that nonsense bullshit, but I’m starting to believe there was a reason why I was so drawn to you from the start.” His expression sobered and she swallowed down the lump in her throat, because she knew what was coming next. “I can’t really say what made me believe you would accept me as I am, but I just had a feeling if I could get you to come around, if I could make you fall for me, that you would never judge me or make me feel less than a man.” He cupped her cheeks with his hands. “That you would never hurt me.”

His expression never once wavered, and within his eyes she glimpsed his acceptance of her, the true depths of his love for her. All at once, it was both humbling and overwhelming, and a sob rose out of her at the raw emotion he so openly revealed.

Jeff’s hands tightened around her face, but he didn’t move to embrace her, and she understood why he held back.

“Red—”

“You already know. You read my journal—”

“But I want you to be the one to tell me. I want you to trust me enough to be completely honest with me, completely vulnerable with me as I was with you.”

 She couldn’t do it. It was humiliating, painful…

Teresa closed her eyes, and a jagged breath strained out of her lungs.

He already knew. She just needed to open her mouth and say the words.

“I love you, Teresa. Nothing in that book has changed that and it never will. Baby, I just want you to have the courage to tell me. I need to know you love me enough to tell me even the most painful secrets that hurt you.”

Her lids snapped open, and the look in his eyes was enough. He wouldn’t judge her, just as she hadn’t judged him. He wouldn’t pity her or feel sorry for her, just as she hadn’t done with him, because he loved her just as deeply as she loved him.

 She nodded, and in a quiet voice she gave him what he’d given her—all of herself.

“Derek was supposed to be the love of my life. We met my senior year in college, and were together for eight years before he proposed. So naturally, I thought I knew him well.”

Breathing became harder, as every breath seemed to drag slowly through her chest. She wanted to stop, she wanted to retreat, but Jeff wouldn’t let her. He was right there, his hands still cupping her face so she couldn’t look away.

“I would love to tell you he was a horrible, selfish man, but he wasn’t. He was a loving, attentive boyfriend, and then husband. He was everything I’d ever wanted in a man until two years into our marriage. He’d always wanted children, and had I known that I would always have a difficult time conceiving, I am not certain I would have married him.” She chuckled, but the sound was as harsh and bitter as she intended it to be. “I know for a fact he
certainly
wouldn’t have married me. For a year we tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant on our own until finally we decided to consult a fertility specialist. I was devastated when I learned that because I was prone to developing ovarian cysts, getting pregnant would always be a challenge for me. Derek was equally upset and almost immediately he changed. At first he accused me of tricking him and trapping him, then he simply turned cruel. It was as if he was a stranger, and I was now useless to him. I realised pretty quickly he never really loved me, that like everything else in his life I was an asset. From law school, to making partner, the wife, the kids, the big house—I was another rung on his ladder of success and I hadn’t lived up to my role.”

The humiliation, the anger, the bitterness—they all surfaced, threatening to drag her back to that dark place where she’d felt worthless and unloved. Derek had made sure of that. His cold treatment of her had ensured that even after their divorce, she would still feel as if she was undeserving of love because she wasn’t a
complete
woman.

It was bullshit.

And she knew that now. She’d known that then, but she’d allowed her ex to do such a number on her, it had taken some time before she’d realised his opinion of her meant nothing. It had taken her a while longer to gather the courage to let her guard down again and open her heart to another man, to allow herself to be loved in return.

Jeff was
nothing
like Derek. He was a far better man. She knew that.

“I stayed longer than I should have, but the last straw was his infidelity and discovering he’d fathered a child with one of his paralegals.”

She felt the tension within Jeff so strongly, it thundered through her, but with the gentle touch of her hand to his, she coaxed him until he was once again at ease. It was all right. Teresa had thought dredging up the past would be agonising, but she found it was the opposite. It was liberating, and it was finally time to let go of the lingering pain if she wanted to start anew.

“I’m still not sure if he would have divorced me had I not filed first. I think in many ways he believed he could still have the wife he’d always wanted—successful and rich—
and
the child, too. To his way of thinking, it didn’t matter
how
he acquired his ‘assets’, so to speak, as long as he acquired them. No matter what he was thinking, I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. It was a hard pill to swallow when I learned he married his mistress a few months after our divorce was final, but as much as it tortured me, I was actually grateful.”

Jeff looked at her curiously.

“His callous actions confirmed that he’d never loved me, and that whatever hopes I’d nurtured that the man I’d married would ever return, were foolish hopes. It was what I needed to finally put my failed marriage behind me and move on.”

“And you’re sure you’ve moved on?”

There was a knowing in his eyes, and she wondered if it was because he knew her so well or because he’d read the pages of her diary, which recounted her struggles with trusting men, the decisions she’d made to give them all a wide berth.

Jeff didn’t move to say any more, and she knew he would not press her if she did not answer, but she understood what had prompted his question and that her answer was vital to him. He needed to know she trusted him, that she could be completely vulnerable with him. Even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, Jeff needed to know he could always trust her to tell him the truth.

Are you ready?
—was what he truly wanted to know.
Are you ready to give love, to be loved? Even if we can’t have children, are you ready to share a lifetime of happiness with me?
It was all there in his eyes.

Her fingers grazed the stubble along his jaw, and it wasn’t until she smiled that she realised her eyes were watery with unshed tears.

“I’m sure,” she whispered. “My past is what it is, and in the past is where it belongs.” She coiled her arms around his neck. “But you, Jeff Downing are my future, and I am looking forward to a lifetime of loving you and driving you crazy.”

He groaned even as a smile stole across his handsome face. “Tell me again,” he said softly.

She quirked a brow, returning his smile. “I’m going to
love
driving you crazy.”

“
Reddddd
…”

Teresa chuckled softly. She knew what he meant, what he wanted to hear, and this time she didn’t tease him.

“I love you, Jeff Downing.”

“Even if we can’t have children—”

Teresa silenced him with a single finger against his lips. “I won’t lie and say that I don’t want children, because I do, but you already know that—”

“I’m sorry about that. I never should have read—”

Again, Teresa silenced him, but this time with the shake of her head.

“I don’t care that you read my diary, or that you know I want to have children. Everything written on those pages, I would have eventually told you anyway.”

He nodded, but in his eyes she glimpsed that he was still troubled, and her belly twisted with dread.

“Jeff, baby, what is it?”

“I want to be completely honest with you, because you already know my intentions. When I said you were mine, I meant it, and I intend to make you mine in every way.”