AJ sighed again. “When we went to school in Denver and we were missing home, we’d head to the Quarter Past Midnight Stables. Keely got chummy with Darla, the owner, and exercised horses and cleaned stalls for fun. After I married Cord and moved home I know she spent lots of time there.”
Sounded like Keely. Making friends all over the damn place and finding fun and solace in a damn barn. “What if she’s not there?”
“There is another place she’s goes, but it’s much closer to home. We’ll cross that bridge if it comes down to that.”
“Thank you, AJ.”
“You’re welcome. After you find her, make her call me, Jack Donohue, so I know she’s okay. Or I swear to God I will sic her brothers on you. One at a time. Before I call Carson.”
The wrath of an angry pregnant woman scared him almost as much as Keely’s dad. “I promise.”
Jack went to find his cowgirl.
Two vehicles were in the parking lot at Quarter Past Midnight Stables. A Dodge Ram with Colorado plates and Keely’s dirty, beat up black Ford. Jack almost kissed the bug-covered grille.
The office door was unlocked. A buzzer sounded and within a couple minutes a bleary-eyed woman appeared in the enclosed office space. She slid open the glass partition. “Help ya with something?”
“Ah. Yeah. I’m looking for Keely McKay.”
The bleariness vanished and her focus turned razor sharp. She flipped her long, gray braid over her shoulder and folded her arms across her abundant cle**age. “And who would you be?”
“Jack Donohue.”
“Never heard of ya.” She slammed the partition and turned her back on him.
Jack rapped on the glass. “Darla? AJ McKay said I could find Keely here. I saw her truck in the parking lot. I know she’s here somewhere. Please. I need to see her.”
Darla whirled back around but didn’t open the glass window.
She studied him. “You say you talked to AJ?”
“Yeah, she gave me hell too.”
“I always liked that girl.” Darla shook her finger at him. “Keely’s in the south white barn. If she don’t want you here, I’ll escort you off the premises with my shotgun, we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Darla hit the switch that unlocked the gate.
Jack forced himself not to run when he saw the white metal siding of the barn on the south end of the property. The door was already open. The pungent odor of horseflesh and horseshit blasted him as he walked in.
The dim lighting revealed little beyond twelve stalls lined up, six on each side. Very quietly he started down the center section and tiptoed past curious horses until he found her.
Keely had her back to him. Her glossy black braid hung past her shoulder blades. She wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Faded jeans tucked into old shit-covered boots. One hundred percent country cowgirl. One hundred percent his.
Keely McKay was his. She belonged to him.
The self-admission was not the shock to his system he’d imagined. He suspected he loved her all along and he’d fought it, creating elaborate excuses and lying to himself that sex and circumstance made him feel this way. But as Jack looked at her, he really saw her. Her. The woman who owned him.
He’d found the once in a lifetime, bone deep, straight to the soul kind of love he’d never believed in.
For the longest time, Jack watched the woman he loved combing the Quarter Horse. Murmuring to it, running her hand across the withers. Keely pressed her face into the horse’s neck and tried to keep her shoulders from shaking as she cried.
Her every tear felt like a drop of acid on his heart. Jack didn’t deserve her, but he took a step toward her, toward their future together anyway. Would she let him soothe her? Kiss away her tears? He’d promise her the damn moon if she’d stay with him. If she’d give him another chance.
But would she ever love him the way he loved her?
Keely swiveled around at his approach, eyes swollen and nose red from crying. She still looked beautiful. His gut clenched knowing her misery was his fault.
When she didn’t yell at him, insult him, or ask him what the f**k he was doing here, Jack knew he had an uphill climb. A spitting mad Keely he could handle. But Keely seemed…defeated. And he didn’t know how to handle that. Waltzing in here and declaring his love for her would only muddy the waters. She probably wouldn’t believe him anyway. It’d keep.
“How’d you find me?”
“I called AJ.”
She stopped brushing the horse for a second. Then she resumed the long strokes. “I’m gonna kick her ass. She shouldn’t have told you.”
“I begged her.”
“Why? I’m surprised you even noticed I left.”
“I did. Look. I’m sorry you got stuck with Martine tonight.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes. Did Martine really corner you in the bathroom?”
Keely didn’t miss a beat in her horse grooming. “How did you find out?”
“A woman named Gina overheard the conversation.”
“Fuckin’ awesome. Did this Gina laugh about it when she told you?”
“No. She’s not like that, Keely.”
“Well, she’d be about the only one in that lousy group of women.” Brush brush brush. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
A snort. Hers or the horse’s?
“Why’d you leave without telling me?”
“Because I don’t answer to you, Jack, and I didn’t need your permission to leave. I needed to get away.”
“From me?”
She shrugged.
Jack dry-washed his face and forced himself to stay calm. “Fine. But I’m here. Will you talk to me now?”
“Nothin’ left to say.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I was wrong about a lot of things.”
Silence.
Fuck being polite. “Me too, Keely. Wrong to insist you go to that stupid cocktail party in the first place. Wrong to leave you at Martine’s table, subjected to her ugly whims. Wrong not to notice you were gone until it was too f**king late. If anyone is in the wrong here, it’s me. Not you.”
Keely spoke lowly to the horse. Gave him one last pat on the rump before she picked up a bucket and exited the stall.
Jack stood aside from the gate to let her out. She never looked at him. He was undeterred by her coolness and he followed her to the tack room.
She put away the supplies and hung the bucket on a wooden peg. Ignoring him. Killing him with aloofness.