Taking Charge (Lone Star Burn #4)(15)
“You don’t have to rush, Lucy. I did it because I care—”
“Don’t say it. Those are just words people throw around to try to control each other. I don’t want anything from you. And stop looking like you think I should thank you. All you did was make me hate myself more. Get out of my house.”
David looked across to Wyatt for support, but the older man walked over and said, “When a woman asks a gentleman to leave, he does. Come on.” He guided a reluctant-looking David out of the house.
Only after the door closed behind them did Lucy allow her tears to fall. She sank to her knees and wept into her hands. Her tears were those of anger and regret. Of all the times she’d imagined how she would feel if she ever saw David again, she’d never imagined she could hate him.
Or is it just me I hate?
Lucy wiped away her tears and stood. She was shaking from head to toe, but she forced herself to calm down. If I stay in here, it’s my fault no one thinks I can do this. My daddy raised me to be stronger.
She opened the door and stepped out onto her porch. Ted and his men were gone. Wyatt stood with the men he’d brought over, showing them David’s video. David was standing off to one side as if he were uncomfortable with what Wyatt was doing.
At her appearance, David took a step toward Lucy, then stopped and waited. One by one, the men turned and looked toward the porch. It was a pivotal moment, and Lucy knew it. They want to know what I’m made of. Am I victim or a fighter?
She raised her voice and used a tone she’d often heard her daddy use. “Well, what are all y’all waiting for? We’ve got cattle to load.”
And just like that the men went back to saddling up their horses and positioning the fencing.
Wyatt nodded his approval.
David held her gaze for a long, sad moment—long enough for Lucy to regret most of what she’d said to him, but that didn’t stop her from feeling that she could never be with him until she was no longer in debt to him.
She looked away and walked over to join some men who were deciding which stock trailer to fill first. She asked what she could do to help, and was soon positioning the vehicles with precision. She might not know how to run the ranch, but she’d certainly done her share of work on it.
Wyatt came to stand beside the door of a truck she’d just parked. “Do you think you were a mite hard on your friend?”
Lucy’s eyes scanned the area until she located David on horseback helping the men drive the cattle onto the rigs. “He’s not my friend. I barely know him.”
“He appears to have some strong feelings for you.”
“Appearances are often deceiving.”
Wyatt tipped his hat lower and looked in David’s direction. “Making one man pay for another man’s sins doesn’t right any wrongs.”
Lucy stepped out of the truck and sighed. “I want to feel bad about what I said to him, but I’m drowning in guilt already. I don’t have room to feel bad about anything else.”
Wyatt looked back at Lucy and looped his thumbs through his belt. “You would have had a nasty fight on your hands with Ted.”
“I need to believe I would have won,” Lucy said, just above a whisper. Maybe I didn’t lose today, but I didn’t win either. David stole that opportunity from me, and I don’t know if I can forgive him for it.
The challenge of loading the stock trailers left little time for David to reflect much on Lucy’s negative reaction to what he’d considered a grand gesture of his feelings for her. A man could easily get killed if he let his attention wander while convincing eight hundred head of cattle to do something they had no desire to do. It wasn’t until the tractor-trailers were pulling out of the driveway that David turned his attention back to the reason he’d driven to Mavis.
Lucy Albright.
Will I ever understand that woman?
He dismounted the horse he’d borrowed from one of the men, returned it to him, then scanned the area for Lucy and frowned when he didn’t see her. After Sarah’s phone call the night before, David had prepared to step in and help Lucy. Sarah had told him all about the loan and how Lucy was trying to break free from York but was afraid she’d lose everything in the process.
David had never been one to walk away from someone he felt needed him. His only regrets in life were the times he’d let himself be convinced to. After speaking to Sarah, David had felt positive he belonged in Mavis, helping Lucy.
He knew she’d be skittish at first, same as when she’d avoided him at Sarah and Tony’s wedding. That didn’t worry him none. He’d been confident he could win her trust and she’d accept his help. He hadn’t imagined it would take long for their attraction to each other to lead to more. And more was what he wanted with her. Now. In the future. It was something he’d tried to deny when he heard Lucy was engaged, but he’d come to accept that without her, his life would always feel as if it were missing something.
Lucy was the something that had kept him feeling restless.
David had never paid much mind to people who spoke about love at first sight, even though his own father claimed he’d known by the end of their first date that he would marry David’s mother. It was an outdated, ridiculous idea, but dismissing it would be harder to do after today.
When he’d heard that * threaten Lucy, David had been filled with a rage like none he’d felt before. He’d joked with Tony about possibly having to kill someone to save Lucy, but there’d been nothing funny about how easily David would have done just that if York had lifted a hand to her. As it was, David had been hard-pressed to stop at one punch.