All Jacked Up (Rough Riders #8)(81)

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*ck 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*cking 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.


“Talk to me, goddammit.”


“What do you want me to say? I went so far beyond my comfort zone tonight that I lost myself? But in some respects it only made me realize how different we are?”


“We’re not that different.”


“Really? I don’t live my personal or professional life in the shadow of expectations from others,” she shot back.


“And I do? That’s the type of man you think I am?”


Finally Keely looked at him. “That is the type of man you are, Jack. Instead of being who you are on the inside all the time, you change who you are to fit the circumstances.”


That stung. But it wasn’t the point. Why was Keely making this about him? She was the one who’d been ambushed by Martine. She was the one who’d bolted from the party. And not because she’d suddenly realized some startling truth about his business acumen—or lack thereof. She was focusing on him, his flaws, rather than the issue at hand. How badly she’d been hurt.


Clever. Sneaky. But he wouldn’t let it slide.


Jack stalked her. Her spine hit the tool bench; he curled his hands around her biceps. “I’m sorry. I’m a total and complete f*ck up. A total and complete jackass. I will let you yell obscenities and scream insults at me to your heart’s content, but first I need you. I need this.” He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. He kept kissing her until she responded with the sweetness, goodness and heat that filled the empty part of his soul. He hadn’t understood the depth of the missing piece until she came into his life.