Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)
T. S. Joyce
Prologue
“I don’t understand.”
Dallas looked up from his glowing phone screen and sighed. “I told you, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not happy. I haven’t been for a while, but I felt so guilty leaving you here. But I’ve talked to a friend, and she said you aren’t my responsibility. Neither is your living situation.”
“My living situation,” Maris Thurgood repeated softly. Here she sat, in the cabin they’d rehabbed, on the ranch she’d saved for her entire life, and the love of her life was treating her like a burden. “I thought this was your dream,” she said.
He was texting someone, a faint smile painting his lips.
“Hello?” she asked. “Are you seriously smiling while you’re ending our marriage?”
“Huh? Oh.” Dallas shoved his phone in his back pocket and cleared his throat, tried to look serious and clamped his hands together, resting his elbows on his knees. “Sorry, I was talking to…someone.”
“Who could be so important that you would talk to them during this conversation, Dallas? Because you are ending my life as I know it. We were supposed to be forever. Remember? You promised that.” She stuck up her ring finger. “I’m wearing your ring—”
“Maris, enough. I stopped wearing my ring months ago—”
“You said you didn’t want to damage it while you were working!”
“I’m going to need your ring back. It belonged to my grandmother.”
“What?” Her eyes burned with tears. Stunned, she looked down at her ring, the one she was supposed to take to her grave. “Dallas…why did you marry me? Why did you take me to the courthouse? None of this makes any sense. I thought you were happy.”
He was back to texting on his phone, and there were the red flags again.
She asked the question she’d been afraid to for so long. “Who is she?” The answer would be devastating, but if he was going to wreck her like this, she wanted to know who she’d been up against. “Who is your friend who has told you to leave?”
He canted his head and stared at her. There wasn’t a single speck of remorse in his icy blue eyes. “You know. You’ve known for a long time, Maris. You just don’t want to ask questions. You only want to see what you want to see.”
“And what’s that?”
“The good in people. Not everyone is good.”
“Who?” she asked, pushing. Usually, he got angry if she asked him direct questions like this.
The slight smirk on his lips flattened to a thin line. “I want the tractor, and the trailer and the side-by-side. Oh and the Bobcat and post hole digger. All the big equipment. You can keep the herd, and keep this place—”
“I paid for this place, and for the herd. You aren’t doing me any favors by letting me keep what is already mine—”
“Be real, Maris. If I wanted to, I could get my dad’s money involved and come after everything. I could drown you in lawyer fees until you give me what I want anyway. We can draw this divorce out, and I’ll come for every penny you have, or you can play nice. We built this place up together. This wasn’t my dream—”
“That’s bullshit. We had a plan, Dallas. We spent years getting to this spot, and we’re finally here and you’re bailing? What’s her name?”
“Maris—”
“I’ve been loyal to you from day one. My heart has been yours since day one. I took care of everything, I made your life easier. If you have any respect for me at all, you owe me a name.”
“Why is that so important?”
“Because in a couple months, when you’re done with her, and you think about the life I built for you, you’re going to text me. ‘Hey, how are you?’ And I need to be strong enough to ignore you and move on.” She brushed her knuckle over her damp cheeks and sat up straighter. “Her name will help me do that.”
He scratched his clean-shaven jaw. His baseball cap was pristine and new, his jaw patted with aftershave, his nails perfectly clean, his cowboy boots designer. He’d liked this life, but only for pictures. Only for the attention it got him in the community. This all hit her as he murmured the name she’d feared for years.
“Sadey.”
That one word felt like a punch in the gut. It took the wind right from her lungs, and she hunched over, wrapping her arms around her middle. Sadey Lawklin, Dallas’s ex-girlfriend from high school. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“For once, just be an honest man. What harm could it do now to tell me the truth? Huh? You’re already leaving. Just answer my questions.”
“So I can cause you more pain? I want to make this easy on you.”
“Will you be full of bullshit your whole life, Dallas? You want to make this easier on you. You don’t give a shit about me. Let me have it.”
The flash of sympathy he’d infused into his expression disappeared and was twisted into something harsh. “Okay. You want the truth? She was always there. She will always be there.”
Maris squeezed her eyes closed, trying to control her tears. “I never had a shot, did I?”
“No. But you gave me an easy life, and we got along well, and while she was trying to make her marriage work, I was waiting. With you.”