Steal Her Heart (Kaid Ranch Shifters #1)(2)

“I was the filler? Seriously? I filled up your time while you waited for the woman you really wanted?” Her stomach churned in disgust.

He nodded.

“Then say it and make this easier for me to hate you. Say I wasn’t enough.”

He cracked his knuckles and shook his head. “You aren’t her.”

She shook her head hard. “I’ll never be enough. Say it.”

He let off a sigh and stared at the carpet as he uttered the words that were the final nail in her heart. “You’ll never be as important as her.”

That admission was crippling, but it was better that she knew. For closure. “Okay,” she murmured, her heart bleeding out inside of her chest cavity.

“Okay?”

Maris inhaled deeply and steeled herself to be strong. He didn’t deserve to see her fall apart. He hadn’t earned the right to see how much he was hurting her. So she straightened her spine and lifted her chin, willed her tears to stay put while inside of her chest, her heart was ripping off in pieces. “You’re free, Dallas. Go be with her. I’ll be fine. I’ll manage the cattle myself. You don’t have to worry about me or check in on me. Go be happy with her.” Every word she uttered was a knife cutting deeper into her heart.

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s it? You aren’t going to throw a tantrum?”

“A tantrum? Do you even know me at all? That’s not how I work. I’ll make this real easy on you. I don’t have to get revenge on you. Your punishment is losing me, and someday you’ll figure that out. Go, be free, go chase happiness with her. But you owe me.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you realize my value and what you threw away like a bag of shit, don’t message me. Don’t try to pull me back in again. Let me go.” God, her heart, her heart, her heart hurt so bad to do this. To be the bigger person. To be strong in a moment that hurt so much. “Please leave.”

He nodded and smiled. “Okay. Okay. God, I feel like a hundred pounds has been lifted from my shoulders. It’s been so nice finally telling you what I’ve been feeling—”

“Shut the fuck up, Dallas. No one cares about your feelings here anymore. Pack your shit and leave. I’ll be out front.”

She’d never told him to shut up in all their years together. Not once in their one-year marriage or in all the time they dated. He’d talked to her like that plenty, but she was submissive. Always had been. She hated it because it turned her into a doormat to people like Dallas.

Every cell in her body aching, Maris stood and made her way stiffly to the door. She turned as she opened it. “Why do you want the tractor and trailer?”

“Sadey has land, too. She’s getting to keep it in her divorce. She needs them.”

Maris huffed a breath. “I’m so happy everything is working out perfectly for you two. You’ll take the equipment I need to run this place, leave me alone to do two people’s work, and use the tractors we bought together on her property? I wish you luck when Karma finds you.”

“You make me sound awful when you put it that way.”

“You are.” Her eyes were so full of tears she could barely see, and her bottom lip quivered so she bit it to hide her emotions. Don’t cry. Don’t fall apart. Not until he’s gone. “You aren’t the man I thought you were.”

Maris had never felt so low, so raw. She wasn’t enough to keep him. After everything she’d done for him, she wasn’t enough.

She left him there watching after her. She made her way past her truck to the fencing in the front pasture, and as she leaned on it, let those tears finally fall. And as she watched the cattle milling around in front of her, wondering how the hell she was going to manage all of this alone, she uttered three words that were so much more important than “I love you” right now.

“I deserve better.”

She’d hit rock bottom, so she didn’t believe those words yet, but if she said them enough times, maybe someday she would.





Chapter One


One year later



The rattle of the trailer behind her was a grating sound that echoed through Maris’s heart. Mr. Talbert had helped her get the cattle to auction, and now he was driving his empty trailer away. Stupid Dallas for taking her trailer. It was a huge shot to her pride that she had to ask for Mr. Talbert’s help in transporting the herd.

It was auction day. Usually this would be a happy day because it would be payday for the ranch, but she was doing this for the wrong reasons. The wrong reasons for business, but the right reasons for her ethics.

She finished closing the gate to the large pen behind the auction building and leaned on the fence, listening to the soundtrack of her herd bawling. Mooooo. Maaaaah. Moooooooooo! Her bald-faced cow, Marshmallow Face, was mourning her calf. Predators had taken it last night. She’d been a good momma cow, given a good calf to take to sale all three years Maris had run the herd. God, she couldn’t believe it had come to this. This wasn’t the right season to be selling, and she had never dreamed she’d be selling off the entirety of her breeding herd, but this was just as much for their protection as it was for the money to pay her massive debts.

She had no other choice. She’d exhausted every Hail Mary in the ranching book, other than selling the ranch, which would happen soon enough. That, or the bank would just take it.