Read Online Harvest at Mustang Ridge by Jesse Hayworth - Free Book Online Page A

liked Sam well enough, but this was Wyatt we were talking about. The man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.” How strange to say that, to remember what it had felt like to be twenty and so sure of everything—her man, her plan, what her life would look like five years down the road. “When I asked him about it, he said it didn’t matter because I was different. That he felt more for me than he had those other girls, wanted more with me. That was the first time he told me he loved me.” They had been cuddled together in his bedroll on the shore of their waterfall, drinking cheap wine from the bottle while their horses grazed nearby. “He told me that he’d never said it before, never felt it. That I was the most important thing in the world to him, and he’d do whatever it took to keep us together. And I believed him . . . for seven and a half glorious weeks.”
    “Here.” Jenny nudged the ice cream in her direction. “Dig in.”
    “I’m okay. It was a long time ago.” Except that talking about it put her right back there. “He started acting funny around week five or six, but I chalked it up to the stress of finals. Turned out, he was looking for his pickup rider.” The cowboys who rode up, flanked the bucking bull and got the rider loose after the eight-second buzzer. “Things came to a head the day before graduation. My whole family was due in and I was dying for them to meet Wyatt. But when it came time forus to go pick Jenny up at the airport, he bailed. Said he’d meet us later at the restaurant.”
    She had stared at him, wondering how hard to push. “Are you nervous about meeting them?” she had asked. “Don’t be. They’re going to love you, I promise.”
    Settling his hat lower on his brow, he had brushed a kiss across her cheek. “Thanks for understanding. I’ll see you later.” He had headed out of her apartment, sketching a wave over his shoulder like it was no big deal, just a couple of errands like he’d said.
    That was the last she’d seen of him.
    Jenny dropped a hand on her shoulder. Krista covered it with one of her own, appreciating the contact as she said, “We waited an hour for him at the restaurant. By then I was past worried and headed toward frantic—he wasn’t answering his cell and nobody was picking up at the apartment. I insisted that we bag the big, fancy dinner and go over there.” Three generations of Skyes in their party clothes, trooping up the stairs to the dingy off-campus apartment he and Sam had shared, and watching while she let herself in with her key. “He wasn’t there, though. And neither was his stuff.”
    “He cleared out?”
    Krista nodded. “There were two notes on the kitchen table, one for me and one for Sam, with the rent money. Mine was a whole lot of
it’s not you, it’s me
and
I’m sorry
. There weren’t any details, nothing about where he was going or what he was going to do. Just that I deserved better.”
    “Well, he was right about that!” Shelby said. “Jerk. You totally deserved better than that.”
    I didn’t want better. I wanted him.
But he hadn’t wanted her, had he? Not enough to stay. “You’re supposed to get your heart broken at least once when you’re a teenager, right? Well, I guess I got mine in right after the cutoff.”
    “Why did he do it?”
    “How should I know?”
    “I thought you said he apologized the other day.”
    “Not in detail.” Krista held up a hand before Shelby could press her on it. “And, no, I’m not going to ask him. Don’t care, don’t want to know. I’m just hiring him to keep the guests safe and help me finish the season with a bang at the mustang ride-off. Neither of us is interested in reconnecting.”
    Jenny made a humming noise and moved around the granite-topped bar to break the corner off a brownie. Nibbling thoughtfully, she said, “I wouldn’t be so sure about the
neither of us is interested
thing. Did you see how he was looking at you the other