“I can understand that,” she said, slowly. “I imagine any experience with marriage makes you think twice about jumping in again.”
“You don’t want to get married again?”
“Right now? No. And I can’t imagine ever willingly submitting myself to that ever again.”
“I don’t think his reasoning is quite the same as yours,” Wyatt pointed out.
“No. I expect it isn’t. But it’s just... More than even the not trusting someone else, it sounds like a lot of work. I was married. I was married for a long time. It’s like, I’ve done it. I’ve seen what that life is like. I’ve seen what it can give me. I’m not really interested in checking it out again.”
“Been there, done that?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Damien had a lot to answer for, and that was the damned truth. No, Wyatt wasn’t any more interested in marriage than Lindy was, but she was the kind of woman who should be. The kind of woman who deserved better. Who should have gotten a hell of a lot better than she had. If she didn’t want marriage, it should be because there was something better and brighter out there for her. Not because she was exhausted emotionally. Not because her heart had been battered, ground into the dust underneath the heel of some jackass’s boot.
“I’ve always thought marriage seemed pretty overrated myself,” he commented.
She surprised him by continuing the topic. “Why is that?”
“One woman for the rest of my life,” he said, the lie slipping out easily. “I don’t think I could handle that.”
As if it all came down to him being afraid he couldn’t control his dick. As if it didn’t have anything to do with the hard, sharp truths he learned about himself when he was seventeen years old. The hard, sharp truths about what it cost to care for someone. Loss and betrayal and defiance, all mixed up together.
“Well, I admire you for knowing that about yourself.” She didn’t sound admiring in the least.
“So, we figured we would take the guests down by the river,” Wyatt said, changing the subject.
All of this was getting a bit too close to places he kept well guarded for a reason. It was one thing to try to get under her skin a bit. It was another to cut his own skin away from the bone and scrape it raw.
Anyway, the sun was shining and he was out on a horse, in the middle of a Tuesday. Another thing that drove home the fact that he had made good decisions in his life, in addition to a hell of a lot of bad ones. But, for now, he was going to go ahead and enjoy the ones he’d made that weren’t terrible.
Working outdoors, being able to spend the day out in the wilderness, with a beautiful woman... Well, it wasn’t all bad.
He maneuvered his horse down the narrow trail that cut through the thick, green grass and behind a copse of pine trees that shielded the river from the rest of the winery grounds. He knew—because Jamie had given him a map to look at last night—that the trail would take them to where the grapevines grew.
On the other side of the river was a thicker, denser grove of trees, and back in the distance, shaded beneath the firs, he thought he could see a little cabin.
“Is that your property too?”
“What?”
Clearly, Lindy had been thinking about other things too. “There. Across the river.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Right now, Bea lives in the little cabin.”
“Really?” The spread was bigger than he’d initially thought. Which made Lindy’s ownership of the place even more of a triumph than he’d realized. “So, your in-laws lost all of this land. To you.”
“For the want of a better prenuptial agreement, yes.”
“Do you ever feel guilty about that?”
He turned and looked behind him, examined the stricken expression on her face. “I’m not suggesting you should,” he added.
“No,” she said. “I don’t feel guilty. Because Damien had ownership of the winery at that point, not Jamison and his wife. I think, if they’d had it still... Well, first of all, it wouldn’t have gone to me. Second of all, I might feel bad. But the fact of the matter is I was doing a good portion of the work when Damien and I were married. I was the one trying to lead new initiatives, initiatives that I’ve put in place now. He was mostly preoccupied with his work for the rodeo. And that’s fine. But this was my passion project, not his. And I don’t know...maybe it’s not...strictly fair. Maybe assets should be divided directly in half. But he wasn’t left with nothing.”
“Do you wish he had been?”
“What kind of question is that?” Her tone was sharp.
“An honest one. He cheated on you, Lindy. How long were the two of you married?”
“Ten years,” she said softly.
“Ten years,” Wyatt reiterated. “Ten years you gave to that man. He cheated on you. He ruined it. And somehow, managed to walk away with enough of a dent in his pocketbook that he looks like a victim. I think that’s messed up. I want to know what you think. Honestly.”
For a moment, she said nothing. The only sound was the plodding of the horses’ hooves on dirt, and the rushing river alongside them.
“I think... Yeah, I think he should have lost everything,” she said finally. “My honest answer. I’m angry that he was able to walk away with anything. Not because I wanted it all. Just because I wouldn’t be that sorry if his life had been reduced to rubble. Or...maybe that’s more how I would have felt two years ago. I don’t really care now.”
“Really?”
“Mostly,” she said. She sighed heavily. “I’m not heartbroken anymore. I mean, how much time can you waste feeling heartbroken over a husband who slept with other women?” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I guess you could waste a lot of time on it, but I don’t want to. He’s not worth it. The man I loved doesn’t exist. I think that’s the hardest thing to come to terms with. The person I thought I was married to... If he was ever that man he’s not anymore. I can’t waste my time grieving over someone who’s basically dead. Wondering what I did to make that happen? That’s another story. And anger... Anger over wasted time, over wasted tears. That’s something else entirely.”
“Makes sense.”
He might not know about the dissolution of a marriage, but he’d experienced heartbreak. And he sure as hell knew about regret.
“Maybe it does,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s true enough.”
They rode on in silence for a while, as the trail wound around the riverbank, and then separated from the water, heading a different direction, where the trees thinned out and the sky opened up, the sun shining down on row after row of twining grapevines.
“This is a helluva place,” he said. “You should be proud of it.”
He meant that. He might be an asshole of the highest order, he might find it tough to be sincere at the best of times, but she had done a great job here. She was a damn fine businesswoman. And she was right about what she had said about Damien. She had done more with this place. She had done better. In his opinion, she deserved everything she got.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice suddenly soft. “I remember the first time I saw it. The first time Damien brought me out here. And I just... I didn’t think that I was the kind of person who would ever be allowed to have something so lovely.”
Something twisted inside his chest. “Why not?”
He was surprised she’d shared that with him, and the look