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 on her face told him that she was too. Almost like she didn’t understand the words that had come out of her mouth.
“I don’t know.” She looked away from him. “I guess...you know. Some people have beautiful things. Some people have beautiful lives. Some people don’t. And when you’ve lived an entire life of dirty and ugly it’s hard to imagine you could ever have anything else. That you could ever deserve anything else. I used to think of him like that too.”
Wyatt swallowed hard. He related to that a little more closely than he cared to admit. Even to himself. That feeling of being someone who could have a life that looked a certain way. Or being someone who could never aspire to such a thing. Someone who didn’t deserve it.
“It must feel more real now,” he said, unable to keep the gravel out of his voice entirely.
“I don’t know.” She paused for a moment. “It didn’t last, did it?”
“This place is going to last,” he said, knowing that she meant her marriage, but moving on to the winery anyway. “What you’re doing here? It’s going to last. You can’t control what other people do. They’re going to cheat.” He gritted his teeth, hating that when it came to his own experience with this kind of thing he couldn’t stand on the right side of the line. “But this is different. It’s not a person. It’s land. It’s not going to betray you. It’s not going to hurt you.”
“Now that’s spoken like a cowboy,” she said. “I imagine the other faithful things in your world are your horse and your pickup truck.”
“Damn straight.” He took a breath, doing his best to dispel the pressure that had begun to build in his chest. “Speaking of horses, how are you doing on that one?”
“Good,” she said. “You’re right. It is like riding a bike. In that, I remember how it’s done.”
“Well, and Trixie here is a pretty easy ride.”
“Funny. I think I read that on a bathroom wall about a girl named Trixie once.”
“If it was in the Gold Valley Saloon I might’ve written it there.”
She laughed, the sound unexpected and bright, splitting through the relative silence around them. “I don’t believe for a second that you would do that.”
“You don’t?” He shook his head. “Clearly I haven’t done a very good job of convincing you that I’m a jackass.”
“Oh no,” she said. “You’ve done a fantastic job with that. It’s just... I don’t think you’re that kind of jackass.”
“Truth be told,” he said. “My name is carved on the wall in the saloon.”
“Tacky,” she commented.
Before Laz had taken ownership of the Gold Valley Saloon, it had been the thing for people to carve their names outside the bathroom door if they had scored inside. And back in his twenties, when he had been more of a drunken asshole than he was in his thirties, he had put his name up there thinking it was damned good fun.
But then, she was right. It was different than writing down a woman’s name and promising she’d give someone a good time, he supposed. As long as the only person you were exposing was yourself, it didn’t seem half
