Authors: Emma Taylor
Anne looked at her daughter expectedly. “You know, honey, Daddy and I are going to need that money to get back on our feet. Of course, you can live with us rent free until you start making your own money. But that money was a loan for you to go to college anyway. It actually belongs to us. We wouldn’t want to have to sell anything precious to save ourselves.” She looked pointedly at Concerto.
Sydney felt panic welling up inside her. She was nothing like her parents, never had been really. But this was going too far. Her mother wasn’t proposing just having the original forty thousand returned. Anne Clark intended to take all her money. Every penny. Without apology or conscience. She had to do something and it had to be quick.
“Mom, can we talk about this later? I have to cool Concerto off before his muscles get stiff.” She smiled at her mother, trying to hide her disappointment. “He’s worthless if he’s lame.”
“Of course, Honey. I’ll see you at home later. Daddy and I have dinner plans. You’ll make yourself something in the kitchen later, right?” And just like that, every ounce of guilt Sydney felt over what she was planning was gone.
Later that night, Sydney had packed up everything that she needed in her backpack. The documents for her trust were buried under several changes of clothes. She left the rest behind because she wanted no part of the life she’d lived here. If her parents were so willing to take away her shot at a future without a second thought, she didn’t want anything that they’d paid for. Except her horse. He was a gift and she had the card from under their Christmas tree to prove it. It wasn’t a bill of sale, but it was something. She saddled Concerto up and rode down the trail that led to her friend’s farm a few miles away. More like ten miles, but it wasn’t that far on horseback. Her parents had been off in their own little world for so long, they didn’t know the name of a single one of her friends. Sydney was sure that she could hide out there until she could find a way to get as far away from James and Anne as possible.
***
Sydney stopped for the first time since she started the story, exhausted by the heavy burden she’d unloaded with her words. With tears in her eyes, she looked up at Max. His face was incredulous.
Oh no, he thinks I’m a horse thief!
She started to explain that she’d sent them back their forty thousand dollars the minute the money was available, writing the words “for Concerto” in the memo section on the check. She had returned every penny they’d ever given her, even though the money was rightfully hers. She only wanted Concerto and hoped that they would be satisfied with what she sent. The check had cleared the bank within a week of her sending the money. Her parents had wasted no time with what was important to them. Max placed a finger over her lips to quiet her rambling about Concerto and money. He understood and the memory was obviously causing her quite a bit of distress. She was terrified that he was going to reject her, threaten to turn her in. Anything but what he did next.
Max pulled Sydney to his chest and held her tight. She may have been all woman, but at that moment, all Max saw was the scared little girl, running away from a horrible situation. Sydney didn’t realize what she’d escaped, and was surprisingly unaffected by the emotional abuse her parents subjected her to. On the surface, they seemed like desperate people looking for a miracle. But Max knew that there was so much more. Her parents had bought a young girl off with a pony and then left her to raise herself for years. Money wasn’t everything, and a girl that young needed her parents. It was a wonder she’d turned out as well as she did. Sydney buried her face in his chest and sobbed; partly with relief, but mostly with the weight of her despair. All she’d ever wanted in the entire world was for her parents to love her. But, they loved money more than anything, perhaps more than each other. She’d had to run away from that life, but the little girl inside of her longed for the connection she never shared with them. The love.
Max brushed the hair away from her face as her sobbing quieted. She’d been through so much at such a young age, Max couldn’t imagine how she’d felt. Money had been the source of quite a bit of frustration in Max’s life, and he’d seen it turn good people into monsters. But, he was one of the lucky ones. His parents were disappointed that he wouldn’t follow in their footsteps and run the family business, nor was he the least bit interested in living the life of the wealthy. He just wanted to be free to be who he was. His parents had accepted that about him, though with plenty of grumbling and bargaining, and they’d instead groomed his younger brother for first-born status. Sydney’s parents had been so blinded by the money and the status that they hadn’t even seen their daughter had grown up without them. It was just as well, since she’d turned into a fine young woman.
Sydney sat back and rubbed her hands over her eyes, brushing off the last of her tears and casting off the burden that was her parents. She looked into Max’s eyes. She saw pity, and pain, but she also saw love. The kind of love she always dreamed about. She’d laid out her deepest, darkest secrets and he
loved
her. Searching his eyes, Sydney leaned in and kissed him tenderly. That fear she’d felt all these years, the instinct to run away every time someone got too close, melted with the heat of his touch. Sydney lay back on the sun-warmed rock, pulling him with her. Her hair fanned out behind her head, her eyes heavy with desire. Max melted on top of her, his desire straining at the fabric of his jeans as he rested on one elbow to look at her. With his free hand, he slowly unbuttoned her shirt, pushing the fabric to the side and moving her sports bra up to release her swollen breasts. Her skin was flushed with passion as he leaned down to take her erect nipple into his mouth, sucking slowly, using his tongue to tease her. Sydney moaned from deep in her throat, her hips pushing against him as she gave herself to the sensation. Max’s hand slid down her flat belly and into her waistband, pulling her button fly open in one smooth motion. Max released her breast and kissed down her stomach, leaving a trail of warmth as he headed further down. His hands slid under her, and she raised her hips to help him remove her pants. He pushed them down past her thighs, his mouth following the fabric as it revealed her sweetness. Sydney gasped as he mouth covered her, his tongue diving and darting into all the right places. She writhed against him as her passion increased, her breath coming is short gasps as she struggled to get her muddled thoughts into place. She was near nirvana when he stopped suddenly, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he left her hanging on the edge of the cliff, a light breeze away from plummeting to her death.
She heard his zipper and the rustle of fabric, and her mind screamed
yes!
Max covered her with his body, her world exploding when he entered her. She wrapped her arms around him, a scream building and dying on her lips as she rode the passion. Max continued as her orgasm rose and fell like waves. He watched her face, enjoying how each emotion played across it. She squealed and moaned, the pleasure overwhelming her with each subsequent wave as it crashed over her, engulfing her. When he knew she’d had all she could take, he let go, riding the final wave with her as his own pleasure overtook him. The world around them ceased to exist as they gave themselves over to their feelings. Exhausted, they lay on the warm rock, entangled as one, the warm sun caressing their skin as they caught their breath.
***
They rode in comfortable silence on the trail back to the stables. Sydney kept glancing at Max and smiling shyly. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she’d never given herself over so completely as she had that afternoon. Max winked at her, enjoying the way the pink crept up her neck. They could see the stables up ahead and Sydney was sad that their magical afternoon was nearly over. They rode side by side onto the property, greeting people as they passed. Sydney was about to dismount when she heard a voice that made her blood run cold.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my precious daughter and
my
horse. Hi Sydney,” the voice sneered, “did you miss your dear old Dad?”
How had he found me?
James Clark sauntered up to Max, who had dismounted and haltered his borrowed mount. He stuck his hand out to Max, who looked at him with obvious distaste. Max didn’t return the gesture, and James lowered his hand with a smile.
“I see my sweet girl has landed herself the great Maxwell Stryker. I wonder, did she tell you that she took off with my money and stole that horse? I’m surprised a billionaire would shack up with a common horse-thief, but stranger things have happened.”
Sydney’s head started spinning.
A billionaire?
Suddenly, it all made sense. The helicopter in the tiny town of Pinedale, the fact that Max didn’t seem to have an actual job outside of volunteering at CFR. It was obvious that the “anonymous donor” who’d paid for all of their equipment and the state of the art building that the search and rescue team worked out of must have been Max. No wonder he hadn’t cared about her past. To him, six million was nothing.
Does that mean I am nothing to him, either?
She spun Concerto around and took off at a flat gallop into the woods, putting as much distance between herself and the two men as possible. Just when things started to seem right in her world, it all came crashing down. Sydney ducked low along Concerto’s neck, moving with him as his hooves ate up the ground underneath him. He moved over the terrain as if on wings, the tears from the wind streaming down her face as she tried to outrun her past.
How did Dad even find me?
She had no idea, but one thing was for certain. He wasn’t going to take Concerto from her.
Concerto rounded the corner and lost his footing, going down hard and sending Sydney flying over his head. She had a brief moment of panic before pain exploded throughout her entire body and the world went dark.
Sydney lay there, fighting to regain consciousness. She had to get away, she had to fight. No matter how hard she pushed against the darkness, it pulled her back down, swallowing her whole. She struggled against the pull of the enveloping darkness, nearly resurfacing only to be pushed down again. She heard a steady pulse in her head; saw a burst of light that made her wonder if she was dying. Pain exploded again as she was shoved and pulled, the sound getting louder, drowning out the faint sound of voices calling her name. She gave up the fight as euphoria claimed her and the pain subsided.
***
Max manned the controls of the chopper, trying not to panic as the nurse in the cabin yelled at Sydney, “stay with us, don’t give up Sydney.” She’d covered a lot of ground in a very short time. It had taken them almost an hour to get to the chopper and find her, lying crumpled in the dirt, her horse nowhere to be found. Concerto had returned to the stables, in bad shape. Max had informed the stable’s owner over the radio that he was to get that horse to a vet immediately. Max would spare no expense and he made it clear to the man that anything he could do to save horse was to be done. Max would deal with James later, and that man would regret chasing Sydney down. When Max was through with him, James would never dare show his face again. He didn’t care how much money it took, Sydney would never lay eyes on that horrible man again.
The nurse hollered at him over the pulsing of the chopper’s blades, “She’s fading fast, how far out are we?”
“Ten minutes,”
Hold on Sydney.
Max pushed the chopper as fast as it could go. He’d waited his entire life for a woman like her, he wasn’t about to lose her now.
Epilogue
Sydney sat in the padded glider on the wrap-around porch. Her broken bones were finally healed, and the casts had come off a week before. Her body remained bandaged, but the bandages were nothing compared to the heavy plaster. She watched the horses in the field running and smiled. They would never replace her Concerto, but Sydney’s heart would heal as her bones had. It had been almost two months since her accident and she hadn’t heard a word from James. Max was vague about what had happened, but she knew that he’d called on the family lawyer to make sure James would never hunt Sydney down in such a way again.
Max had never left her side while she lay broken in the hospital bed. She’d awoken from her haze to see him bent over her bed, tears flowing freely as he bargained with God for her life. She’d tried to reach out to him, to tell him that she was fine, but her arms were impossibly heavy; her lips cracked and dry after weeks in a coma. All she had managed was a soft groan, which had Max standing straight up and running to call for a nurse. She was finally awake and the joy and relief were evident on his face. He touched her face, made her promises about their future together and she’d fallen back to sleep, the pain and broken bones too much for her to bear. She slipped in and out for days before she was finally able to stay awake long enough to start physical therapy. Within a week, she was ready to go home, and Max talked her into living on his sprawling ranch outside of Pinedale. The property edged up to the Wind River Range and went for as far as the eye could see. Sydney wasn’t sure if she was ready for forever, but the promise of a real bed and a home nurse to help her recover in the fresh mountain air was enticing, so she said yes.
Max devoted every waking minute to caring for her, carrying her out onto the porch each day so she could watch his horses and enjoy the warm sun. She hadn’t asked what he’d done with Concerto. She’d heard enough in the hospital as she slipped in and out to know that he’d been badly injured. There would never be another horse like him, and Sydney grieved for that quietly each night as she lay in bed. She’d ride again; her physical therapist had insisted that it would help her heal. But for now, just looking at the horses in the pasture tore at her heart.