Southern Seduction (57 page)

It sucked having her at college in New York City, but we got through it. A lot of people have problems with long-distance relationships, but Vi and I knew the drill from the times that she lived with her momma instead of being on the farm. As opposed to growing apart, we always seemed to get even closer because we worked harder at it and valued the time we had together more. At least… it felt like we had. Now, I question that.

Violet had changed during her final year of college, although not toward me. If anything, she had needed me more than ever. It all started when Vi’s older brother, Dustin, committed suicide. He did it while their momma, Greta, and her husband James, were on vacation in Europe. Dustin went to their apartment on the Upper West Side and hung himself. Violet’s little sister, Daisy, was the one to find him. Of course after she called the police, she called her big sister, and Vi went runnin’. She told me later that they were in the process of taking Dustin’s body down when she got there, but she still saw everything.

Vi is one of the strongest people that I’ve ever known, but she crumbled emotionally from the shock of seeing her brother like that. The hours it took for me to get on a flight and travel to New York ripped me apart inside because I knew my girl was falling apart. As soon as I got there, she attached herself to me and made me tell her, over and over again, that we would make it through together, no matter what. I’d never seen her like that, not even when her daddy had killed himself. In fact, when he went, Vi was surprisingly calm about it—although I guess that makes sense seein’ as how he had tried more than a half dozen times before.

After Dustin’s funeral, Vi’s emotions seemed to be stabilizing, but then things got worse again when Daisy up and left home at eighteen. Just got up and left with her skeezy club-promoter boyfriend. She dropped her little ass right out of school and moved out like it was nothin’. Vi was beside herself, and I didn’t blame her one bit. I love Daisy like a little sister, and her leaving with some scumbag didn’t sit well with me at all.

I spent just about every other weekend flying to New York City that year because Vi needed me with her, but just like every other situation we’d ever been through, it brought us closer together. Or, it did… until things went to shit five days before our wedding and she left me. Yeah, she’d been actin’ high-strung, but it wasn’t anything horrible. We went from planning for a tiny wedding with just the people closest to us to planning a wedding with two hundred guests. Vi was definitely feeling the pressure from Greta, who wanted some type of royal wedding for her daughter—even though Vi is country through-and-through and had only ever wanted the simplest of ceremonies.

Some couples would have fought about the big change in plans, but not Vi and I. The two of us were always on the same page, and if planning a big wedding made her feel closer to her momma, then so be it. The only thing that has ever mattered to me is Violet’s happiness, and the wedding was no different.

Aside from wedding planning, the biggest stressor for her was the distance between us while she was at school for those eight months after Dustin passed. Once she got home, you could almost see the weight lifting off of her shoulders. I truly thought that being home for good was makin’ her happy, but when her momma rolled into town to ‘help’ with the final wedding preparations, Vi got all keyed up again.

Still, I didn’t get upset because I figured that her momma was puttin’ wedding pressure on her. To be blunt, Greta isn’t my biggest fan. She’s always said that I’m nothing but a middle-class cowboy who isn’t good enough for her daughter. It hurt the first dozen times she said it—until Uncle Jonah explained to me that Greta didn’t hate me, she hates the town of Harmony and everything that it represents.

Greta is a city girl who married a country boy with mental problems. She truly believes that living in, “bum-fuck nowhere” made Jonah Jr. crazy, and she didn’t want her children to choose a life in the country. It never mattered what Greta’s prejudices were because Violet was always adamant that the life her momma wanted for her wasn’t the life that she herself wanted.

Her runaway bride act says that being a rancher’s wife wasn’t really what she wanted after all.

The whole thing is fucked up, and I’m not looking forward to her arrival. In ten days, we’re to be married down at the courthouse. She’s not even here yet, and I’m already steeling myself to be left at the altar again. I wish that I’d managed to forget—to change—the way that I feel about her, but so far, I haven’t had any success.

The truth is that my memories of Violet aren’t just in my head— they’re in my heart. I can drink until I fall down and black out—trust me, I’ve done it—but I can’t make my heart forget that its mate is gone. My heart is a stupid, stubborn son-of-a-bitch that just wants its other half back.

The sound of tires on the gravel comin’ down my driveway alerts me to the fact that she’s arrived. Every step I take toward the front door makes me nauseous, and I hate that my hands are shaking. Clenching my jaw and my fists, I roll my my neck on my shoulders and mentally holler at myself to man the fuck up. Forcing my face to adopt a bland expression, I open the door to see Violet coming up the front walkway, a large piece of rolling luggage trailing behind her. She’s as beautiful as ever—her long reddish brown hair shines in the sunlight and her jean shorts and crop top fit like a dream. Damn her, she’s even wearin’ what she knows is my favorite pair of her cowboy boots, and my dick is threatening to wake up in a big way.

When she looks up and I see her beautiful hazel eyes for the first time in three months, my heart stops beating and I struggle to catch my breath. It’s like a kick in the gut to see her—not ten feet from me—and know that if our future had unfurled the way it was supposed to, I’d be looking at my
wife
. Damn her to hell, she destroyed me, destroyed
us
, by leaving.

Hardening my heart to her, I step out onto the wrap-around porch to greet her. Ignoring the sheen of tears in her eyes— either guilt or, worse, pity for me, I’m sure—I show no emotion at all.

Giving a stiff nod of my head I say, “Violet.”

I don’t elaborate or say more—that’s on her. Looking over her shoulder, I see Uncle Jonah and Violet’s sister, Daisy, watching us from the front seat of his car. Uncle Jonah stares at me for a few seconds—a look that seems to be meant to convey something, but what, I don’t know—and then he puts the car into gear and pulls away.

Turning back to Violet, I watch as she brushes a stray tear from her cheek. Every fiber of my being wants to comfort her, but I force myself not to act on it. Violet and I are
over
, and the sooner I find a way to be okay with that, the better off I will be. No matter if she marries me now or not, I know better than to let my guard down around her.

I startle when she takes a step toward me and raises her hand toward my face. Taking a step back I snap, “Don’t touch me.”

She lets out a choked sob as two more tears run down her cheeks. “Ry… please—don’t do this. I’m so sorry that I…”

I’m not interested in her apology at all. If anything, the idea of her givin’ one to me makes me feel like I just drank a fifth of some cheap ass rot gut. “Really, Violet?
Really?
You’re
sorry
?”

Her tears are flowing steadily now, and she looks awful. The sight of her upset is actually physically painful for me, and I clench my fists and grit my teeth to keep from comforting her. Seeing her isn’t just causing me pain—it’s making me angry. My hurt, humiliation, despair and rage all come together and start to boil over as I stare at her.

“What, exactly, are you sorry for, Violet? Are you sorry that you said yes when I asked you to marry me? Or are you sorry that we actually set a date and were going to take vows? Are you sorry that you left me a note like a fucking coward and then disappeared into thin fuckin’ air? What’s done is done, and I have no interest in your apology. I’ve got no choice but to marry you now, but I do have a choice about what I’m willing to listen to. Your time for apologies was three months ago.”

Storming past her, I grab her suitcase and drag it into the house. Without pausing, I storm up the stairs and take her case into the guest room. Hoisting it up, I drop it onto the bed. Turning around, I find her standing uncertainly in the doorway. Gesturing around the room I snap, “I’d say that I hope the accommodations suit you, but I really don’t care. Feel free to do whatever you want to the room. It’s yours for the duration.”

Twisting her hands together anxiously, she stares at me with a shocked look on her face as she walks into the room. “Why did you agree to marry me if you don’t have any intention of us being a real couple?”

The question is so off-the-wall that I laugh, harshly, in her face. “This is kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, Violet. Why did you agree to marry me when you didn’t have any intention of following through?”

Hugging her arms around herself, she sobs brokenly, seemingly incapable of words. Realizing that she can’t answer the question because she’s too upset, it hits me straight on that I can’t stand in the room for another second without comforting her. Since that shit
cannot
happen, I walk past her in order to leave. As I get to the door, so damn close to escape, she grabs my arm and stops me. Even just this simple touch on my arm makes my heart beat funny in my chest. I’d know this woman’s touch anywhere.

“Turn around and
look at me
, Ryder. Don’t walk away.”

Her words make me irrationally angry. Spinning on my heel, I glare at her. “Who are you to tell me not to walk away? Did you know that people took to callin’ you Vanishing Violet? I’ve been the subject of town gossip for the last three months, Violet—because
you
walked away and disappeared into thin fuckin’ air. Did you really think for one minute that I would welcome you back with open arms?”

She shakes her head emphatically, but can’t seem to find any words to say. The sight of her tears keeps hitting me like a kick in the nuts. Frustrated with her silence, I snap.

“What do you want, Vi? Absolution? If that’s what this is, you’re shit out of luck because I can’t give that to you. Do you want to know that you destroyed me? That havin’ you leave me behind without any explanation ripped my heart out of my fucking chest? You were my
life
, Violet, and you took something I believed was beautiful and made it ugly. You didn’t even give me a warning, didn’t have the courtesy, the human fucking decency, to talk to me about it or clue me in to the fact that you didn’t love me anymore and didn’t want to be my wife. You should have fucking told me—to my face—that your feelings had changed. It would have saved me a lot of fuckin’ humiliation.”

When she opens her mouth and reaches out for me again, I snap. Furious with myself that I’ve just admitted to her that she destroyed me, I slam out of the bedroom and run out of the house to the stables. I’ll deal with Vi another day. Right now, I just need to get away from her because it’s all too much.

A repetitive series of sounds wakes me up. Cracking one eye open, I look at my bedside clock and see that it’s after one in the morning. Sitting up, I listen and try to identify the noise. Within thirty seconds I realize that it’s the sound of crying, and I know that it’s Violet since we’re the only people in the house. I avoided her by not comin’ back home until well after dinner and when I got here, I headed into my office and stayed there until I came to bed.

My knee jerk response kicks in and before I even realize that I’m doing it, I am up, out of my room and openin’ the door to the bedroom that she’s in. As is her usual, she’s gone to bed and left the television on mute. The light from the television illuminates the room and I see that she’s curled up around a pillow, crying her eyes out.

My heart doesn’t care that she’s hurt me, and within seconds I am on the bed and pulling her into my arms. Call me a sucker, but I hate seeing this woman upset. I shiver when she climbs into my lap and wraps her arms around me tightly, crying against my chest as I rock her back and forth and make soothing noises. This whole thing is reminiscent of how she was after Dustin committed suicide, and I wonder if she’s been doin’ this the entire time that she’s been gone.