Once a Heartbreaker by T.J. Kline

Author:T.J. Kline [Kline, T.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-10-11T17:02:47+00:00

Rayne took a step backward, unable to believe she was hearing Ty correctly.

“I didn't just come back here just to start a horse ranch. I came back hoping to find you. I had to know that you were happy. I knew you’d stay in touch with John and he could help me find you.”

“And if I'd still been married?”

Ty shrugged and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, looking lost and alone, and so much like the young man he'd been when he first arrived at the ranch, when she'd first met him. “Then I deserved to suffer in silence, knowing you were happy with someone else. I pushed away the best thing in my life that night, the only thing that ever made me feel whole.”

She let his words sink in, trying to comprehend everything he was confessing. He'd lied to her because he thought it was for her own good? He'd been willing to stay and watch her happy with someone else as a penance?

“You waited twelve years, Ty. Twelve. Why now?”

“Because I couldn't wait any longer.” He closed the distance between them, letting his hands fall to her waist. Not pulling her to him but not letting her run away either. “I spent every night of the last twelve years thinking about what could've been, what should've been.”

“You lied to me.”

“I know.”

“Did John know?” The muscle in his jaw ticked but he didn’t answer. Her heart stung at the thought of John lying to her as well. “Did he?”

Ty shook his head. “I never said anything, and he never asked, but I think he always suspected my reasons. Rayne, that night was the only time I've ever lied to you.”

She pressed her hands against his chest, needing space—to think, to breathe, to comprehend the fact that everything she'd believed about the last twelve years had been wrong. Instead of pushing him away as her mind wanted, her heart controlled her limbs, and she pulled Ty closer, her fingers clenching his shirt.

Logic begged her to do the smart thing, the safe thing, and walk away. Reason had been the one consistent she could rely on. Science, numbers and common sense ruled her world. They didn't change. Those things had carried her through veterinary school, through her failed marriage, and led her back to the one place she felt safe. And now, twelve years later, she finally understood why Ty had left. He’d been eighteen and suddenly injured, and while it could have been far more serious, it must have slapped him in the face with the fact that he wasn’t indestructible. In his young man’s mind, common sense meant doing what was best for her future, rather than their future. What might have seemed like sound judgment then, had been a huge mistake, which made the emotional pleading of her heart seem like the best choice to follow now.

It pounded out a rhythm against her ribs, matching Ty's heart beating beneath her hands. The man she'd grown up loving, had always loved, was telling her he'd never stopped loving her.

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