GRACE
Ididn’t want to admit it to myself, but it was incredibly hot watching Ty get worked up over my mother and then him and Duke escort her off the ranch. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he made his way back to me.
As soon as he was close enough, he reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand. “Are you okay, beautiful?”
“Mmm hmm.” I pulled him down for a kiss. I needed to feel his lips on mine.
I couldn’t believe my mother had tracked me down. I was so careful with not answering her calls. I didn’t want her to know I wasn’t training with Charlie anymore. I didn’t want her to know that he had dropped the whole team and possibly ruined my chances for the Olympics. She would have twisted it into my fault. Just like she always did.
I hated that she came here and treated me like a child. I hated that she was so demeaning and cruel to Blake. What frustrated me the most was that she couldn’t take a minute to look around and see I was happy here, but she wasn’t like that. She only believed I was happy when I was doing exactly what she wanted me to do.
Scott came out of the barn and stopped when he saw all of us grouped together. “I was putting some poultice on Storm’s leg. What did I miss?”
I shook my head. Of course, he was. My sweet man had been taking care of my horse, and Ty had been here next to me, making sure I knew he would defend me if I needed him to.
I looked to my left. Travis and Gavin were comforting Blake. Good. My sister didn’t deserve that. She’d done nothing wrong to deserve our mother’s wrath. Blake was more of a mother to me growing up than that woman. It made my heart break when I thought about how there was no one to support or care for Blake while growing up. I at least had her. She had no one.
The more I thought about it, the more depressed I got. She was still my mother and had helped get me to where I was today. Maybe not to King’s Ranch, but on my way to the Olympics. I hated the part of me that felt like I still owed her.
I sighed. Why couldn’t I stop feeling guilty?
We said our goodbyes to Blake and the guys and made our way to the house. Scott said the stable hand was going to take the boots off Storm and put them away when it was time. I was grateful there were many hands here willing to help. I was mentally drained, and once we got inside the house, I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave again tonight. If we were going to start working Storm tomorrow, I needed to get some rest in order to keep up.
We left our boots in the mudroom, and I made my way to the couch.
“Nope,” Scott said and tossed me over his shoulder. “Time to unwind in a nice hot shower.”
“Yes, please. But you know I can walk, right?” I grabbed his ass. It was far too tempting this close to my face.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Ty laughed and followed us to his bathroom. Ty’s shower was the biggest, but Scott’s was the one with the tub.
They set me down and quickly relieved me of my clothes. Ty turned on the water, and the room filled with steam. After the two of them stripped down, Scott helped me into the shower stall and washed my hair. Ty stepped in and lathered up my body. It felt good to be pampered by them. I wish it could be like this all the time.
By the time we finished our shower, the water had gone cold against my heated skin. The three orgasms made it where I hadn’t even noticed the change in temperature until Ty and Scott pulled away from me to grab the towels.
After the fun was over, the awkward silence rolled in. We threw on clothes and made our way to the living room. I could tell the guys were trying not to talk about what had happened at the barn, but it was killing me.
“I’m sorry about what happened. My mother can be a handful,” I said after the guys sat down on the couch.
“A handful? No offense, beautiful, but your mother is horrible. How do you put up with her?” Ty sat forward on the edge of the cushion.
I shrugged. That was such a loaded question. “She’s my mother.”
“I thought you wanted to take control of your life. I thought you wanted to do things for yourself. You wanted to move forward. She is not helping you. That woman is controlling, and you need to break away from her.” He pointed toward the window as if she were standing on the porch.
“I can’t do it.” She may be all the things he just said, but I couldn’t just walk away from her. It wasn’t that simple.
“Grace, she may be your mother, but she doesn’t treat you like a mother should. You or Blake.”
“I’m not ready. I can’t just walk away after all she’s done for me. She’s partially right. I wouldn’t be where I was without her support.” I threw my arms up.
“Grace, I know it’s hard to finally decide they have no control over you. Trust me. I did it with my parents. My father was controlling and manipulative. I got out from under his thumb when I graduated high school. You need to leave your mother behind in order to start taking control, otherwise you will never get away.” Ty’s voice rose louder with each word.
He was so loud I cringed. He’d never raised his voice to me before, and it was pissing me off. He didn’t understand, or he’d never ask me to cut my mother out.
“I said I’m not ready.” I turned to face him. Anger tightened my face, and my next words flew out without thought. “And yelling at me to do something I don’t want to do sounds a lot like you are trying to control me, too.”
Ty reared his head back as though I’d slapped him across the face. I hadn’t meant it. I knew deep down he wasn’t trying to control me. He was trying to help, but he was pushing me to do something I wasn’t ready for, and it felt suffocating.
“Grace, you know I wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do.” Ty lowered his voice.
And still the words flowed out of me. I wished he’d just let this go. “It sure doesn’t seem like it to me right this very moment.”
“Grace…” Scott said in a low tone, but I ignored him.