Free Love me ... Again by Delka Beazer Page B

. He speeds off toward the foot of the mountain. I watch him go towards the flames, and my heart begins to ache in my throat.
    “Follow him if you want!” Marjorie snaps behind me. She is telling me to choose now. I turn and start to do just that when Jett comes out of nowhere and blocks me.
    His eyes are circles of rolling fury, there is no love for me there on the surface. He snarls between clenched teeth, “You owe me an explanation,” he grinds out. The muscles in his jaw pulse and throb with caged emotions, he clicks his horse into a gallop, throws over his shoulder at me, “later.” The ominous words hang like trails of acid smoke behind him.
    Sorrow claws at me. I have chosen. I cry out after him, “I’m so sorry!”
    I stiffen as the words stop him, he pulls so hard on the reins of the horse, the animal pivots back.  Its front hooves claw viciously at the air above him. Jett swings back to me, his mouth works but even with the yards between us his blue eyes are brilliant with pain and betrayal.
    He comes back to me, searches my burning eyes, “I love you,” his voice wavers and he sucks in a ragged breath to bring it back under his control. His eyes turns savage, shivers run down my spine as I see the uncanny resemblance between him and his brother, “I won’t let that go without a fight Angie,” he finishes coldly.
    I quiver under his withering eyes, find my voice, “Jett … I’ve screwed up.”
    “Yes!” he roars, the raw sound reveals that beneath his stubborn pride, he is close to breaking down. The young, merry boy I’d fallen in love with during our Junior year stares back at me. His eyes are bright but not one tear drop falls, he shakes his head and gets himself back under control. When he looks up at me again, I wince in dismay, his words confirm my fears.
    “I won’t let you go,” he says again fiercely and rides off for real. Leaving me miserable and ripped apart. I open my mouth to say, it’s not your decision , but it’s useless, he won’t care and he won’t listen. God! What am I going to do?
    Marjorie comes up to me, her eyes are icicles, “I want you gone from my family the moment we get this herd under control,” her words feel like a dash of cold water.
    It’s another self-inflicted wound. Having her respect if not love would’ve been enough but there is no longer any chance of that. Still no one dictates my life. I hold her loathing look, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done but nobody’s gonna tell me what to do with my life.”
    She snorts, a contemptuous, derisive expression of exactly how she feels about me.  Unexpectedly her ice blue gaze softens just a crack, “My sons are irresistible,” she says straight-faced. Her mouth turns bitter, “but you’ve hurt both of them. And they won’t share. They never have.”
    Her words are the last straw, they snap the flimsy thread of control I’m grasping on to. I turn from her, lash my horse and race away blindly. Yards fly away beneath me and belatedly the river grows up ahead as I follow a small herd of cattle heading towards the safest place on the valley floor.

Chapter ten
     
     
    Hours pass, dragging us from dawn towards early afternoon. Marjorie and I herd the cattle the men drive our way towards the salvation of the river. Six hundred head of hurt and frightened cattle mill noisily around me. I patrol the frighten beasts as they try to break loose and head blindly back up the mountain into danger. Marjorie puts her nursing skills to work and tends to the wounded beasts. Even on the outside of the herd, the smell of charred hide brings bile to my parched, burning throat. I ignore it and with grimy hands I impatiently brush trickles of sweat from my hot brow.
    I turn towards the mountain. For the thousandth time. My frown deepens. Colt had said its name was, Devil’s Middle , an apt description I think sourly. The bright flames cloaked by a thick cloud of smoke are raging around the tree-lined center. We’re