Free My Heart Lingers (A Hearts of Misty Mesa Story): BWWM Interracial Romance by Brandi Boddie

they felt. I want to show you something.” He stopped his horse.
    Kyra pulled on the reins to get her mare to stop walking. “We’re going to be left behind.”
    “We’ll catch up. This is more important.” He reached into the saddlebag for a white envelope. The edges were slightly yellowed from age. He handed it to Kyra. “There’s a letter inside. My mother wrote it to me six months after I went off to Georgia Tech.”
    Kyra removed the letter from the envelope and read it. Her eyes zipped left and right across the words in faded black ink. Then he saw her slow her pace. Her gaze rested in one spot for a while. “Your mother writes, ‘I’m sorry you and Kyra are no longer together. Your father and I knew nothing about the circumstances surrounding her recent decision to leave town. We thought she was a nice girl, and we saw her beginning to mature. You were maturing, too. Our hope was for you both to continue in that direction together. If you speak to Kyra, please ask her to accept our apologies for making her feel uncomfortable. We were wrong. We see how you two once felt about each other. We want you and her to have the best.’” Kyra blinked and read it over again silently, her lips mouthing a word or two every now and then.
    Cole rested his hands on the pommel of the saddle. “You can see how my mother was stern even in her letters, but she wasn’t a liar. She meant every positive word in there about you.”
    “I…maybe so. Maybe she did. It makes me feel better.” Kyra was fumbling for words. Cole wanted to know how she really felt. Was it a bad idea to let her read the letter?
    She folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. She handed it to him. “How sweet of her to write you a letter while you were in college. It’s more personal than an email.”
    Cole shook his head. “No, Kyra. My mother wasn’t writing letters to me because she preferred them over emails. I wasn’t speaking to my parents at the time. I was angry at them.”
    She blinked. “For what?”
    “I thought they were the reason why you stopped seeing me and wouldn’t return my calls. I thought it was about the baby, that they may have convinced you to…” He couldn’t say it.
    “Convinced me to do what?” She pressed him to finish his sentence.
    He didn’t want to finish the sentence. It still pained him to utter the words to describe what took place right after he left home. “To go through with it.”
     
    ***
     
    Kyra’s lips parted. She sat frozen in the saddle as she stared at Cole. The warm sun hit her back but she felt chilled to the bone. Of all the things she expected to experience today on the ranch, this was by far the very last one. The old pain of her loss and the damaging rumors of abortion returned full force, seizing her lungs and wrapping around her throat. She drew a ragged breath to speak. “You lied to me, Cole. You told me you weren’t living in the past anymore, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. It’s all everyone in this town wants to do whenever they run into me.”
    “Kyra, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
    “I believe you do understand me, or at least you can see the pain I’m going through.” She felt the tears sting behind her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. Not now, not after what he said. The old rumors had more sway over him than anything happening in the present. He still acted and based his communication with her on them. “It’s been ten years. I’m tired of living with this shadow hanging over my head.” She tugged on one of the reins to make her horse turn around.
    “Wait.” Cole reached out his hand.
    “No. Please don’t try to stop me. I’m going home to finish the paperwork. It’ll be filed for you first thing on Monday morning. Then you and I won’t have anything more to say to each other.”
    She turned the horse for the stables, refusing to look over her shoulder at Cole.

 
     
     
Chapter 7
     
     
    Kyra glanced