Page 23 of Untamed Heart

“Most love stories are.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes dramatically. “It’s not a love story, believe me,” I said dryly. “If anything, it’s a melodrama with a shitty ending.”

It was her turn to scoff. “Hate to break it to you, babe, but most love stories are rife with melodrama. But something tells me yours is far from over.”

I shook my head, trying to steel my words as I insisted, “Oh no. My story is long over.”

“I thought that too, after my first real heartbreak. I thought for sure I was done.”

I followed suit as she sat up, turning to face her before wrapping my arms around my bent knees and hugging them to my chest. “This was before Jase?”

She nodded again, a dreamy quality stealing over her features as she thoughts of her husband crossed her mind. I’d seen that look on her face many times. Just as I’d witnessed Jase’s complete inability to be in the same room as his wife and not touch her. The two of them were so sweet, so in love, that more than once, I’d experienced a pang of longing for what they had. You only had to be near them for a short time to see how much they loved each other. It was written in the way they looked at each other, especially when the other wasn’t watching.

“Yeah, but you obviously moved past it. I mean, you married the guy.”

“Not for love,” she stated, shocking the hell out of me. “Not at first, anyway.”

My curiosity was well and truly piqued. “What do you mean.”

“I mean, we didn’t marry for love. That came later. It’s a long story, but the short version is that Jase needed a wife to prove to his board of directors that he was more than just a playboy so he could take the company over from his father, who was a giant trash heap of a human being, by the way.”

My jaw nearly hit the ground. “So you married him to make him seem more serious?”

She nodded, smiling unabashedly. In fact, if the light had been better, I would have sworn her smile was tinged with triumph. “Sure did. And it was the best decision I ever made. Jase changed my life, and it was all for the better. Even during the hard times, even when we’re fighting more than usual, or when the stress has pushed us close to the breaking point. All of that is still better with him than if I was going it alone. I married him because he needed help. The love might have come later, but it came.” That dreamy expression returned to her pretty face. “And it came strong.”

That sounded like something out of a romance novel, and I loved that she found that. But… “That doesn’t mean it’s meant for me,” I said in a hushed voice. “My heart’s been broken so many times it’s being held together by glue and tape.”

Poppy pushed to her feet, dusting her behind off before reaching out and offering me a hand up. “Look, I’m not going to pretend to know what’s best for you, but I’ve caught the look on his face more than once as he’s cruised by, and that’s a face of a man who’s still very much in the thick of his feelings for you.”

She gave my arm and affectionate squeeze, and with that parting shot, left me standing in the middle of a peaceful meadow with a scrambled brain.

ELEVEN

DAKOTA

“This is getting ri-goddamn-diculous.I’m not an invalid.” My father’s booming voice carried from his room and halfway down the hall as I walked in that direction. “I don’t need a babysitter, for Christ’s sake. I can take care of myself.”

I reached the threshold to his room and had to curl my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing at the scene before me. As Ezra continued to bluster, the nurse checking his vitals couldn’t have looked more at ease. Which only seemed to agitate Ezra more.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I quirked a brow and spoke. “Yeah, you’re really proving how mature you can be by throwing a temper tantrum that would embarrass a toddler.”

The nurse’s gaze swung to me and she shot me a quick wink before returning to the business at hand.

Ezra’s pinched features automatically softened at the sight of me, the corners of his mouth hooking up into a grin that reminded me of just how handsome my father really was. For the first time since I returned to Ashland, he looked more like the man I remembered than the drawn-faced, pale man who’d been lying in his hospital bed. His color had returned, and thoseblue eyes he’d handed down to me were glimmering today, the dull haze of pain and medicine finally having cleared. He was, once again, his larger than life self, and if it wasn’t for the steel gray that had completely wiped out all the dark hair he once had and the reading glasses perched on his nose, I would have thought he hadn’t aged a day in the past sixteen years.

He tried to cover his happiness at seeing me with a fake scowl. “I’m a grown ass man. I don’t thrown temper tantrums.”

I snorted, moving into the room and dropping down into the chair beside his bed. “I’m sure everyone down the hallway would beg to differ.” I pointed my finger at his face. “See? You’re pouting right now.”

Ezra crossed his long arms over his chest, his biceps straining impressively, especially for a man in his mid-sixties “I don’t pout, either,” he grumbled, causing his pout to deepen.

“He’s just a getting a little stir-crazy, is all,” the polite nurse offered, turning to give his shoulder a pat despite his surliness. Anyone else would have most definitely been intimidated by a man Ezra Riley’s size, but I had a feeling this woman had seen her fair share of stuff as a nurse, and one cranky, cantankerous old man wasn’t going to faze her. The woman had my respect, that was for damn sure. Clearly, she was one of the people who’d found her calling if she could keep her cool in the face of a grumpy biker throwing his attitude around.

“That’s ’cause they’re tryin’ to kill me here. All this so-called healthy food”—he used air quotes around the last two words, saying them like they left a vulgar taste in his mouth—“would starve a goddamn rabbit. I needrealfood. But Nurse Ratched here kicks out everyone who tries bringing me some decent grub.”

I shot my father an admonishing look, but the one coming from the nurse was much more threatening. “Mr. Riley, you just underwent serious surgery to repair your heart. A double baconcheeseburger”—she curled her top lip much like Ezra did while mentioning health food—“and a large chili cheese fry will do nothing but clog up those arteries the doctor just cleared.”

I pulled in an affronted gasp and cut my eyes at my father. “Seriously? You tried to get someone to bring you in all that fried, greasy slop?”