Hidden Treasure(37)

As he leapt down from the horse, Brielle woke up, though she was disoriented as he lifted her down effortlessly and cradled her in his arms. He didn’t know how he’d gone from furious with her to worried, but there it was.

She leaned against him, still half asleep, as he walked through her front door, and he steadily made his way to the living room and sat down on the couch with her still in his arms. She appeared so vulnerable, and it was something in her he’d never seen before.

He hated that his words had done this to her, made this strong woman so weak — even if he knew it was bound to be temporary. She wasn’t the spoiled little city girl he’d first thought she was. There was a lot more to Brielle than she wanted the world to see, and all of a sudden Colt found that he wanted to see beneath the layers of protection she’d built around herself and discover who she truly was.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

Her question startled him from his thoughts, but she was asking and she deserved an honest answer. “I want to know more about you — the real you, not this spoiled little girl you try to show everyone.”

“How do you know that’s not me?” She couldn’t hide the pain in her voice.

“I don’t,” he said, and he felt her recoil. “But I have a good feeling that it’s an act, like I said a couple of weeks ago. I’d just really like to know why you feel the need to put on such a facade.”

If he was honest with her, maybe she’d reciprocate. He practically held his breath as he waited for her to speak. He could feel her pulse increase. Had it really been so long since she’d opened up that she didn’t know how to do it anymore?

“You can talk to me, Brielle. It won’t leave this room,” he vowed. “I know you don’t know me, but once I give my word, I don’t break it.”

“You’re right. I don’t know you. I don’t let myself know anyone,” she said with a sigh.

“Why? You’re obviously beautiful, intelligent, full of spirit, and that’s just scratching the surface. Why do you feel you have to act like someone you aren’t?”

Brielle sighed again. “Do you know that I have four brothers?”

“No. I knew you had siblings. I met your father. There was something he said about you all being spoiled and needing to grow up before it was too late. I wasn’t in the best of moods when I spoke to him,” Colt said. What he didn’t say was why he’d been in such a bad mood. If she knew it was because he’d just learned that the land he wanted had been sold out from under him, she’d close up faster than a Venus flytrap with a fresh kill.

“Well, I do have four brothers. We used to be so close…” she began, then stopped to pull herself together. “My mother took off when I was only three. I guess she’d had enough of being with us. I never knew her. My oldest brothers have vague memories, but I have nothing, not even a memory of her smile from back then. I was so little. There are pictures, of course, but I never look at them. She betrayed me, betrayed us all. It was even worse because when I was growing up, all my friends had moms. I didn’t understand why I didn’t.”

She choked up for a moment. Colt didn’t say a word, just found himself holding her close to his chest while he ran his fingers through her hair.

“I miss them, you know.”

“Miss who?”

“My brothers, even my dad. I never say that out loud, never admit to anyone that I miss them, that I need them. If I admit it, then I hurt, and I’ve hurt enough already to last me a lifetime. Before this last year I hadn’t shed a single tear since I was thirteen years old.”

“Not one tear? Not even when you got hurt?”

“Nope. Not a single tear.”

“What was so significant when you were thirteen?”

She was silent for so long that Colt knew that whatever she was going to say would make a difference. He just didn’t know which of them it would actually change.

“That was when I found my mom.”

Colt sat there and waited. Something traumatic must have happened to make her feel the need to become so determined to hide who she really was. The air around them was so thick, it felt like an actual weight on his shoulders.

She started to squirm in his arms. “You don’t really want to hear this, Colt.”

He continued caressing her hair as he said, “I really do, Brielle. Open up to me. It will help.”

“But I don’t even know you.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to open up to someone you don’t know, because there isn’t that fear of being judged the rest of your life.”