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There wasn’t anything wrong with Jess. She was a great roommate and a good friend, but she was a little on the abrupt side. No frills or beating around the bush with that one.

“You’re not ancient. You’re not even thirty.”

Sure, their biological clocks were ticking, but Remi wasn’t in any hurry to have a family. Well, a family sounded great, but she had enough baggage to tear up anything that resembled a happy family.

There was a natural order to building a legacy. First comes love, second comes marriage…

And that’s where it all went sideways. Remi would have to trust in the sanctity of marriage to have a family, and not even Colt could make her believe that any man would put up with her for eternity.

N-O. No.

She was doing everyone a favor, really. She was safer alone where she wouldn't disappoint anyone.

She was safer alone where she couldn’t hurt anyone.

Not that it had hurt when her mom left her. It was all she knew, really. Remi could hardly blame the woman.

Remi glanced at Colt where he’d dozed off in the chair. Even in sleep, his brow was furrowed from pain. His dark-brown hair was rumpled from his hat, and a smudge of dirt streaked across his cheek.

She was going to lose him, and there wasn’t anything she could do to hang onto her best friend once the right woman came along. The friendship she had with Colt was unparalleled, but the stark reality was that she couldn’t keep him forever.

Remi’s phone rang, and she scrambled to get it out of her pocket before Colt woke up. She’d just answered the call when Colt sat up.

“Hello.”

“Where are you?” Jess asked.

The abrupt greeting wasn’t bristly to Remi, though it might seem like it to someone who didn’t know Jess. There just wasn’t anything extra with her. She said what was on her mind and moved on.

“Colt’s place. We’re watching the Cardinals game.”

Colt stood and stretched one side before walking over to sit on the coffee table in front of her. His dark stare held her paralyzed, and a prickling sensation shot up her spine.

She quickly slapped a hand over her eyes. No, he was not going to start a staring contest and get her all flustered while she was trying to have a semi-normal conversation with Jess.

Colt loved playing games, but his games always left her raw and exposed. It wasn’t that way for him, but he always looked at her as if he could read the thoughts in her mind.

The hand over the eyes said she wasn’t playing right now. Not that she wouldn’t win. She would totally win. She just couldn’t focus on her conversation with Jess when Colt was looking at her thoughts like they were swimming in a fish tank.

“Don’t wake me up when you come in. I got roped into an early trail ride in the morning,” Jess said.

“Night, night, sleeping beauty,” Remi crooned.

Jess grumbled and ended the call.

Remi let out a long breath and let her hand fall from her eyes. Was she ready to let down those walls?

Colt leaned forward, propping his good elbow on his knee. Did he have any idea what happened to her carefully constructed fortress when he got close like this?

“Jess and Linc are basically the same person,” Colt said.

Normal talk. She could handle that. “You’re right. The only difference is I can put up with Jess, and you can’t handle Linc.”

“I can. He’s just too…”

“Unemotional?” Remi finished.

Colt had a lot of feelings for a gruff man in his late twenties. He wasn’t a crier, but he felt things more than other men. Maybe all men had feelings, and Colt was just one of the few who expressed them in words. She never had to wonder what Colt was thinking. He always told her.