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Chapter Fifteen

Dallas

Usually, going to my uncle’s ranch is one of my favorite things. But my head is somewhere else. I really messed things up last night, and it isn’t so much how I acted as why I acted that way.

When she kissed me earlier today, it was like an electric shock to my system.

I bought you that present. I made you that cake.

I might as well have sat down on the ground and thrown a tantrum at her. Hell, I practically did last night.

I did all that for her, and she paid attention to another man, because he was flirting with her, and I wasn’t.

But she kissed me.

A little peck on the lips that would mean nothing for most women, but from Sarah…

I know how precious touch is to her. The problem is, what I really wanted to do was grab the back of her head and keep her from pulling away. What I really wanted to do was deepen the kiss, part my lips, and claim her mouth as my own…

Fuck .

“Fuck!” Right as I finish thinking the expletive, I bring a hammer down on my thumb, pretty much smashing it all the hell and obliterating every thought in my brain. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe I should be grateful.

Grateful for the pain.

“You good?”

I look over my shoulder to see my uncle Wyatt standing there, staring at me in amusement.

“Totally fine,” I say.

“Has it been this long since you did any real ranch work, rhinestone cowboy?”

“No,” I say.

“Rhinestone cowboy,” Uncle Grant says. “Good one.”

“Oh, be nice to him,” my dad says.

“Why?” Grant asks. “Because he’s a champion bull rider millionaire?”

“No,” Dad says, reaching over and bumping the cowboy hat on my head. “Because he’s just a little kid.”

“All right,” I say. “All of you settle down. You’re worse than all the kids.”

And there were a lot of kids. I’m pretty much beset by little cousins at this point. I don’t mind it. But I’m the oldest by quite a bit.

I didn’t know Wyatt before he was with his wife, Lindy. She was apparently married to the biggest jackass on the planet, and my uncle was her knight in shining armor. To hear him tell it.

And she lets him tell it that way, so I have to assume it’s close enough to the truth.

They all have what I want. This kind of stable, happy life, complete with the right kind of person by their side, who makes them better.

“Did you break it?” Wyatt asks me.

I forgot about my thumb for a second.

“No,” I say, looking down at my swollen thumb. “It’s not broken. It just hurts.”

“Well, I’m about done for the day anyway,” Wyatt says. “It’s getting too warm. We can stop by the house and have some beer.”

“Oh. I’ve probably got to get back. I promised Sarah that I’d bring her some dinner.”

Grant and Wyatt exchange a glance. “Sarah?”

“His friend,” my dad says quickly.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say. Though a bit dry, since the way he said it almost made it sound even more like she was my girlfriend than if he hadn’t said anything at all.

“You’re getting on in years,” Wyatt says, clapping his hand on my back. “It might be time for you to settle down.”

“Yeah, no,” I say, but I’m thinking about Sarah, and the way her lips felt against mine.

“I got married young,” Grant says. “I don’t regret it.”

I know for him it’s complicated. But I can understand that.

I knew Uncle Grant before he married his wife, McKenna.

But he was married before that. I never knew his high school sweetheart, who died of cancer not long after they got together.

I don’t know his whole story, but I do know that he was pretty much a monk until he met McKenna.

I remember that version of him. Prickly and difficult, and he’s basically like a different person now.

He has little kids, he’s in love. He smiles now, which he never did before .

“That’s great. But I’m kind of doing the rodeo thing right now, and…”

“I think the bull riders get too much action for him to consider settling down is what he’s saying,” and I turn and look at my dad with what I know is an incredulous expression on my face, because I can’t even believe that he would acknowledge such a thing.

“What?” he asks.

Sadly for him, I know more about his personal history than that. I know how he dated a woman named Olivia for years and she was making him wait till marriage to have sex. My dad is not an anonymous hookup type.

The truth is, I’m not really either. I’ve done it, but it doesn’t make me feel great. I’ve done it, but it makes me feel lonely and a little bit sad.

“Let him have fun,” Wyatt says. “Having spent some time playing the field myself, I endorse it. Because then you really know what you have when you finally do settle down. Also, you never know, the woman for you may not be ready to be yours yet, so you have to wait sometimes.”

I think about Sarah. About that kiss.

About how young she is, and how much shit she’s already been through.

“Lindy was married when I met her,” Wyatt says.

“When I saw her for the first time that night she walked into that bar, I thought my whole life had been turned upside down, and then she was off limits. But eventually, she wasn’t.

Eventually, that feeling I had the first time I saw her, it made sense.

It wasn’t really love at first sight, I guess, but it was a recognition of something.

That something grew into love. When it was time. ”

I snort and try to use the force of it to take some of the weight off my chest. “That’s your endorsement? Play the field while I wait around for some woman to be into me?”

“Worked for me,” he says.

I grimace, but there’s something about what he said that keeps on tugging at me, and does the whole way home.

There are clouds gathering just over the top of the mountains, which isn’t my favorite thing.

You would think that a little bit of rain in the middle of summer would be nice. But if it gets too dry, we just end up with heat lightning and not quite enough rain. When that happens, a lightning strike can set the forest ablaze, which isn’t ideal for anyone.

It’s getting more and more humid, the air heavy with the scent of impending rain.

I pull my truck into the driveway and just let it sit.

I decide that I don’t want to go into the house, not just yet.

There’s something inside me that feels raw and edgy, and I’m thinking way too much about the kiss for my own liking.

So I get out of the truck, and walk down the trail that leads to the swimming hole just behind my dad’s house.

I strip my shirt off, my jeans, my boots. I leave my black boxers on and throw myself into the water. I submerge myself in the icy cold, hoping that it will wash away all the confusion inside of me.

It’s not working, not so far.

For a moment I hold my breath, and I imagine letting the water drag me down. I feel like I’m floating in space, but I’m not alone. She’s there. She’s always there.

I find myself kicking back up to the surface, breaking through and gasping for air.

The thunder rolls overhead, ominous. I don’t need to be in a fucking swimming hole during a thunderstorm. That’s asking for trouble .

But then, that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? Asking for trouble.

I grit my teeth and I swim toward the shore.

I get out, and I collect my clothes. Strip my underwear off, put my jeans on.

My skin is slightly soggy, and it’s not the most comfortable thing.

But I grimace and pull on my T-shirt. I need to go get dinner.

I made the excuse that I couldn’t stick around at my uncle’s place because of dinner, but my head is just so full of so many things, that I didn’t even do that.

I feel like I’m spinning out. Everything I did with her yesterday was wrong.

I don’t know how everything with her can feel so right in so many ways, and I can still be so wrong. I don’t know how I can want to protect her and then also say the kinds of things I said to her yesterday. I don’t understand what she does to me.

When we were kids, our relationship was fraught and intense, yes, but I felt like that was because of the world around us.

Maybe we’re just shaped into fraught and feral things.

Maybe there is no coming back from it. No changing it. Maybe it’s too late for us to become anything better. Maybe it’s too late for us to become anything healthier. Maybe between the two of us, it will always be bad patterns.

But then, I think about us watching Lord of the Rings. Then, I think about the two of us together, at my parents’ dinner table, and when we’re alone, and I think maybe we can’t be entirely broken.

How can anything that feels that good be broken?

I suck in a sharp breath and walk back down the road toward the cabin. The sky opens up, water drops landing on my neck, my shoulder, rolling down my back. The air is thick with heat, and now the smell of rain, the scent of the pine trees soaking in all that much-needed moisture.

I put my head down and let the rain pour over me.

By the time I get back to the cabin, I’m soaked to the bone.

I need to go inside and change, then I need to drive down and get us a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, or something. But before I reach the porch steps, the door opens, and Sarah comes out.

I stop right where I am, looking up at her, the rain rolling down my face. I see a fire in her eyes. Something determined. Something intense. I see her make a decision. And then she flies down the stairs and up against my body. I catch her, on instinct, wrapping my arms around her waist.

Then she stretches up on her toes, and she kisses me.

Deep and long and slick in the rain. This isn’t a kiss between friends.

She’s changed the rules.

She’s changed everything.

She’s changed me.