Page 16 of Knot Her Cowboys (Big Sky Omegas #2)

I ’d been feeling twitchy all morning, too restless to stay in bed. Two more flower crowns had joined the first, though that one was wilted since I’d made it too early. Others from years past had been dried and hung up at home, a painful memory I relived each year before hiding it away.

Before everyone had woken, I’d borrowed Pumpkin, disappearing into the silence of the early dawn. Flowers greeted me along the hillsides, and I wove them together while I walked, Pumpkin staring up at me every so often like she was concerned about my mental well-being. Rightly so, if she was.

“Do you want a flower crown too?” I looped the current crowns over my arm and snatched up a fistful of grasses I could braid together into a dog-sized crown.

She tried to bite it a few times before I planted it on top of her head.

“There we go. Princess Pumpkin. At least someone is getting to wear these crowns.”

I hated this time of year. This day specifically, because no matter how much I tried to move on, Riley’s absence had my thoughts as morose as a Poe poem.

Therapy had never helped. Staying busy hadn’t either.

A piece of me was missing and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop my body’s reaction to that.

Riley was like a phantom limb, a pain that lingered despite the source being gone.

Pumpkin caught me up in my head, taking the opportunity to clean my whole face before I managed to get to my feet.

“That was gross and helpful,” I said with a laugh, collecting her crown that had fallen into the dirt. “Thank you for your service. Should we get you back for your breakfast?”

Her tail wagged double time at the mention of food.

“All right, let’s go.”

We made our way back together, and I left the crowns stacked on top of one of the picnic tables before heading into the main lodge.

“There’s our puppynapper,” Morgan greeted me as Pumpkin tippy-tapped her way into the kitchen. “Hello, sweet girl. Did you have a good walk with Uncle Cooper at the ass crack of dawn?”

“We did,” I answered for her.

“Coffee is ready,” Ryder told me.

I poured myself a cup and sat at their table.

“I have to go get set up for the sunrise photos,” Morgan told me. “I’ll see you after that, and we can hang out.”

“I was thinking I might head home early.”

“Yeah?”

“We were booked solid this weekend. I feel bad disappearing to be sad.”

“But it’s not a surprise that you do that. They have a full staff, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but I feel guilty anyway.”

“Well, I won’t stop you if you want to go back, but we both know they can handle things.”

“I’ll get out of your hair.”

Morgan flicked me hard in the forehead. “Cooper, I swear to god. You are always welcome. Don’t even try to pretend we don’t love having you here. If you’d rather go be sad at home, that’s fine, but I promise you are more than welcome to be a sad sack here.”

I abandoned my coffee, pulling her into a hug. “I know. You’re the best sister. I am going to head out, though. Maybe I can smother my feelings with some hard labor.”

“Okay. Drive safe then.”

“I will.” I finished up my coffee and packed up the few things I’d brought, grabbing the flower crowns on my way just to torture myself a little more.

The drive was long and quiet, the cheerful flowers sitting atop my weekend bag, mocking me. Just one hint of her was all I asked for. Maybe the universe would take pity on me.

Who was I kidding? The universe didn’t give a shit.

The ranch was already bustling when I pulled around the back of the big house, slipping in quietly through the door.

Silence met me inside, along with a sweet floral scent that lingered in the air and took my knees right out from under me.

The crash of them against the floor was a sharp anchor as my anxiety threatened to pop my head clean off, to make my heart break right through my ribs.

Oh, good. A panic attack. Exactly what I needed right now.

Familiar and foreign all at once, the scent dug straight into the core of my being, taking up residence in the aching empty space.

What the fuck?

I braced my palms against the smooth wood, struggling to get my breathing under control. Leaving my bag where it was, I stumbled to my feet, using the wall for balance as I followed the scent up the stairs.

It was most potent outside Cash’s door, but lightly faded, hanging in the air like a ghost that called to me.

Politeness demanded I knock, but instinct wanted me to throw myself against the door and bust it open. I settled on the compromise of opening it silently, breath lodged in my throat.

A dark head popped up at the sudden invasion of light from the hall and my vision tunneled.

“ Riley ?” I croaked out.

She was here?

Cash sat up sharply, blinking clarity into his eyes.

“Cooper?” Riley reached for me, the blanket sliding down to reveal bare skin.

She was naked .

In Cash’s bed.

Riley.

My Riley…

I turned on my heel, desperate to be able to breathe again and knowing I couldn’t do so while seeing her there. I almost met my maker on the stairs, but the banister saved me as I recovered from the stumble and sprinted out into the early morning.

“Cooper!” Footsteps thundered after me, first Cash in only his underwear, then Riley wearing one of his T-shirts.

I swung before good sense caught up with me, pain radiating up my arm as I connected with Cash’s face. Riley shrieked the same time Cash grunted. “What the fucking fuck is the matter with you? What is she doing here?”

God, why did looking at her hurt so much? Her dark eyes were wide, her hair a ruffled mess tumbling over her shoulders, and her feet bare in the dirt.

“Cooper, stop! Please.” Riley put herself between Cash and me, shouting for Dakota and Levi. She looked at me with some horrific combination of fear and guilt, none of the lost love and desperate longing I had always hoped to see in her eyes when we met again. “Cashy, are you okay?”

He groaned, cupping his face. “I’ll survive.”

I slid to my knees, ice hardening in my veins, control of my body slowly relinquishing to the crushing panic.

Riley dropped into the dirt next to me, trying to force me to lift my head and see her, but I couldn’t. “Cooper, you look at me right now.”

I let the weight of my head drop into her hands and she forced it up. I had dreamed so long of her being here, touching me just like this, but it was nothing like I had imagined. All the pain of losing her coalesced into these few seconds, overwhelming in its potency.

Levi and Dakota arrived, both kneeling next to us.

“You’re home early,” Dakota pointed out, as if my arrival was the problem and not what I had discovered.

Riley latched on to me, both arms wrapped around my head, pressing my ear to her chest where her broken, crackly purr tried to break through the chaos in my brain.

“Cooper, breathe,” Levi demanded.

I couldn’t. Every inhalation smelled like her.

Levi smacked a hand against my back, forcing out a cough, the air I drew in filling me with Riley.

It was as soothing as it was agonizing, fate proving to me once and for all that she had always been meant for me, a scent match I had recognized from the start, like Kit had suggested.

Except she had been here long enough to get into bed with my best friend, our best friend, assuming she even considered him that anymore.

“Cooper.” Riley’s voice was loud against my ear. “You have to breathe for us, okay?”

I locked my arms around her, desperation outweighing everything else.

Was she actually real?

She felt real, solid and warm, just like I remembered her.

“Breathe,” she crooned.

I pulled in one ragged breath at her command, fighting against the metaphorical ice encasing me, letting the scent of lupines melt me from the inside out.

Her essence charged through my panic with a sledgehammer, busting down the walls of anxiety, cracking through all of that ice until I was shaking, clinging to her like she was the one anchor that would keep me from disappearing entirely.

“When?” Forming the word felt like a monumental task.

“She got here on Friday,” Cash confessed, sitting far enough away I couldn’t reach him for another swing.

Friday.

She’d been here for two days and they didn’t tell me…

“We were going to call you today when she woke up,” Dakota told me. “We weren’t expecting you home until tonight.”

She smelled like Cash, and not just because she was wearing his clothes. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the edge of a fresh bond bite and snared my fingers in the collar of the shirt, tugging down to reveal it. I tried to pull away, but Riley was on me like a barnacle.

“Cooper, give them a chance to explain.”

“Go ahead, then,” I growled. “ Tell me why you hid her, fucked her, and bonded her before you ever thought about telling me.”

Cash looked like I had managed to punch him in the gut, pain marring his usual cheerful face. “She was engaged when she got here.”

“ What ?”

“I was going to move to Germany.” Riley continued clinging to me.

“I was trying to protect you,” Cash said, pleading. “We both know what it was like the first time she left. I knew you would be devastated to see her and have her leave again.”

The words tumbled around in my head, fighting against the weight of my anguish, fighting to understand .

“So you were going to take my one chance? The only fucking chance I’d ever have to see her again?”

“I thought I was helping,” Cash insisted. “If I’d known she was going to stay, I would’ve told you immediately.”

I tensed. “Liar.” My instincts wanted me to pounce on him, to pour out all of my pain onto Cash. Riley pushed back against me, Dakota and Levi both bracing their hands on my shoulders. Maybe I had been a little closer to pouncing than I realized.

“Cooper, I didn’t want you to know I was here.”

That stole my breath all over again. “Why?”

Why didn’t she want me?

What did I do wrong?

“Because I didn’t deserve to see you. I didn’t know you worked here, and I didn’t know Cash was here when I booked the weekend.

I was coming home as a gift to myself before leaving for what I thought would be forever.

I couldn’t look at your face, knowing I had promised you I would come back and was doing nothing but leaving again.

” She sighed, her whole body shaking, salt mixing with her floral scent, her tears soaking into my hair.

“I never deserved you, and I’m sorry you found out I was here this way.

I went into a heat flare after the breakup and Cash took care of me.

The bond was an accident. No one wanted to hurt you. We love you.”

I unraveled Riley’s limbs, despite her protests and stood sharply, backing away from all of them. “I need to go.”