Page 34 of My Cowboy Trouble (The Cowboy Romantic Comedies #1)

The question hits me like a sledgehammer, because for a moment—just a moment—I wonder if he's right. If my feelings for Kenzie are real, or if they're just an extension of the same competitive instinct that made me suggest the bet in the first place.

But then I remember this morning. Remember the way she looked at me when she said the feeling might be mutual. Remember the way my chest felt like it might explode with happiness at the thought that she might love me too.

"I know what I feel," I say quietly.

"Do you? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're more upset about losing a game than you are about losing her."

"That's total bullshit. If I could take it all back this minute, I would?—"

"Oh yeah?" Trent steps closer, and there's something dangerous in his eyes.

"Because if you were really a stand-up guy, you never would have made that bet in the first place.

You never would have treated her like a joke.

You never would have put her in a position where she had to find out from Clara Mae that we were all betting against her. "

"We all made mistakes?—"

"No, Gavin. You made a mistake. We just went along with it because we're idiots who thought you knew what you were doing."

The accusation hangs in the air between us, and I realize that whatever brotherhood we've built over the years, whatever bond we've forged through work and friendship and shared experiences—it's cracking under the weight of this.

"So that's it?" I ask. "You're going to blame me for everything and wash your hands of it?"

"I'm going to blame you for the things that are your fault," Trent says. "And the bet was your idea. Running your mouth about it was your choice. And losing her because of it is your responsibility."

"Fine." I push past him toward the door. "It's my fault. I fucked up. But that doesn't change the fact that we all fell for her, and now we've lost her."

"Speak for yourself," Asher calls after me. "Some of us still have a chance to fix this if we can distance ourselves from the asshole who started it."

I stop in the doorway, his words hitting me like a physical blow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, maybe if Trent and I explain that the bet was your idea, maybe if we tell her we tried to talk you out of it?—"

"You're going to throw me under the bus?"

"You threw yourself under the bus the moment you opened your mouth to Clara Mae."

"I never told Clara Mae about the bet directly!"

"But you told someone. And now we're all paying for it." Asher's face is hard, unforgiving. "So yeah, if salvaging something with Kenzie means making it clear that you were the ringleader in this disaster, then that's what I'm going to do."

I look between them—Trent with his cold disappointment, Asher with his barely contained fury—and realize that I haven't just lost Kenzie today. I've lost everything. The brotherhood we've built, the friendship we've shared, the family we've created here at the ranch.

All because I was too proud and too stupid .

"Fine," I say quietly. "Blame me. Throw me under the bus. Do whatever you have to do to try to win her back. But don't pretend this was all my fault. We all made that bet. We all treated her like a joke."

I walk out before either of them can respond, leaving them to their recriminations and their plans to salvage something from the wreckage we all had a hand in creating.

The sun is setting by the time I work up the courage to go looking for Kenzie again. I've spent the last two hours in the barn, grooming horses and fixing tack and doing anything to keep my hands busy while my mind runs in circles, trying to figure out how to fix this mess.

But as I walk toward the house, I see something that makes my blood turn to ice.

Kenzie's walking down the drive toward the road, her phone pressed to her ear and her purse slung over her shoulder. She's not carrying any luggage, but there's something about her posture, about the determined set of her shoulders, that tells me everything I need to know.

She's leaving.

"...need a cab to pick me up at the Dusty Spur Ranch," she's saying into the phone, her voice carrying in the still evening air. "Yes, I know it's outside town. I'll pay extra for the drive. "

I start running.

"Kenzie, wait!"

She doesn't stop, doesn't even slow down. Just keeps walking toward the road like she can't hear me calling her name.

"Kenzie, please, just stop for a minute!"

"There's nothing to talk about," she says without turning around. "I've heard everything I need to hear."

"No, you haven't. You've heard Clara Mae's version, which makes us sound like complete bastards. But that's not the whole story."

She finally stops but doesn't turn around. "What's the whole story, Gavin? That you made a bet about me, thought I was a joke, and then decided it might be fun to sleep with me before I left? Because that's what it sounds like to me."

"That's how it started," I admit, the words feeling like glass in my throat. "But it's not how it ended. It's not how any of us feel about you now."

"How do you feel about me now?" She turns to face me, and the pain in her eyes nearly brings me to my knees. "Because you said you loved me. But how am I supposed to believe that when this whole thing started as a joke at my expense?"

"Because it's true. Because somewhere between that first day when you told us all to go to hell and this morning when you looked at me like I hung the moon, everything changed. The bet stopped mattering. You stopped being a challenge and started being... everything."

"Pretty words," she says, echoing what she said in the barn. "But they don't change what you did. They don't change the fact that I feel like a complete fool for believing any of it was real."

"It was real. All of it. Especially?—"

"That was a mistake." The words hit me like a physical blow. "All of it was a mistake. I should have known better than to think three cowboys would actually want to keep a city girl around for anything other than entertainment."

"That's not?—"

"Isn't it?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Because that's exactly what I was, wasn't I? Entertainment. A distraction. A hot piece of ass. Something to keep you all amused until the real world came calling."

"Kenzie," I mutter.

For a moment, I think I see a flicker of the woman who was in my arms, telling me she might love me. But then a car appears at the end of the drive, her cab, and the moment is gone.

"I have to go," she says, already walking toward the waiting car.

"Where? Back to New York?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

She stops at the car door, her hand on the handle. " You should have thought about that before you made me into a joke."

"We can fix this. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, we can fix this."

"No," she says quietly, not looking at me. "You can't. Because I'll never be able to trust you again. Any of you. And without trust, all the love in the world doesn't mean anything."

She gets in the cab without looking back, and I stand there watching as it drives away and don't move until the taillights disappear around the bend.

I continue to stand there for a long time, staring at the empty road and the growing darkness.

Because this is it. This is the moment that it's all gone.

The bet was my idea. Running my mouth about it was my choice. And losing her because of it is my responsibility, just like Trent said.

By the time I finally walk back to the house, Trent and Asher are waiting on the porch. They don't ask what happened—they can probably see it written all over my face.

"She's gone," I say anyway.

Neither of them responds. What is there to say? We all knew this was coming from the moment Clara Mae opened her mouth. We all knew that once Kenzie found out about the bet, there'd be no coming back from it.

"Now what?" Asher asks finally.

I look at both of them, my best friends, my brothers, the men who've been by my side through everything for the past eight years, and realize I don't have an answer. Because for the first time since we came to this ranch, I don't know what comes next.

"Now, we figure out how to run a ranch without the only person who made it feel like home," I say quietly.

And then I walk inside, leaving them to sit with that truth. Because that's all we have left now, the truth of what we've lost, and the knowledge that we have no one to blame but ourselves.