Page 41 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

He did his best to banish the dark shadows this morning had built up inside his soul. He didn’t like talking about that shit.

But there was a point where not telling her built it up into something bigger than it was.

He just didn’t like it. It made him feel like he had then. Young, stupid. Vulnerable. He’d thought that his dad loved him

because he’d been doing things for him. He’d thought it made him important. It was foolish to be angry at a six-year-old who

didn’t understand narcissism. But sometimes he was.

Over the years he realized his dad would never love anyone as much as he loved himself. He would never care about anyone else’s

feelings, comfort or safety like he did his own. He also wanted admiration and loyalty and that meant manipulation was his

stock-in-trade.

But Justice still hated it. Because it wasn’t like it was the end of his wishing his dad cared for him.

No, that had happened later.

I shoulda let you die in that cave, boy. You’re no good to me at all.

That was how he found himself harnessed and standing up on a platform fifteen feet up a tree. At least, the two things seemed connected. Rue was crouched down, like it was spreading out her center of gravity, her eyebrows locked together, her expression one of furious concentration.

“May I remind you,” he said, “that this was your idea.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m happy to be here.”

They were safely harnessed in, but it was clear to him that Rue didn’t entirely trust the harness. Of course, neither of them

had a great reason to trust much of anything. He thought a network of cables, rope and steel clips was infinitely more dependable

than people. But that was him.

“Do you want me to go first?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she said.

The whole rest of the crew had already gone, one of the guides having already demonstrated the way that they were supposed

to go off the platform, with another remaining to handle the timing, and the clips on the different cables.

He got up onto one of the boxes, and stood there while their guide adjusted the clips. And then, just like he’d been told,

he lifted his feet up, and gravity did the rest of the work. He went sailing off the platform, picking up speed as he went,

watching as Rue and her round eyes got farther and farther away while he went hurtling easily through the trees.

It was like being weightless.

He hadn’t expected to feel much of anything doing this. It wasn’t about him; it was about her.

And yet.

And yet he felt his own heart lift somewhere it had never been before.

Just for one moment, the only thing left inside of him was all the lightness. Was Rue. Kissing her, holding her. Making love to her. Her lips on his chest in the hotel room, and then again on his mouth. Sweet and casual, like they were a couple. Like they had all the time in the world.

But the shadows existed. Even if this moment of weightless wonder suggested that there could be only this.

He was too many years into living like he did.

To living like a man who didn’t know where the right hook might come from.

He had been burned out on high stakes when he was seven years old. Where things had felt like life and death and he couldn’t

trust anybody.

Then she had come into his life and she had changed everything. Given him something to hold on to. Given him hope.

Much like now, Rue had given him wings. A way to fly away from the reality of being a king. A way to transcend.

Just like now.

Too quickly, his feet connected with the next platform. His legs were less steady than he had realized, and when he got unclipped

and moved back to the platform his heart was thundering like he’d just finished running a marathon.

He turned just in time to watch Rue lift off the platform back where he’d begun and start screaming.

Then he watched as her expression of terror transformed into one of joy. He wished he could experience it with her. He wished

he could be weightless with her.

He had never felt quite so desolate in his life as he did standing on that platform watching Rue. She spread her arms wide, and let her head fall back, her hair flying out behind her.

Then she lay out flat on her back, a technique they had been shown earlier. It was like watching her surrender. Like watching

her truly fly.

But she wasn’t near him. She was getting farther and farther away.

When she landed on the platform, the instructor caught her, and she opened her eyes. An expression of wonder on her face.

She unclipped, and then got reclipped to the line he was on, and he couldn’t help himself. He pulled her into his arms and

kissed her. Her face turned pink, her eyes shining bright. “It’s like flying.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed.

The whole rest of the day was like that. As they sailed through the snowy woods, lighter and freer versions of themselves.

When they got back to the hotel they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Their dinner out had to be deferred again,

because once they were in bed, they didn’t get back out.

And that was how the next few days went.

It was the closest thing to zip lining, the closest thing to flying. Like they had both surrendered and let go, just for these

moments. They left heavy conversations behind, and they forgot that there was any other world beyond the one they made in

bed.

But on Friday night, he knew that he needed to take her out. She dressed up in the prettiest red dress that came just above her knees, showing off those legs that had been driving him crazy. Then he noticed that she put on the blue necklace.

“Something borrowed,” he said.

“And blue,” she said. “I thought it went with the dress.”

He had given her that to marry another man, and looking at it now made his chest hurt.

He felt like he was standing on the edge of something. Much like he had been when they had gone zip lining. But he couldn’t

put a finger on it. Or maybe he didn’t want to.

So instead he took her hand, and let her out of the hotel room, down to the lobby restaurant.

“At Christmas time all this gets decorated,” she said, gesturing around the lobby.

“I bet it’s great,” he said.

“Yeah. I’d love to come up sometime but...” A sad look crossed her face. “This is so beautiful,” she said, sitting down

at the table. There was an elaborate five-course meal for dinner, so they didn’t have to look at a menu or place their orders.

He realized he didn’t much care what he ate. He just wanted to watch her.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

“Do you remember the Christmas that we spent in the barn?”

He let out a hard breath. Of course he remembered it.

He remembered it every year. But with feelings more than specific, clear thoughts.

Because sometimes thinking back to when they were kids was painful.

And not for the reasons that thinking about his childhood often was, but there was something about them that he missed sometimes, and he had never been able to say what that was.

Possibility.

He pushed that aside.

“Yeah. I remember.”

His dad had decided that he was too stressed out to have Christmas. Hadn’t had a Christmas tree. He had been subtle about

it, but he had somehow shifted the blame to something Justice’s mother had or hadn’t done. The details didn’t matter. Only

that he was somehow responsible for the kids being disappointed, but he had managed to lay blame on their mother.

He couldn’t remember if they had been angry with her. He hoped not. Because the next year she had been gone, and sometimes

he did wonder if their own behavior had led to that.

But then, it was just another reminder that you couldn’t trust anyone. That the people who were supposed to care didn’t.

At least, not in the way they should.

Except for Rue.

She reached across the table and took his hand, the way that she had done always, even before this. Even before they had become

lovers. “You got me the best present.”

“I didn’t get it for you. I made it for you.”

Her eyes went glittery. “You made that?”

It had been a necklace that he had fashioned out of a leather strap and some sea glass that he had found.

“I thought... I mean I guess I don’t know what I thought.

I was only nine. So, I guess I didn’t really think it through.

” She took a shaky breath. “You got me my only present. My parents were being so volatile that year. We didn’t have any money, because they spent it all on alcohol and.

.. I don’t know. Whatever else they spent it on.

I’ve never fully understood them. Not what they did with anything, not what they wanted out of what they did, I just never understood.

I still don’t. Because they just keep on living that way. ”

“Maybe it makes them feel alive. Being that angry.”

What he hated was that he almost understood her parents then. Because he had decided not to care about anything, and the years

passed without much to mark them by. When life didn’t have intensity, it was like a smooth stretch of water, endless and unchanging

all around you.

No wind. No movement.

No purpose.

He would’ve told Rue or anyone else that he didn’t need things to change. That he had found his spot in the middle of the

lake and he was happy with it. With the lack of resistance. With the way things worked.

But right then, he envied the way that her parents could try, explode, cling together. He envied that passion.

He looked at her, his chest clenched tight, and he tried to ease it by taking a deep breath.

“All I know is we had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and we sat in the barn and sang carols. And I’ve never been so thankful

for anything as I was for you that Christmas. Because you made something so awful feel magical. Justice, what you and I had,

never even felt like second best. It felt like real Christmas magic.”

That was like a glass shard cutting his chest. It was painful. Damn, it was painful.

Because sometimes he thought she was right. That had been the best. He had wanted the real best for her. With someone else.