Page 43 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

The rest of the trip passed in a blur. And before Rue knew, it was time for them to go home. The real risk had been on that

night they’d gone out. When she had told him she didn’t want it to be over. Ever since the zip lining she had realized that

she needed to tell him. Ever since she had given in, done the terrifying thing. Lay back and spread her arms and truly let

go.

She had known that they couldn’t be done.

Because she couldn’t... She couldn’t go back.

They had to go forward. It was the only option. Anything else would be dishonest. Anything else would be a disservice to them

and who they were.

Who they had always been.

But she had been doing a disservice to herself for a whole lot of years.

She had been so afraid of big feelings because she had seen them play out in such a toxic way. But she had denied herself.

She had denied herself true passion. She had denied herself what she really wanted.

She wanted Justice.

What she had always wanted was a life with him, and she had never been willing to let go of him entirely, but she had wanted to take those feelings, to take that pain and divide it. Asher was for romance, to marry, to have children with.

She had determined she was never to fling herself against Justice and his issues, because she would only get hurt.

As they drove back toward Four Corners, she looked at him, at his profile, and for the first time in her life she finally

let herself admit the truth. The truth that had lived inside of her since she was a little girl. The truth she’d spent years

trying to ignore, suppress, and minimize.

Justice King was the love of her life.

When he’d bent over that textbook, unable to sound out the words, he’d been the love of her life. When he’d given her that

necklace in the barn, he’d been the love of her life. When he’d given her the blue necklace, the day she was supposed to marry

another man, he’d been the love of her life.

It had been him. Always him.

With the deepest, truest part of herself, she loved him.

It had taken her until now to realize it. Because she had never seen love. Not like this. True and enduring. Selfless. For

years their love hadn’t been based on romance or sex; it had just been there. Real and as bright as the sunrise.

It had evolved and shifted. They’d let themselves add this level of intimacy to it. And that was when she had realized it

had always been there.

This one man had the capacity to be everything. She hadn’t wanted that. She had wanted to spread it out, to make him less

important, as if that were possible.

He had agreed to see how it went at home. So there was that.

At least there was that.

Her heart thundered, so hard it was painful.

She swallowed, her throat scratchy. She didn’t know what to say.

She let her head fall back against the seat. “We really did use to spend all of our time together with clothes on,” she said.

“Yeah, we did,” he said.

After only a week it was so hard to imagine. That she’d spent years not knowing his body like this. Not knowing his taste.

Years with this barrier between them.

“I’m glad that we’re doing this,” she said.

Except, she hadn’t been brave enough to ask what they were really doing. She hadn’t been brave enough to try to find out if

this meant that they were something more than the friends they had always been, or if to him it was friends that had sex.

For her, it was accepting that he was the man she loved, now with sex. It was just so hard.

All of it.

But it was wonderful too. All of it was like a metaphor for the zip lining. For the polar plunge. Or maybe, they were the

metaphor. She had been looking for what she really needed in her life, and she had told herself that maybe it was bravery,

so she had done all these things that weren’t what she actually needed to do.

What she needed to do was stop hiding from herself. What she needed to do was realize that he was what she wanted. That she had tried to give herself something easier so that she could maintain control. But she didn’t want control anymore as much as she wanted to be happy. Really happy.

She had to lose everything to figure this out. That was all.

Just the carefully crafted life she had built, just her home, just all of the crutches and excuses and hiding places that

she had ever put up between herself and her feelings for Justice.

Maybe she should write her parents a thank-you note.

Well. No. She wouldn’t go that far.

“Are we going to tell anyone?”

“I don’t... I don’t see why we need to. Yet.”

The way he said that, the way he hesitated, she didn’t like it. It made her feel scratchy and uncomfortable. It made her feel

precarious.

Maybe that was just something she was going to have to accept. That this wasn’t going to be entirely comfortable. That this

was going to be a little bit terrifying. That this was going to be bigger than she could handle, that it was going to be a

risk.

She had her fill of risk when she was a kid, and she had done her best to avoid it ever since.

Because she had lived around people who had taken risks, made big emotional leaps that she hadn’t consented to being a part

of.

So this was hers, she supposed. And she couldn’t hide from it.

“Okay,” she said.

She needed to come up with a way for them to talk about the cave again, because for some reason, she felt like it mattered.

Because for some reason, she felt like it was one of the locked doors that Justice still had inside of him that she couldn’t access.

Yes, he had told her about it, but there was just.

.. There was something else. And she could feel it, when she got close to things that he didn’t want to deal with, things that he didn’t want to talk about. She could feel the resistance.

She just didn’t know what to do to get through it.

“Can I stay in your room?”

“Yeah,” he said.

There had been a moment where she had felt so free with him. Free to actually talk about things they never had before, and

now it was like she was facing the reality of what they still weren’t able to discuss. What he wasn’t willing to share. And

because of the other intimacy it felt more pronounced, not less. She touched the blue necklace the way she had wanted every

day since their fancy dinner. Because she had decided to hang on to it like he had said. Until she was building a better life.

Like his grandmother. He didn’t seem to notice that was the symbolism of it, but she supposed that was a very male thing.

This was the better life. As far as she was concerned, this was the better life.

But she was finding her footing, and she wasn’t quite sure how to go forward.

Talking used to be the easiest thing. Now it seemed to be sex. Maybe that was fair because it was still new. Maybe that was

why they were burying themselves in that for now. Because it was something they hadn’t been able to do for so long.

Still, she wished talking was easier.

Physically, things couldn’t be better.

She never spent a night in her room, though she felt compelled to keep her things in there. It was just that he hadn’t fully invited her to move into his room. Sleep in it, yes. But not actually move her things into it.

“Had you ever spent the night with a woman before?”

She asked him that over dinner one night.

“No. But I’ve spent the night with you plenty of times, so I guess it doesn’t seem different.”

That bothered her. Because it felt like he was downplaying, even though she supposed it was a fair thing to say. She was special,

either way, because it wasn’t like he had actually spent the night with other women. It was just he felt the comfort of it

being her. She shouldn’t be salty about it.

In spite of little moments like that, the next three days went well. And then finally, he decided they should have dinner

at his family’s.

He kept such a healthy distance between them when they went inside, and it was silly that she was offended by it because she

had been so adamant that they keep it a secret when they had first left for the honeymoon. Denver knew, but she didn’t know

about anyone else. And now it seemed like it was Justice who was more concerned with still keeping lines there. Even though

they had erased the other boundaries that they had put up, he seemed to be heavily concerned about this one.

Everyone was purely and truly themselves during dinner, and she was having trouble. Everyone was here tonight, Landry and

Fia, Arizona and Micah, their children, Daughtry and Bix, and Denver.

“We missed you,” Arizona said.

“Thanks,” Justice said. “We didn’t miss you, since we were busy enjoying the fancy-ass amenities at the place we were staying at.”

Everybody knew they had gone, so Justice acting casual about it was really the only way to make it so they weren’t announcing

that something intimate had occurred.

“You should take me somewhere fancy,” Bix said, grabbing hold of Daughtry’s arm.

“I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” he said. “Paris?”

Bix’s eyes rounded. “Are you serious?”

“Of course. Name the place you want to go for our honeymoon and I’ll take you there.”

Bix’s eyes were shiny. “Would you really take me to Paris?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“He’ll take you fancy ,” Denver said. “In fact, that will be my wedding gift to you.”

Daughtry made a scoffing noise. “I don’t need you to pay for my honeymoon.”

“I know you don’t need it,” he said. “But I really want to give Bix the fanciest thing she can get.”

Bix glowed with pleasure, and for a second, Rue could only marvel at the similarities between Justice and Denver. They were

caring, even if Denver was more reserved than Justice in general. But they both seemed like they were happiest—if you could

call it happy—when they were isolated. Alone. They had people in their lives, but did they really?