Page 45 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

Something had sat uneasy in his gut for the last few days. And he realized that it was the way the lines were getting so blurred

with Rue. She texted him, but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he picked up the phone and called the bank. “When exactly is

the auction for the Whippoorwill Road property?”

“And it’s actually at the property?”

“Yes. Cash only.”

“Got it.”

He called Denver right after. “I’m going to need a big favor.”

“How big? Are we burying a body or...?”

“It’s about money.”

“Oh. That’s easy.”

“Well, you did just offer to pay for Bix and Daughtry’s honeymoon.”

Denver laughed. “Yeah. I’m not worried.”

“I need enough money to buy a house.”

“What caliber of house?”

“Rue’s house.”

He paused for a moment. “Right. Well. Yeah. I can do that.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“With what? Money you make on the ranch? It’s all my money.”

“I have my own investments, asshole. I might not have all the cash you do but—”

“Fine. I’ll wire you the money.”

“Thanks.”

And he told himself that it was about doing something good for her, rather than getting space from all of this. Rather than

regaining control of his life.

This shared space, the shared bed.

He had lied to her. He told her it wasn’t a big deal that they spent the night together. It was. It had seemed convenient

when they were staying in the hotel. It seemed intense back at his place. In the bed he had never shared with anybody else.

Yeah. There, it seemed damned intense.

In fact, all of it did. Waking up every morning and having her there, going to bed with her at night. It was almost like it

was becoming everything.

And he didn’t know how to have her in his life that way. He didn’t know how to do much of anything that way.

Then, he looked at the text from Rue.

Dinner, tonight. Meet me in the old barn.

His stomach went tight, and he imagined them again as young kids.

He didn’t know why that was becoming so painful. So much harder to reflect on.

Maybe it was because he was closer to thinking about the cave. Maybe because he was closer to thinking about the truth of everything.

But he had no reason to tell her no, so he told her yes, and when he was done with work for the day he drove on over to the

barn.

The doors were closed, but he could see light flickering from the inside. When he walked in, Rue was sitting down on the floor

on a blanket, candles in lanterns positioned all around. There was a picnic basket next to her. It reminded him of the picnic

they’d shared up at the mountain after their trail ride. It reminded him of countless picnics they’d shared in here.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “But it’s bologna.”

His stomach clenched.

“I don’t mind,” he said.

“I know those kids didn’t have everything,” she said, and he knew exactly who she meant. “But I’m glad they had each other.”

“Me too,” he said, his throat scratchy.

He moved closer to her, and that was when he noticed that she was wearing not just the blue necklace he’d given her the day

of the wedding, but the necklace he made for her all those years ago. A leather strap with sea glass clumsily attached.

How had she ever thought that was store-bought? It was so clearly made with inexperienced hands. And yet...

He suddenly felt the strangest swelling of affection for the little boy that had made that for the girl that he... The girl he cared about more than anything in the world. That little boy that had spent days in a cave, but had still looked at Ruby Matthews and seen some kind of magic.

She was the only magic that he had been able to see in the whole world for a really long time.

That poor kid. That poor damned kid.

“There’s nothing to hide from anymore,” she said as he sat down. “Isn’t that the craziest thing? Your dad’s gone.”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I guess he is.”

They opened up the picnic basket, and took out the sandwiches. There was more than just bologna. There was potato salad and

macaroni and cheese. Some nice-looking rolls. But they both took a bite of the bologna first.

He didn’t do nostalgia all that often. Mostly because his childhood wasn’t a lot to write home about. The only nostalgia he

had centered around her. This place. Bologna sandwiches.

It felt particularly intense and bright now.

“I really can’t believe you still have that,” he said.

“I can’t believe you think I would’ve thrown it out.”

He hadn’t, she realized. He hadn’t thought that she would’ve thrown it out. On some level, he knew that he could trust that

Rue would’ve kept it.

That was a strange and terrifying feeling, and he didn’t know why it should be.

“It means a lot,” he said.

She ducked her head, and looked up at him, taking a bite of the sandwich. Right then, he saw the girl she’d been. Like she

was sitting right in front of them. Like no time had passed at all.

Then she wrinkled her nose and gave him a more mischievous look, and he remembered being sixteen and thinking she was the prettiest damned thing he’d ever seen. And running from it.

He’d stopped running. He might as well kiss her.

So he did. He leaned in and cupped her face and kissed her, because that was really what he wanted to do then, and he hadn’t

let himself.

Maybe the boy he’d been had always wanted this.

You denied him this. Not anyone else.

And suddenly, the deepest anger that he felt was at himself.

But there was no point being angry at himself. Because even now, Rue had to go back to her own house. She had to go back to

her own life. He needed... he needed space. As wonderful as it was to have her in his life, in his house, there was something

deeply uncomfortable about it. And he just... He couldn’t.

But he could indulge in this. Tonight. Now.

He kissed her like he might die if he didn’t, because right then everything felt like dying. He didn’t know what the hell

you were supposed to do with that. With every outcome feeling impossible. Feeling like the wrong one.

Yeah. He didn’t know what the hell you were supposed to do with that.

But he kissed her anyway in their sacred spot. Kissed her like his life depended on it.

Kissed her for all the years he hadn’t. For all the times he hadn’t even let himself want it when deep down he understood

now that he had.

He kissed her for every one of those wasted years she had spent kissing Asher.

And he kissed her for all the years after this when... he wouldn’t.

It was getting to be too much. That was the thing. And it tore them apart to recognize that, but it was just the truth of

it. He couldn’t.

He would get her house back. He would put her back in her rightful place. He would...

He would send her off with both necklaces. The one he’d made her then, and the one he’d given her at her wedding. For that

good life that she was supposed to have. The better one. The future that would involve another man who could give her everything.

One who didn’t feel like he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, then get picked back up so he could be beaten with

it.

And as he stripped her bare there in the barn, he realized exactly why he hated thinking of them as kids. It wasn’t because

it had been simpler back then. It was because they had a whole life ahead of them. To make different decisions than the one

they’d made.

A whole life to figure out how to be okay. For him to figure out how to have her instead of how to give her away.

But he hadn’t taken that path. There had been a fork in the road and he had taken the easy one.

Damn him.

He thought he was indulging that kid, but he was protecting him. From ever having to be afraid.

And Rue didn’t need to wait for that. For him to figure it out. Because God knew it was all still a mess. Jumbled up inside

of him.

He was a good friend. Because he could hide parts of himself. Because it didn’t mean staying, because it didn’t mean opening up his house, his life, his whole heart.

He had thought because he was so good in bed that meant it would be easy for him to keep it all about the physical. Because

that’s what it had always been about for him before.

But never with her.

Never with her. And as he entered her, as he found himself drowning in desire, he knew that it had never been that. It had

been a mistake. Because it had brought all the pieces of them together. Everything that they’d ever held back.

She had taken off everything except the necklaces. The sea glass and the glimmering blue sapphire sat heavily between her

breasts. This tangle of everything they were.

Of everything he wanted.

It made him feel like he was being cut into.

His orgasm cost him. Took something from him. Left him raw and ragged as he held her, her own breathing fractured.

She’d come. But for the first time in his memory he hadn’t worked at that. Hadn’t made a performance out of getting her off

as many times as he could.

Because he’d been lost.

In this, in her, in a way that he never was.

The way they went over together wasn’t like anything else in his experience. She wasn’t like anything else.

They lay there in the barn, no sound but their own breathing, but the beating of their hearts.

He closed his eyes, and he could see them as kids, sitting in this barn.

But they weren’t those kids anymore. And he was even more determined about what had to happen next.

Rue realized that things had changed when the day of the auction rolled around and she wasn’t upset. In fact, she didn’t even

think of it until what would’ve been the middle of the auction.

Someone else was going to buy her grandmother’s house, and live in it. But her life wasn’t there anymore. She had memories

there. She would always love the time that she had there. She would always be grateful for it. It had been her other refuge.

But Justice was the biggest one.

She felt like she had been a little bit wimpy since that night in the barn. In that she hadn’t told him yet that she was in