Page 6 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

Arizona and Fia had gone entirely overboard with their help for the bachelorette party, and Justice adored them for it.

He opened up a bag that was filled with absolutely garbage party favors. They were humiliating. They were embarrassing. They

were tasteless as hell. And he loved them. “You are brilliant,” he said, reaching into the bag and taking out a necklace that

was made up entirely of small, miniature naked men.

Arizona grinned. Like a shark. “We want her to be dressed up for the party.”

“She’s going to be horrified ,” he said.

He had lied a little bit when he’d said that the party was going to be tailored to her needs. The truth was, he had done her

a kindness by deciding to have it at King’s. Keeping it all in the family. Because it was going to be raucous, and he was

going to pull her out of her comfort zone. Because that was what best men did on the eve of their friend’s wedding. It was

just what happened. It was what needed to happen.

“I can’t believe she’s getting married,” Fia said, looking a little bit wistful.

“Why do you say that?” Justice asked.

“It just feels very final,” Fia said, shrugging.

“Final in what sense?” he pressed.

“I...” She exchanged a glance with Arizona.

“What?”

It was Arizona who finally relented. “We thought you would marry her. I mean, eventually. Maybe in a decade. But... I just thought it would be you.”

“You thought I was going to marry her ?” Something akin to horror stole through him. The idea of Rue being stuck with him... “Have you met me? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.”

“You care about each other. Clearly. You have since you were kids. We’ve all watched it,” Arizona said.

“Yeah. We care about each other. That’s not the same thing as wanting to get married.”

“It’s not like I don’t think men and women can be platonic friends,” Arizona said.

“I don’t,” said Fia.

“That’s a little bit regressive, Fia,” said Arizona.

“In my experience sex is regressive, Arizona.”

“ Gross . Because you have sex with my brother.”

“All the time,” said Fia.

The women regarded each other, and Justice now wanted an escape button, his admiration for them dimming slightly.

“Here’s the thing, I don’t care what you say.” He directed that at Fia. “Men and women can be friends. Rue is my best friend.

In the whole world. And it has never even almost been anything else.”

Yeah, when he had seen her in her wedding dress earlier he had been knocked on his ass.

She was beautiful. He wasn’t blind. He was familiar enough with women and how they were shaped that even though she dressed much more conservatively than any woman he would ever consider taking to bed, he was aware that she was hot.

The wedding dress had been... a shock.

Because it was like a reality check he couldn’t ignore.

She was getting married. Life was changing.

He could do without that, frankly. But it was balanced by the fact that he was happy for her. Thrilled for her.

“It’s weird to react this way,” he said to both of them. “If I had a male friend getting married you wouldn’t be moaning about

the fact that he hadn’t married me instead.”

“Well, it depends,” Arizona said.

“On what?”

“If I thought you’d be good together romantically.”

“Oh please ,” he said. “You’re liars.”

“Liars with good taste in party favors, though,” Arizona said.

“The value I place on that is waning, little sister.”

He groused through all the setup. But was cheered mildly by the obscene balloons. And the even more obscene candy hearts that

were going in different bowls stationed around the living room.

“You’re annoying,” he said to both of them. “But this really is fantastic.”

His siblings and Fia, plus significant others, arrived shortly after that. They had decided to make it an extended-family

affair.

The alcohol was flowing freely, and Bix had brought some of her special, higher proof alcohol, which he imagined Daughtry

in no way approved of. But hey, if Daughtry didn’t approve, then it was a good party.

When Daughtry walked in, in uniform, they all groaned. “Whoop whoop,” Bix shouted. “ Five-O Five-O .”

“The police are here,” Arizona wailed.

“Maybe it’s just the stripper,” Justice said, reaching into his pocket and taking out his wallet.

“Adorable,” Daughtry said, his expression suggesting he did not, in fact, find it adorable.

Then they all took their places and waited for Rue. His pocket buzzed.

“She’ll be here in five minutes.”

And right on the dot, she was.

She opened up the door, wearing a long coat, which she discarded and revealed a cute floral dress beneath that was definitely

not weather appropriate.

She looked so much like the girl he’d always known. But also the woman she’d become.

His family all hooted and shouted and it did the work to knock him out of his sudden fog.

She looked shocked to see such a full house.

“Oh my,” she said.

And Justice walked across the living room, holding a sash aloft that said Bride. “Welcome,” he said. “Guest of honor.”

“Thank you, man of honor,” she said. “I didn’t expect such a big turnout.”

“I’ve a feeling there’s going to be a few things you didn’t expect tonight.”

And that was when he grabbed the necklace of naked men and bestowed it upon her. She frowned and looked down, and then her

face turned bright red. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s a bachelorette party,” Arizona shouted. “So let the fun begin.”

And it did. There was food. Cake. And even though Rue barely drank, she tasted some of Bix’s brew and got surprisingly into

the spirit of it all.

They paired off for games, and he and Rue were on the same team. There was balloon shaving and myriad other nonsense, which

she would’ve said he hated, but it was all just traditional and delightful and hilarious, and he felt happy that he could

give it to her.

Because she looked filled with joy, and that was all he had wanted. Wanted for her to love this. Wanted for her to have the

best wedding. The best lead-up to the wedding. The best life. It mattered so damned much.

They were trying to play pin-the-veil-on-the-bride, with a big life-size tracing of a person on the wall, but Daughtry was

a dick, and he had moved the poster so that it was sitting weirdly high when it was Rue’s turn. She was spinning around, and

trying to find it. Justice stood up and, without thinking, grabbed her around the waist and hefted her toward the wall. She

shrieked and kicked, and his hand made contact with her bare thigh. He felt like he’d been kicked, but he lifted her up to

the poster on the wall anyway and let her pin it before setting her down slowly. Which put his palms on a lot more of her

leg than he had counted on. She lifted her blindfold up, and wrinkled her nose. “That was cheating.”

“Look how good you did,” he said, pointing to the veil, which was actually on the wall above the poster.

“Cheaters don’t prosper,” Rue said, smacking him on the shoulder, and if she had any feelings about his hands being all over her legs, she certainly wasn’t acting like she did. Which was good. That didn’t need to become a problem.

He had to question why the hell he was having a reaction to touching her legs? They touched each other casually pretty much all the time. No , he didn’t touch her bare thigh as a general rule, but he’d had sex just a few days ago. It wasn’t like he was hard up or

anything. And she was Rue , for God’s sake. Her legs were a fixture in his life, as was the rest of her, and there was no reason for anything to feel

illicit or anything like that. For God’s sake .

He had let Bix’s moonshine get to his head. It pissed him off, because he had felt like his sister and sister-in-law were

being so out-of-pocket earlier. He didn’t like that he was feeling weird over physical contact with her body now.

So he decided the best thing to do would be to throw another drink on it, and keep the party rolling.

And they did. Loudly.

“I can’t stay up all night,” she said softly when they were all sitting around in the living room listening to Denver tell

raucous stories.

“Yeah. I guess you need your beauty sleep.”

“I guess.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

It was freezing outside. Not even her coat could possibly be keeping her warm with that little dress beneath it. And his palm

still burned.

She was getting married tomorrow.

“I remember when you first came to school,” he said. He hadn’t intended to take a little walk down memory lane, but hell. It was preferable to focusing on the way his hands felt.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do. I heard that we had some new ranch hands. Though, we had those all the time. But that it was a family. And they

had a kid. I was really disappointed that you were a girl.”

She laughed. “Wow. I didn’t know that. Our friendship is built on lies.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“When did you get over your disappointment?”

“About the time you pulled me aside because you noticed that I was struggling with my reading. You managed to do it in a way

that didn’t make me feel like an idiot. In a way that didn’t make me feel embarrassed. For the first time, when you sat there

and put your finger on the page I felt like I could actually focus on it. There was something about the way that you explained

it that held my attention. I’ll never forget that. After that, I figured maybe we ought to be friends.”

“Well, I was disappointed that you were a boy. I wanted to get to know some girls my age. But I had a hard time with it. There

were the Sullivans, but they had each other. And that bond seemed really strong. It was difficult to get around that. I don’t

know. It was like a magnet pushed me toward you. And at some point I quit caring that you were a boy. At some point, I was

just happy to have a friend.”

“I still remember you crying because your parents were fighting and...”

“When was that?”

He laughed. “When wasn’t it? I don’t know. It was easier, right? For us to band together. To kind of cling to each other rather

than deal with our families. Because Lord knows they were just a mess.”

“They were. But it never seemed bad here. Before we were here we were in Sacramento. And my dad had worked, but only sometimes.

Tension was really high, and we lived in a tiny apartment. We moved here and there were other kids. We moved here and at least

the basic necessities felt handled.”

“I never asked you this, and that seems kind of stupid. Did you move here because your grandma was already here?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess my mom grew up in the area. And my grandma never left. But it isn’t like we talked a whole lot

about that. There weren’t open lines of communication. I mean, you know I don’t talk to them now.”

“Yeah. Well. I don’t talk to mine either.”

They looked at each other. It was a terrible thing to have in common. Parents that were just so terrible they might as well

be dead to you because not speaking to them at all was the only way you could manage your damned life. And yet, it had always

been the bad things they had in common. The good things... they were different. But it was why they worked.

“What do you need to make tomorrow the best day possible?” he said.

She looked up at him, the adoration on her face just about knocking him for six.

“You’re going to be there. I’m marrying Asher. Everything is going to be perfect. That’s all I need.” She wrapped her arms around his neck.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, letting her linger on a hug. The familiar weight of her, combined with the scent of

her shampoo, was one of the most comforting things he could even think of.

“Thank you for tonight. Thank you for being such an important part of my life.”

“Thanks for teaching me how to read,” he said.

She let go of him. “Anytime.”

After Rue drove away, he went into the house. The bridal veils were still pinned to the wall, and there was still lewd paraphernalia

strewn all about. The dishes had been collected and he could hear chatter and glass clattering against itself in the other

room. He walked into the kitchen, where Daughtry, Bix, Landry, Fia, Arizona, Micah and Denver all were working at putting

everything away.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Of course,” came the response, along with varying degrees of dismissive noises.

“Could y’all come to the church early with me tomorrow to help set up?”

“Rue is important to all of us,” Arizona said. “Of course we’ll be there.”

And the underlying thing of all that was that he was important to them too. And it mattered to him.

He thought about that as he headed back to his own cabin on the property.

He and Denver might never get married and have kids.

They might never be normal in the way the rest of them were.

But the King family had built something better than what they’d had before.

They had made something real out of all the messed-up nonsense that had come before. And that was something.

He was going to hang on to that.