Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
After a few more minutes, it was clear Foster wasn’t to be deterred from his mission. So I tried a different tactic.
“You haven’t asked me about Stanford. It’s been two weeks.” He was in front of me, leading the way, so I could only see the tensing of his shoulders as he froze for a beat, the gray SERA T-shirt stretched wide over his shoulders.
A twig snapped loudly under his boot as he finally moved again. “I figured if you wanted to tell me, you’d tell me.”
“Aren’t you curious at all?”
“Not really.”
Now, he was just pissing me off. “Why not?”
He stopped and turned. “Because I know you exceeded their expectations. Because I know you charmed the pants off of them, and I know they want you. What’s to ask?”
I threw out my hands in frustration. “Oh, I don’t know, what I thought about it? How I’m feeling about it? What it was like to try to impress people and be on the top of my game while sleep-deprived and exhausted and worrying about my sister?”
Foster’s face fell. “Tommy, I—”
I held up a hand. “Spare me whatever the fuck too-little, too-late bullshit you’re getting ready to fumble, okay?”
He took a step toward me, but I glared at him, freezing him in place. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the sound of happy chatter broke through the woods from the direction of the trail. By unspoken agreement, Foster and I remained silent until after they’d passed. When he spoke again, it was in a softer voice.
“I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”
I folded my arms over my chest. “First, you can explain why you care so little about my feelings. It’s one thing to want to keep things casual, Foster, and a completely different thing to deliberately not give a shit about the person you’re being casual with.”
His expression was pained. “I do care. I care too fucking much, that’s the problem. And the only way this works is if I keep those feelings to myself.” He stopped and blew out a breath, threading the fingers of both hands together over his ball cap. “But you’re right. I wasn’t even being a good friend, and I’m sorry.”
Foster’s confession shocked me. I’d suspected he had serious feelings for me, hoped he did, but he’d never admitted it out loud. I’d only sensed it in the way he touched me. The way he cared for me when I was in need of comfort or reassurance. The way he’d practically attacked me when I’d returned from California.
“What can I do to make it up to you?” he asked again.
I teetered between two paths. One of them would include forcing him to talk about his feelings, get them out in the open so we could try and figure out a way to be together despite seemingly impossible odds.
The other was to admit the truth to myself. That he was right to keep his feelings to himself. Because there really wasn’t a clean solution to this, and he’d made it very clear from the beginning he wasn’t interested in a messy one.
The fact was, I’d nailed my Stanford interviews. More than that, I’d loved it there. The people were amazing, the opportunity was top-notch, and the proximity to my family couldn’t be beat. I’d grown up only thirty minutes away in Hillsborough. My parents and grandparents still lived there, and several of my high school friends had remained in the area. Accepting a job there would be a no-brainer…
And it was no place at all for a Wyoming sheriff who belonged under this big sky, breathing clean mountain air and remaining king of his castle.
“You can fuck me,” I said, sticking out my chin. “Right here and right now.”
I might as well have waved a red cape in front of an angry bull. His eyes narrowed as he assessed me for a beat.
Then he began stalking closer. “Yeah? Right here where anyone could see us? See you, ass out for any random hiker who comes along?”
My chest heaved as the air got thinner. “If not you, then I really will have to grab a random hiker.”
His jaw ticked. “Like hell you will. Open your pants, Doc.”
I looked around, the reality of the situation finally sinking in. “Or maybe—”
“Pants. Off.”
After dropping my pack, my hands went to my belt, flicking it open as quickly as possible and fumbling for the button and zipper. Foster rifled through my pack until he found what he was looking for: a single packet of medical lubricant. Score.
I shot him an I-told-you-so grin.
“You’re entirely too smug right now,” he grumbled, moving closer to me while reaching for his own belt. “When we wind up arrested for public indecency and I lose my career over this, I need you to remember whose idea it was.”