Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“What’s wrong?” Maverick peered up at me.
“I don’t want to need you.” I made a broken sound as I rolled off him, landing on my back, staring up at the ceiling, sticky come cooling on my belly. “Needing you means losing you.”
“No.” Glaring, Maverick sat up. He grabbed one of our discarded towels, swiping at his stomach and then mine with jerky motions. “I meant what I said earlier. I’m staying.”
“For now.” He was staying tonight, maybe for the rest of the year. That needed to be enough, yet never would be.
“For always.” He swung a leg over me, pinning me so I couldn’t escape the words I longed to hear. Impossible, crazy words, and damn the hope rising in my chest.
“Maverick…”
“I love you, Colt.” And there those words were, even worse than need. Love. The thing we didn’t talk about yet felt all the same. I stared up at him, his beautiful, chiseled face. In his eyes, I saw him at fourteen, concentrating on an arcade game, and at fifteen, camping, rare contentment on his face as the summer sun warmed his peachy skin. The lines around his mouth were new, but those were the same lips I’d kissed at eighteen, the same mouth that had told me goodbye. How could I not love that face?
My words stayed trapped behind the giant rubber band ball in my throat, all those conflicting and competing emotions. One wrong move and everything was going to spring free. As if he knew, Maverick laid a finger on my lips.
“You don’t have to say anything. Just let me love you. And let me stay.” He took on the same determined expression as Willow attacking an obstacle, but Maverick staying was way more than a barrel in the arena. “I’m going to stay.”
“I can’t let you give up your California life.” Groaning, I thumped my head against the pillow. He was offering me the thing I’d wanted most at eighteen, but my almost-forty self knew better than to accept. The price was too high. “How the heck is you staying supposed to work anyway? Faith wants to sell. You hate the idea of being a rancher.”
“I don’t have all the answers.” Maverick shrugged as if this were an insignificant point. “But I want to find a way. For you. For Hannah. For Willow. I want to stay and make this work.”
“You listed everyone but yourself.” A harsh shudder raced through me, loosening the words stuck in my throat. “I love you too much to let you be miserable.”
“You love me.” Maverick beamed like I’d handed him a gift. “And I love you. Let me worry about making this work.”
He kissed me then, soft, like a signature on a contract, a promise he couldn’t possibly keep. And I, weak and only too human, let him. I had no clue and zero faith this would work out. For a moment, though, the fight left me. He loved me. I loved him. It wasn’t nearly that simple, but just for tonight, I wanted to pretend.
Now What?
“When life bucks you off, you get back on and ride harder.”
~ sign in the Lovelorn Bunkhouse
Chapter 28
Maverick
Not surprisingly, I slept like crap after I told Colt Jennings I loved him and I was staying. Nothing like the biggest decision of my life to steal my slumber. Well, and Colt didn’t believe me. Oh, he’d kissed me and held me and pretended to sleep until he actually did, avoiding further conversation. Despite my telling him I’d figure it out, he didn’t actually trust me to do so.
I’d simply have to prove him wrong. Resolved, I padded from Colt’s bedroom at an early hour, dawn sweeping across the arid August skies. I left the sheriff to his very rare chance to sleep in and headed to the kitchen where—
“Good morning.” Willow sat at the small kitchen table, a glass of juice in front of her, already dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, solemn expression in place.
“Uh. Hi.” Never was I more glad that I’d pulled on my jeans from yesterday. My shirt was toast after the long day, so I’d helped myself to one of Colt’s many black T-shirts. Hopefully, Willow either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care. “I was going to start coffee for your dad.”
“The machine is over there.” She pointed at the far counter closest to the stove.
“Thanks.” Not surprising for Colt, the coffee maker was a barebones model, nothing fancy, easy to set brewing with the nearby ground coffee. As I flipped the switch, I turned my attention back to Willow. “How are you feeling? Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.” She sounded so much like her father it was comical, right down to her sharp, thoughtful nod.
“Good.” I stepped to the fridge, finding a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, an assortment of kid-friendly snacks like string cheese and oranges, and not much else. “Do you like French toast?”