I meet his guarded gaze. “Yes. It is.”
He lets out a long exhale. “Okay.”
“Yep, I’m in,” Landry says with less enthusiasm than I expected.
Bowen drops his chin, his gaze on the concrete pad. “Same.”
My throat burns, and if I look at Calder, I might cry. “Then it’s unanimous.”
FORTY-SEVEN
CALDER
I sit on the tailgate of Dad’s old pickup and stare at the sky. Frogs are going crazy around me, and in the distance, there are tiny flares randomly lighting a few feet off the ground. Fireflies.
Today could’ve been perfect. I was on horseback for a large chunk of the day. I got to see cattle trek happily into pastures full of food, and then we ended with a barbecue and Horseshoes. Days like this fill the happiest of my memories, which I suppressed for twenty years.
Instead, today was filled with longing, and then the lid crashed down over any remaining good mood.
I’ll agree to sell.
Meredith’s announcement kicked me right in the teeth. I’m returning to Denver alone and won’t be planning trips back. We all agreed to pay Carlos to work with the companies we’ll hire to clean out the shop, the house, and the barn if he’s willing. If not, we’ll hire someone else. Sawyer and Meredith will be in town long enough to help. They’ll work the booth at the fair, and then everything will get officially set into motion.
I didn’t go after Meredith last night, nursing my own hurt pride and confused feelings. She’d been with her friend planning her departure from Scandal—and my life. I asked her to leave,and she asked me to stay. I couldn’t even consider it for more than a moment, yet I expected her to upend her entire life, even when I knew it terrified her. She’s told me over and over again how much all this means to her, yet I couldn’t give her more than two minutes of consideration. I’m the reason she’ll no longer have it.
Goddammit.
My chest aches so bad that if I get one twinge in my left arm, I’ll need to call 911. Then they’d send my ass home, telling me the heartbreak is my fault and I’m a pussy for not admitting what I really want. But my brothers…All my obligations…For once, I can understand why Dad did what he did. He lost a large chunk of his world, and he was willing to obliterate the rest to claw a scrap of it back.
I grip the end of the tailgate. I have to leave in a few hours to get the guys to the airport, and then I’ll finish my trip…home. I smack my lips like I taste something sour. In the distance, coyotes howl, their cries giving the night an otherworldliness.
Light steps scrape across the cement slab in front of the shop and get closer. It’s not my brothers. Much as I’d like it to be Meredith, it’s probably Sawyer telling me the fire’s out and they left the house unlocked for me.
“Calder?” Meredith’s soft voice reaches me.
Surprise mixes with pleasure. I can only see her shadowy outline. I’d sell this truck and the Escalade to get a glimpse of her legs in that dress again.
“Yeah?”
“Sawyer’s taking off, and your brothers have gone inside.”
“You going in?” It’s not an invite, but I’m afraid to scare her off. I might only have hours left with this woman.
“I should.” She approaches the end of the pickup where I’m sitting. I scoot over, and to my relief and delight, she climbs up to sit beside me. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
“It’s not your fault. None of this is.” It’s been twenty-four hours since she told me off, but it’s felt like I’ve had weeks to think about what she said. “You’re right.”
She bows her head, and I can’t see her shadowed face around her curtain of dark hair. “It’s just time, I guess.” She leans against the tailgate. “I thought it would be too hard to say goodbye, but there’s so much to do that now the decision’s made, it’s…it’s okay.”
Fuck that.It’s not okay. After tonight, I won’t get to feel the velvet of her skin or hear her needy moans. I won’t have her falling apart in my arms as I plunge inside of her. Never again. But we still have tonight.
I lift her onto my lap. I need to hold her.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, but she doesn’t fight me. She straddles me and settles her sweet ass on my thighs. The gates of my desire crash down, and blood floods my dick.
I tangle my fingers in her hair, my mouth millimeters from hers. “I don’t like letting you go.”
“It’s all right,” she whispers. She doesn’t tell me that I don’t have to. She doesn’t tell me I’m in charge of my own damn life. And she doesn’t point out that even if I stayed, I’d be hindering her ability to claim whatever life offers. She’d still be splitting ownership and living someone else’s life. She tells me it’s fucking all right.
