Page 120 of Wilder

What if I’d already broken things between us beyond repair to be fixed?

I had to know, though. I had to be sure that I wasn’t leaving things on the table unsaid, turning over every stone before walking away and leaving it be.

My fingers hovered in the air for a long moment, trembling before they finally made contact with the wood.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Each knock echoed louder than the last.

No answer.

I shifted my weight along with the bag looped over my shoulder and tried to breathe through the thumping my heart was doing against the inside of my chest.

If he wasn’t home, I supposed I could sit out here and wait on the steps. Then again, if his brother came home first and found me, there was a good possibility I’d get the cops called on me to come drag me off their property and throw me in the slammer for a few nights.

Shit, his brother.

I wasn’t thinking about that when I’d gotten on that plane.

Maybe it was better if I called and asked Asher to meet me somewhere private. Having this conversation with his brother within earshot wasn’t exactly going to help me plead my case. I doubted I was going to win his approval after sending Asher home in the state he’d been in when we last spoke. If he was as good of a brother as Asher preached he was, I’d sooner find a fist flying my way than a kind welcome inside.

Just as I was about to turn around and head back down the steps, the door suddenly cracked open.

And there he was.

Hair a little messy, face flushed like he’d just woken up from a nap or maybe been crying—God, that thought made my throat tighten—but he was still the most beautiful, gut-wrecking thing I’d ever laid my eyes on.

His expression flickered from surprise to disbelief so fast I barely caught the shift. “Wilder?”

I nodded slowly, jamming my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans to keep him from noticing them shaking. “Yeah. Hey.”

He blinked at me, still halfway behind the door. His grip on it was tight, his fingers turning a pale white while his eyes roamed over me slowly, his brow furrowing.

“What...” He started, blinking a few times. “Why are you here?”

“Can I come in?” I asked, quietly.

He hesitated. I saw the debate cross his face—the hurt, the defensive need to protect himself, everything I’d put there because of how I ended things. All valid reasons for him to turn me away, shut the door and lock it behind him, giving me the answer I deserved instead of the one I was begging for him to give me.

I wouldn’t blame him for doing that. Never. I’d understand, even though it would kill me to get back on a plane, alone, and return to the ranch with no one else beside me.

Finally, after a few seconds that felt more like a lifetime, he stepped aside to let me in. I wanted to scoop him up right there and hug him tight but held back, giving him space as I walked through the doorway and into his home.

The inside was dim, cooler than I expected. A box fan hummed in the corner of the living room, circulating the humid air. The couch in the middle of it was scattered with blankets and a pillow, a tv show quietly droning on in the background.

It smelled like lemon cleaner and the faint, lingering scent of Asher.

Turning back to look at him, I caught Asher still standing by the door, his hand still wrapped around the knob, eyes swimming with uncertainty. Couldn’t say I blamed him. Me showing up here out of the blue after days of no contact, right on the heels of my rejection, had to be confusing.

I opened my mouth to say something but before I could get a word out, a voice echoed from somewhere deeper in the house.

“Asher? Who was at the door?”

“Fuck,” Asher muttered under his breath.

Heavy footsteps moved down the hallway closest to us, growing louder with each step until a man around my age rounded the corner. He had on a dark navy t-shirt with the Baton Rouge fire department insignia stamped on the right side of the chest, the hem tucked into a pair of dickies.

The moment his gaze landed on me, his expression hardened. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Absolutely not.”