Page 56 of Drifter’s Heart

Pleasure builds as he drives me into the too-soft mattress I love that’s nothing like the hard, lumpy thing I sleep on at home. I bite back a sob of pure lust—for the cowboy who wants me, the best lover I’ve ever had; for the luxury of the soft bedding beneath me; for the way West’s cock works inside me. It’s too much.

And he’s right. I do want it all. I also know I can’t have any of it. I’ve stayed strong for so long. And what he offers… it’s too tempting. If I let him give me anything now, the girl who wants it all will cave. And she’ll be soft, not hard like I have to be for my life. Against him. The asshole. Hard to keep my daughter safe.

The woman who can’t be with West has to be hard. I don’t get luxuries in my life. I don’t get to accept gifts from my brother.

I can’t be soft.

I can’t have everything. Not now or ever.

And I won’t let West take that level of hard-ass from me, all the nights of sleeping on a shitty mattress and saying no to gifts I want to take so badly to make life easier because saying yes just once means saying yes always.

I. Won’t. Let. Him.

I shove at West’s shoulders, rolling him off me. “No,” I whisper, pushing him away. My body regrets the motion, but I shove and shove and shove until he’s gone.

West lies on his back, his arms open by his sides as he frowns up at me. “Winnie? Where did I hurt you?”

“Everywhere,” I whisper, grabbing a handful of material, hoping it’s my clothing, and dash for the hallway. I’m such a liar.

Liar, liar, liar⁠—

My feet pad too loudly on the sassafras flooring, pretty in the dawn light. I pray that Sally doesn’t see my nudie run as I stumble in the direction I think is the bathroom and lock myself inside.

And press my back to the black slate tiles, letting tears course down my cheeks as my empty body aches and aches for the man who loves me. The same man who loves me back, whom I can’t have.

“Even if you shy away from me tomorrow, and I have to convince you to stay all over again. If that’s the dance we do every morning, every day, forever, then that’s what we do.”

West’s words from last night scream in my head as I cry into the silence of the locked bathroom. It’s a fallacy, the sort of fantasy that I lived in the darkness of last night while we loved each other for stolen moments.

Moments that we both knew could never last. We’re too similar, too different. He spent so many years with my brother, working alongside him, that he thinks that we’re all alike.

But we’re not.

Wilder West came from a family who loved him. Who put him through college. Who understood him. Cordell and me… we barely speak to our parents, and even that is new. I can’t have a relationship without it falling apart around me, and my habit of destroying a good date on the second or third try is in action right now. Cord? He doesn’t know how to support the woman who loves him, even though he’s trying.

We’re all a bunch of broken fuckups in my family. Proof that money can buy options but happiness remains elusive.

I pull the clothes on that I grabbed in my blind exodus from the bedroom. Fantastic. Panties—that’s helpful. No bra, but I can deal. The jeans are mine. The shirt—not so lucky. West’s scent surrounds me as I pull the soft T-shirt over my head and wrap my arms around myself. Even here, when I’m running away from him, I can’t get away. I snuggle into the soft hug of him without meaning to—or maybe I do. The tears run faster.

Why am I like this?

Answer: because I married an asshole straight out of high school who spent the next years abusing me like I was his personal overused chew toy.

I tried to tell West I was damaged goods. He didn’t seem to believe me. Worse, seems to think that he can fix me.

Neither of those things are true in any respect.

A soft knock beside my head leaves me almost wetting myself. “Winnie. Unlock the door.” West doesn’t beat around the bush. Not that there’s any bush left to beat around. We flattened that sucker and ran it right on over hours ago. Days ago.

“Leave me alone, please. Have breakfast. I’ll go find Sally in a minute. Make sure she’s had enough to eat.” All the domesticated normalcy when there’s so little of that around me right now. But I’ll force it out until it’s real. Fake it ’til you… Ah, fuck it. I’m crying again.

West sighs. “Guess I’ll starve then, waiting for you to come out.”

Don’t you dare guilt-trip me, Wilder West.

But I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. West is just stating a fact.

I stare at my tear-streaked reflection in Cord’s perfect, unmarred mirror and hate both myself and my brother a little more for its perfection in the face of my flaws. “Go, West. I don’t want to be like this.” I don’t want you to see me like this.