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Four
The bachelor house was a big log cabin filled with animal heads and cowhide everywhere. He loved it. This was the kind of place where he would like to settle down. They all had cabins on their parents’ property, and there really was no reason to buy up, especially when he was still traveling with the rodeo during the season. But the places at his parents’ house were slick. They weren’t this country. And he really liked things being this country.
He paused at the doorway and looked across the expanse of fields. It was dark now. But he could see a light on in the window of the farmhouse just across the way.
Shelby Sohappy.
They were on the same mountain. And there was nobody else around. That really was something. And he needed to stop thinking of her that way. It was difficult, considering she had been standing there with a whole barrel of sex toys.
He did not need to think about Shelby and sex toys. Not in the same sentence. Not in the same... Oh, the same fantasy. And it was getting there. It was getting there quick.
This was the problem with small towns. It was like they’d been engaging in foreplay for years on end. But he really was sorry about her husband. He tried to focus on that. He had liked Shelby’s husband. He’d been a nice guy. He used to run into him out on occasion. He’d sometimes even sit with the Carsons and have a beer. He had just always told them never to tell his wife, considering the family had such a rivalry. But, being outside of the family, he hadn’t internalized it to the degree that Shelby and Juniper did.
Yeah. He had been an easygoing guy. Short and stocky with dark hair and an easy smile. It really was a shame. A tragedy.
Too bad Kit had always wanted the guy’s wife.
Didn’t make it not a tragedy in the abstract, though.
It was one of the things that Kit would never understand about the world. The way that the good seemed to die young and terribly. And leave voids in the world that nobody could ever fix.
It was why he preferred to have as few connections as possible.
Well,preferredwasn’t even a strong enough word. He lived his life by that code. By that creed. He hadn’t fully appreciated the connections that would end up being built, though, when his siblings started to get married. He just had so many damn siblings. Callie had gotten married, and Jake Daniels had been brought into the fold. If they ever had kids, there would be nieces and nephews. And then there was Chance and Juniper. And the same went for them.
Babies.
Babies freaked him out.
They were so soft and vulnerable. When Callie had been little, he didn’t think he’d ever gotten a wink of sleep. That was the problem with being a kid who’d watched his sister die.
You didn’t trust anything. That was just it. He didn’t trust anything, so it was better to just not love much.
He hadn’t had any choice when it came to his family. They were big and boisterous. And he loved them with everything he had.
But he didn’t have to add more people to the list.
While he was looking out across the way, the lights turned off. And he would’ve thought nothing of it, except there were lights on on multiple floors and in multiple windows, and they all went out simultaneously. So unless there was some kind of smart-switch situation happening—and out here he seriously doubted it—he had reason to feel a little bit concerned.
He hustled out the front door without thinking, and jogged across the field, heading toward the farmhouse. And just as he was about to knock on the door, it opened up.
“Oh,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “What happened?”
“The lights went out,” she said, her cheeks illuminated.
“Oh. Well. I can come in and take a look if you like. I got a flashlight out in the truck.”
“Thanks, I...”
“Alternatively, you could come stay in the bachelor pad.”
“Oh,” she said. “No.”
She didn’t like this. His pushing her. But she needed help, and he didn’t see why he shouldn’t offer it. He didn’t see why there needed to be such a big wall built between the two of them. Not now anyway.
“There’s like ten rooms in there. And they’re all vacant. And then, in the morning, we can sort out whatever the hell happened here. Seems better than stumbling around in the dark.”
