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“So, you decided to walk back into town?”
“Yes!” I snapped. “What did you think I was going to do?”
He opened his mouth to talk, but then it happened. Everything I’d been bottling up overflowed and exploded.
Iexploded.
“Do you honestly think I get off on taking land away from the people? I grew up in Texas! I know how important ranches and farms are. I know that you feed people. I know what hard work is like. I have worked my whole fucking life, Denver! Since I waschild!My mom owned a flower shop, and I would help her in the mornings and after school to make ends meet because my father was a piece of shit. He decided one day he didn’t want us anymore andleft!”
“Val—”
“He left without a word. Said he was going to work and never came back. Mom thought he wasdead, that something happened to him. She called the police. He was declared missing! His job didn’t know where he was, or his friends. He just vanished. Mom wasdevastated. She hired a PI and you wanna know where he was?”
Denver was staring at me now. I didn’t wait for him to answer.
“He was in Florida with a blonde woman! A woman that he had been having an affair with. So, it was just Mom and I against the world. We had the shop and the little house. We were gonna make it. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to help people! I was going to be the best lawyer in Dallas, I made sure of it. I did well in school and focused on work. I never made any friends in high school…”
“Valerie—”
My bags fell off my shoulders onto the concrete, but I didn’t care.
I keptgoing.I couldn’t stop it.
“I never even had a boyfriend until I was in college. He took my virginity and dumped me shortly after. That’s the last time I was with a man. That’s the last time I was kissed! Then—thenlife really decided to shit on me. I was nearly there, Smoke. My dreams were just within reach, and you wanna know what happened?”
He was closer now, studying me. His smoke was reaching out to me, gentle this time, caressing me. I wanted to get lost in it, hide from this pain I’d been burying.
It was time to stop burying it.
My face crumbled as the pain broke free. “My mom got cancer.”
“Christ.”
I shook my head and cried, “I don’t want your sympathy! I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone, okay? I just need my mom.” My voice cracked. “I need my mom to live so I don’t have to be alone!”
My knees gave out and I was prepared to hit the hot street. For some reason, I didn’t. Instead, I collided with a solid, warm body. Arms around me, holding me firmly against him.
“You gotta hear the rest,” I whimpered. He gripped my chin and forced me to look up at him. His gray eyes were like beckons in the shadow his hat cast, and I never wanted to look away.
“I was a dick.”
“I’m just a bitch who takes homes from people. I’m not a good person, but I want you to know—no, Ineedyou to know—that I wasn’t always like this. I never wanted this. You have a beautiful home, and your ranch is amazing. Your son is wonderful, and I was trying to it all away from him—from you.”
He stared at me as I continued, his chest rising and falling against me.
I shook my head. “I have to do this to pay for my mom’s chemo. That’s the only reason why I do—didthis. That job was the only job that paid well enough to do it without having to spend years in school. I didn’t have years…”
“Shit,” he bit out, looking away from me, his jaw tight under that gorgeous beard. I ached to touch it, but instead, I swallowed and continued.
“I just—I needed you to know that.”
He looked back down at me, the smoke in his eyes hiding something from me, something I desperately wanted to see.
“You telling me no man has had you because you dropped everything in your life to take care of your mom and made a deal with the devil to do so?” he asked.
I nodded.
His eyes flared.
