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“Ah, so what happened between us, you mean?” I laughed, thankful for the easy conversation. When Cheyenne wasn’t being so damn obstinate, she was good conversation...
And damn good sex.
“So, spill the tea, Wade,” she urged, setting Takoda down as the woods thinned a little. “I’m dying to know what kind of woman a man like you usually goes for. I can only imagine it’s someoneverydifferent to me.”
“You’re not wrong there.” I stepped over a broken branch, my boot squishing in the sandy mud as I continued down the trail. “I usually go for blondes. You know, those little western fashion queens with the bell bottom jeans and crop tops.”
“Oh, so like buckle bunnies, right?” She didnotsound enthused at all by what I was saying.
“I mean, there were plenty of women who werenotbuckle bunnies. Most of them could hold their own in the rodeo arena or ranch. I never went for like prissy women—not really, anyway.” I thought back to all of my exes, who were very feminine, but also typical horse girls. They had grit—not quite like Cheyenne, though. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, so blonde rodeo women,” she said from behind me. “I could definitely see that. I bet you also went for like sorority girls, too, right? You know, little southern belles.”
“Most definitely in college.”
“Rich girls,” she said with an air to her voice that caused me to pause.
“Not rich girls,” I countered, spinning around to look at her. “The only kind of girls that I ever wound up with were gold diggers. It didn’t matter how much money they came from… all they saw was a big fat fucking wallet.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow, okay. My bad.”
“My longest relationship—one of nearly three years—ended because I caught her using my credit card to buy whatever the hell she wanted behind my back. To make matters even worse, I found a text from her to one of her friends, saying she was only with me because she would be ‘set for life.’ I broke up with her because of it in my senior year of college, and I haven’t dated anyone seriously since. Anytime things got close to being serious, I’d find out they were just using me for money.”
“Must be nice,” she mumbled from behind me, her voice barely audible. I wasn’t even sure if I heard her correctly, and I was hoping that I didn’t.
“What did you say?” I demanded in a sharp tone.
“Isaidit must be nice to have that problem,” she snapped at me, shooing me on the trail. “I’ve never had that problem. In fact, mine was the opposite. No one wanted to be with the poor girl with the druggy parents who lived in the run down shack on the far side of the res.”
I was silent, biting my cheek from saying anything. Part of me wanted to ask her if she dated anyone for their money—you know, since shewaspoor.
But that wasn’t the respectful thing to do, and Ididknow how to be a gentleman.
“I guess you don’t have anything to say to that,” she huffed from behind me.
“I just can’t relate,” I said, my voice wavering a little. “Tell me about your last serious relationship. I told you why mine ended, you tell me about yours.”
“He went to prison.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Wade,” she groaned out from behind me. “He went to prison and I broke up with him.”
“What’d he go to prison for?” I couldn’t help but ask, my curiosity burning in my chest. What kind of womanwasshe?
“He got into some kind of fight with some guys at a bar and stabbed them.”
“What?”
“Stop saying that word,” she quipped, shaking her head as she walked beside me across the next meadow. “I know how crazy it sounds. He was a good guy, from what I knew. We met when we were only sixteen and his family was a lot better than mine—he was from off the res. My dadhatedhim for that reason. He didn’t think I needed to be with someone who wasn’t native. Well, at the time, anyway. He’s changed his views since then… but anyway, my ex came from a good family. He promised me a way out of the life I was living...” her voice trailed off as she looked away from me.
“And then what? He just got pissed and stabbed some guy at the bar?” I exasperated, blinking my eyes in disbelief. “I don’t think that just happens overnight.”
“Well,no.He started hanging out with a rougher crowd in our senior year of high school. It spilled over after graduation—we never got out, because he decided he wanted to stay and rodeo. He didn’t want to actually go to college and leave town. I had no way out. My scholarships weren’t enough to cover me actually leaving. I couldn’t afford housing so I got stuck.”
My heart sunk with sympathy, her story strangely moving me. “But you got out… you’re out now.”
“Yeah, it took me almost seven years after that to get out. My sister Leia has been out for nearly three years, though.”
