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“How did you hide that from all of us? I mean, it’s impossible to hide anything in this town. The Ladies knew I was pregnant before we even told my parents.”
“Wait a minute.” Aiden pointed at Thatch. “That’s why you’ve been disappearing so much. On the weekends.”
“And you’ve been teaching in Jackson a lot more frequently,” Kyra said to Lyric.
She tried to laugh. “Busted, I guess.” She looked to Thatch for backup, but he seemed content to stay silent and let her handle the interrogation.
“Now that you two are an item, we should plan a trip together.” Kyra held up her glass of iced tea for a cheers.
“Yes!” Tess clinked her bottle with their glasses. “Butif we can’t fit it in this month, it can’t happen until next fall. After the baby’s old enough to stay a few nights with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Sure.” Lyric tried not to think about how disappointed everyone would be when she and Thatch broke off this fake relationship. “How’re plans with the nursery going?” It was time to get them all talking about something else.
Her stratagem worked. While Tess filled her and Kyra in on the nursery and birthing plans, the men went outside and gathered around the grill. All through dinner, everyone was too busy talking about the upcoming Rodeo Days to focus on her and Thatch. But after they’d finished eating, they all ended up on the outdoor couches around the firepit. And, naturally, the only open seat had been next to Thatch.
“Here’s a blanket, you two.” Kyra dropped the throw into her lap. “It’s cool tonight. Feel free to snuggle.”
Lyric was chilly, but she’d been sitting as far away from Thatch as she could without raising suspicions.
“You need to share the blanket with him,” Tess told her, already cuddled up with Silas.
Now all four of them were staring.
Thatch draped his arm around Lyric’s shoulders and nestled her into his warmth. From the outside, they looked like the rest of these couples. Sitting in front of the crackling firepit with the diamond-studded sky overhead. Close and happy and in love. But sitting here with him only made the emptiness expand inside her until she felt hollow.
Sometimes she wanted what Silas and Tess had. Or Kyra and Aiden. Both couples had developed this trust, this bond that could withstand any test. They’d found themagic somehow. The right person or the right time in their lives. All the stars had aligned for them.
Maybe she was so desperately trying to keep some physical distance between her and Thatch because it would be too easy to pretend with him. Spending more time with him lately had revealed the qualities she’d never noticed before. His thoughtfulness. His wisdom in how he interacted with Franco. And even her, in truth. He somehow sensed when she needed space or needed to change the subject and never pushed her.
“You okay?” Thatch murmured near her ear.
She nodded and turned her face to his because that’s what a girlfriend would do. A girlfriend might also brush a sweet kiss across his lips whenever she found herself this close to the man she loved. And she wanted to. A distinct urge to be close to him—to be close to someone that way again—pressed into her breastbone, filling her whole chest with a yawning ache.
But anytime she’d had that urge before, with any other man, fear overtook it eventually. She couldn’t go there. For years, she’d found her safety in distance and independence and control.
She didn’t know how to drop any of those shields now.
CHAPTER TEN
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Thatch had to take his shirt off for a woman.
“Yikes.” Kyra inspected the bruising on the right side of his rib cage. “This seems like a strange injury for a fall on a trail. The discoloration is really concentrated in this area.” She brushed a finger over the damage.
That was because he’d taken a direct shot from a bronc’s hoof to the bones right there. But he wouldn’t tell her that. “I landed right on a rock.” He tried not to sound impatient, but he didn’t need to be here. Bruises were a part of this gig. He could handle them. Kyra and Lyric didn’t understand that, in his previous line of work, he’d endured far more than a kick to the chest. If he could survive a gunshot wound, he could handle bruised ribs.
“How does this feel?” Kyra gently probed the area with her fingers.
“Fine,” he lied before holding his breath. The pain had a razor-edge sharpness, but, again, he didn’t need to besitting here on the exam table in Kyra’s clinic like a little kid.
“Take a deep inhale for me.” She stood back to watch his face.
Did he have to? Thatch braced himself for the pain and drew in a slow, long breath, trying like hell not to wince when his rib cage expanded. Okay. Yep. That hurt.
“Youarein pain.” The nurse practitioner shot him the same frown she probably used on her five-year-old patients. “Don’t bother pretending otherwise.”
He shrugged, but even that small movement made his sternum throb. “Nothing some over-the-counter painkillers can’t help with.” Though he hadn’t taken anything yet.
“Well, I’d like to finish the exam, at least.” Kyra slung a stethoscope around her neck. “Take your blood pressure, listen to your breathing to make sure there’s no pneumonia setting in. You know, all the important stuff.”
