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“It just didn’t seem like it should be that hard,” he said.
“Well, it’s not. Not really. But if you don’t know anything...”
“I like not knowing anything,” he said. “Reminds me of being a kid. And being a kid is terrible.”
“Oh, not to me. Being a kid was when things were simple. Everything in my family went to hell later.”
“Yeah,” he said.
He didn’t really know what all had happened with her parents. It hadn’t been all that long ago when her dad had run off. Ten years maybe. Alaina had been an adolescent. Gus had been an adult, working at making changes on the ranch. And even though he and Fia had worked together on rejuvenating Four Corners...
Fia Sullivan was a locked box. She didn’t share a damn thing with anyone.
Their breakfast arrived and Alaina picked up her toast and started to nibble at the crust. He was fascinated by that mouth. He could remember the moment it had started.
This dark, shameful pleasure he felt when he looked at her.
At the lake, her in a bikini. Her hair all wet and curly, and backlit by the sun. And she’d smiled at him, impish and mischievous. And splashed him.
No one ever did things like that to him. No one...tried to get him toplaywith them. No one but her. She’d never been scared of him. Never shied away.
He’d advanced on her and grabbed her around the waist to dunk her into the water and suddenly he’d...
Become aware of her. As the woman she’d become. That she wasn’t a kid he was picking up to haul down into the water.
She was a woman.
A woman.
The thought had haunted him all the rest of the night and the next day when he’d seen her again, down at the garden at Sullivan’s Point, wearing a sundress with skinny straps that showed her body right off, he hadn’t been able to see whatever he once had.
It had changed.
Forever.
He shoved a strip of bacon into his mouth. “So. Why did your dad leave?”
He asked that to say something. To get to talking about anything.
“He followed his dick to greener pastures,” she answered. “At least...at least that is my understanding.”
He frowned. “You don’t know the whole story?”
“I think they were trying to protect me. Look, I don’t know what all happened. I just know...something. And Fia was never quite the same after. She idolized my mother and father’s relationship. Our lives. And I know she...she saw something or... I don’t know. She won’t talk about it. But then, she doesn’t talk about anything. Witness her situation with Landry...”
“Yeah. Never really understood that one.”
“No. Me neither. But I guess that’s just my family. You ignore everything until it blows up. It all blew up. My dad left. My mom could never make sense of all the rubble, and a few years later she left too. And we just figured out how to keep going. But sometimes I worry. I mean, did I basically blow stuff up? I wonder how close Fia is to doing the same. And Rory and Quinn... Maybe the farm store is what they want. All of them. I was starting to want more. I... You know, I was always worried about getting left, but I guess I am my dad. I’m the one who wasn’t responsible. I’m the one who did the leaving.”
“You went to the next ranch over.”
“I just meant I’m the one that started having itchy feet. It’s different. They stayed. They were... I don’t know. I just feel weird about it. Kind of bad.”
“Well, stop feeling bad.”
“You make it sound easy. But I have...trouble facing things head-on.”
“You do not.”
