Cowboy Up (Coming Home #3)

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, my tears returning.

“I had a mama who couldn’t love me and a father who didn’t want to until he was dyin’. I didn’t know my grandparents. The only real love I felt was toward my brother and sister. And with them, I saw what havin’ shit parents did to kids. I grew up knowin’ I didn’t want to bring a life into the world without knowin’ I’d be capable of what my parents weren’t. That didn’t change when she killed my baby, Caroline. I can’t explain what it felt like holdin’ my sister’s baby in my arms, but even lovin’ that boy instantly, if I didn’t have you, I would never want that for myself. You make me need everythin’ I never wanted.”

A giant sob bursts from my lips.

“I told you we were gonna have this talk.” He gives me a brief kiss. “I told you that what I wanted for our future would be different than what I wanted with her. I could live without anyone in this whole damn world, but you . . . I couldn’t go on without you. I’m a man who knows what he needs, Linney, and that’s you. I won’t waste time when I know in my marrow that you’re made for me to love. Ask me, baby. Ask me what roads we’re traveling on.”

“Wh-what roads?”

“The ones that collide together and form one indestructible path. One day, one day real damn soon, that road is gonna give you my name and give us a family that will never doubt what parent’s love feels like. We both had a rough start, darlin’, but there isn’t anything we can’t weather together. I knew it was time to cowboy up the second my good girl gave me her bad and together we made magic.”

I’m crying so hard now, he had to stop talking softly halfway through that. I can see his smiling face, so full of love for me, through the tears swimming in my eyes. I blink frantically, but the tears keep coming. Not even when his lips drop to mine and we drown in each other’s kisses do they stop. My sobs echo around the room as he undresses me, only slowing when he pushes himself into my body. By the time he’s given me every thick inch, do I finally stop crying. The passion between us is a soothing balm to my tears, which dissolve in the overpowering joy tipping me over the edge as I lose myself in the all-consuming sensation of the man I love loving me slow.





18


CAROLINE


“Humble and Kind” by Tim McGraw

- -

You know the old saying when something feels too good to be true, it probably is? Well, there’s no doubt to its validity in my eyes. Not after I wake up the next morning and the bubble of perfect love that had formed around Clayton and myself pops. Only, when Clayton wakes me up the this morning with worry hanging off him like a coat and tells me there’s been another fire, the tears don’t come. When I call Luke and hear him confirm what Clayton told me, I just feel a sad acceptance of what it means. There’s no fear. No panic. Just the knowledge that whatever follows will be okay because I have Clayton to help me find my way through it.

The Sequel is completely gone.

What had been rebuilt and put on the market was just a pile of ash now.

There’s also no doubt in anyone’s mind that this fire was intentional. No matter what the report said about the first one, everyone now knows that one had been as well. What we don’t know, though, is why.

“Talk to me, Linney,” Clayton asks with a hint of desperate worry in his tone.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Jesus, baby, you just found out that someone intentionally set fire to the old store and you don’t even look upset.”

I shrug. “I’m upset, but not because it’s gone. It was just an empty space. My dreams aren’t tied up in there, and my happiness is not something I can only find in the pages of the books I sold. A few months ago, this probably would have felt a lot different, but then I went explorin’ and I’ve got a path full of somethin’ I never dreamed of. I’m stronger now. Too strong to let this break me.”

“Fuck, I love you.”

A small smile forms on my lips at his words. “The thing that bothers me now, even though I hate thinkin’ that someone else might not be able to make a dream of my old space, is that I don’t understand why I’m bein’ targeted. Even though Luke said there was another fire across town at another business, I can’t help but feel in my gut this is personal.”

“What are you thinkin’, darlin’?”

I sigh, shrug, and shake my head. “Do you think . . . Could this be John?”

A flash of anger crosses his face. “Do you think it could be?”

“I honestly don’t know, Clayton. The John I knew years ago wasn’t a good person, but he was an angry drunk who preferred to use his words and strength to hurt someone. He wanted people to know he was powerful in that way. Hiding behind a fire doesn’t make sense. I just can’t see him wakin’ up one day and decidin’ today is a good day to become an arsonist.”

“Just because he didn’t show it then doesn’t mean he didn’t have more malicious intent hidin’ away and waitin’ to come out.”

“I know, I know. But it just doesn’t feel like somethin’ he’d do. If he’s even still in town, he’d corner me somewhere before he’d hide behind a fire and not let me know he was the one who took more from me. The man I knew would’ve left no doubt it was him.”

Clayton drops his head, looking down at his boots.

“What?”

A little pit of unease opens in my gut when he just shakes his head.

“Clayton. Tell me what’s goin’ through your head.”

“Goddamn,” Clayton grunts. “You knew him as a boy, Linney. You don’t know him as a man.”

“I was with him for close to six years. I might have started with him when he was a boy, but he was a man when I finally left.”

“And you haven’t seen or really talked to him in close to another five, darlin’. People change, and you might not know the man that he is today.”

I take a calming breath. Placing my palms on the counter, planting my feet on the rungs on the barstool at the kitchen island, I arch my brows at Clayton.

“I asked you to trust me,” he finally answers my unspoken silent demand that he continue.

“I do, but I don’t need you keepin’ somethin’ from me because you think I need you to protect me from him. He can’t hurt me, even if he is the one behind the fires. He’ll never touch me again.” The confidence I’m starting to get used to rushes through my body. I can tell the second Clayton realizes that while I trust him completely, I won’t back down from this. conversation.

“Son of a bitch,” he grunts under his breath, studying my face before shaking his head and continuing. “I’ve had problems with him for a while, Caroline. A lot of those problems are ugly, and I wanted to spare you that shit.”