Unbreak My Heart (Rough Riders Legacy #1)

Raj said nothing.

I finished my beer and grabbed another. “I needed to stay away from her but I couldn’t. So we were friends. Fuck, man. She was my only goddamned friend. And the entire time we were friends I knew how she felt about me.”

“Please tell me you didn’t take advantage of that.”

I scowled at him. “I’m not that guy, asshole. I never touched her because it would’ve been all fucking over for me if I did. So I left Wyoming just as planned. I just didn’t tell her that was my plan.”

“Did you have any contact with her at all?”

“Not until two weeks ago.” I told him everything that had happened when I’d seen her in Sundance and how things ended up with her today.

We’d each drained another beer by the time I’d finished.

Finally Raj said, “Sounds to me like you’ve made up your mind. She’s here; this is where you need to be.”

I shrugged.

“Don’t give me that fake ‘whatever’ attitude, man. You believe it’s a sign.”

“Or a second chance.”

“But that’s up to her, isn’t it? And from what you’ve told me, maybe she’s not interested in giving you a shot. Then you’re stuck here.”

I glanced up at him sharply. “I’m stuck here. I thought you ruled out Cheyenne?”

“I’m tired after driving fifteen hours and my brain is sluggish.” Raj sighed and rubbed the top of his shaved head. “But I recall that you weren’t giving Cheyenne serious consideration.” Then Raj’s gaze pierced me. “Something else you wanna tell me?”

“I indicated Phoenix as my preference today after I left her office.”

Raj’s eyebrows went up.

“There’s one other thing.”

“Of course there is.”

“Tomorrow I’m going back to Sierra’s office and asking her to show me possible rentals.” I flashed my teeth at him. “But it’s not for me. It’s for a friend.”

“Ah, fuck, man. Seriously?”

“I need a place to live anyway.” My gaze rolled over pink, pink, and pinker. I wasn’t sure how long I could stand being here.

“Fine, do your thing with her. I don’t wanna do anything except sit by the pool and work on my tan.”

I choked on my beer.

Raj laughed. “Too easy.”

“Asshole.”

“Missed you, bro.”

“Same.”





By six p.m. I had rocked my to-do list; all twenty-seven items checked off. Which was a big screw you to Boone—his unexpected appearance hadn’t affected my productivity at all.

Traffic wasn’t horrendous. The snowbirds hadn’t arrived en masse yet.

When I pulled up to my house, I grinned at my roommate Lu’s dirt-caked pickup, which was parked sideways in the drive. My neighbors in this upscale and trendy housing development wrinkled their noses at her big rig as if she used it to cart pigs around—although it did smell like shit whenever she used it to haul manure. I skirted the garage and entered the backyard through the gated side of the house.

Sure enough, Lu lounged by the pool. Topless.

“Eww, put those things away! I do not want a face full of tits when I ask you for a hug.”

Lu immediately slipped on a T-shirt and stood. At six feet two she was such a bruiser that she literally crushed me to her chest.

“What happened today that requires a momma bear hug?”

I sighed. She gave such great hugs. The type of affection I assumed other kids received from their mothers. My mom was a model-thin sack of toned flesh—not a squishy welcoming thing about her bony body.

I sighed again.

“Sierra?” Lu prompted.

“Let me change clothes and mix up a pitcher of margaritas first, okay?”

“Gotta be a doozy of a day if it calls for a pitcher.” She released me and smacked my ass. “Yell before you come back out, because the girls will be soaking up the sun.”

“Thanks for the tips—ha-ha.”

I opened the sliding glass door and cut through the kitchen, bypassing the great room and the foyer to climb a flight of stairs. No college student needed a six-bedroom, five-bathroom house, but the fire-sale price made it a killer investment. Since I’d bought the house with cash, I didn’t have a mortgage. Lu paid me a couple of hundred bucks a month that I put toward property taxes. She handled the yard work—it was a happy fact that Lu worked part-time as a landscaper. So far I’d avoided thinking about Lu graduating in May. While I wanted my BFF to seize the great opportunities she’d dreamt about since freshman year, I also hoped she’d stick around. Then we could do this adulting thing together, although I had a two-year head start in the working world.