Roaring Fork Roughstock (Roaring Fork Ranch #2)

19. Porter

19

PORTER

A fter crawling under the covers like Cici wanted me to, I pulled her into my arms rather than wait for her body to turn to mine like it did every night. Holding her felt right. Doing more than that, didn’t.

Today seemed like another of the longest of my life, the same way every day had since I arrived at Morris Ranch. While I’d finally been able to confess the secret I held onto and dreaded revealing about Roscoe not being Buck’s father, it seemed like, every time an issue was resolved, something else slid into its place.

There weren’t many people I’d admired more than Cici’s father, not that it meant I was blind to his faults. Like with most people who’d passed away—with the exception of my father—the majority of those who knew him or his wife, focused on the positive rather than remembering the bad shit. Hank had a temper. One he tried hard to hide from his kids and even his wife. I’d only seen it when he had no idea I was paying attention. I didn’t like seeing it then, and I didn’t like thinking about it now.

“You’re keeping me awake,” Cici muttered.

“I am?”

“All that loud thinking.” She buried her head in my chest.

“Sorry.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Then, keep it down.”

I smiled and pulled her closer, wishing so hard that I could remove her clothes and mine and be skin to skin. Not yet, though. Not until I figure what the hell to do about Mav. Buck was right. I needed to tell her what had really happened that night. Actually, Mav needed to, but until he remembered—if he remembered—how could he?

“Porter.” My name sounded more like a growl.

“What? I’m not doing anything.”

She raised her head. “Do you really not know how much your body wiggles when you’re talking to yourself?”

I chuckled. “It does not.”

“Try thinking about something that’s bothering you. Do it and see if you can stay still. Right now.”

“I can’t just think about something that’s bothering me on demand, Ceec.”

“What about Mav?”

I groaned. “Yeah, well…”

“See? You just wiggled.”

“No, I didn’t.” I laughed out loud when she pinched my side. “I can go sleep somewhere else if you’d like.”

She glared at me. “What I’d like is for you to sleep , and if you’re not going to, then put that wiggle to better use.”

“God, I love you.”

The smile left her face. “I love you, Porter.”

“We’ll get through this. I promise.”

She rested her head on my chest. “I hope so.”

“We will.” We had to. Now that I was sober, I couldn’t walk away from Cici like I did once before. Then, I believed I was saving her. What I was doing instead was hiding who I really was from her. Hiding how much I relied on booze to get me through each day.

“Porter?”

“Yeah?”

“If you break my heart again, I’ll kill you.”

I shook my head at how well she read me. If I wasn’t keeping so many secrets from her, I’d swear she could hear my thoughts.

When I woke with the sun, Cici was still next to me, but sometime in the night, she’d turned so she wasn’t facing me, and I hated it. She never did that. Not in the last few days, and not before. Why had she? Was my body moving too much in my sleep?

Unable to resist, I leaned over and kissed the soft spot between her neck and shoulder. One taste, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking more. When I ran my tongue up the taut muscle of her neck, Cici groaned.

“Don’t start something you aren’t gonna finish, cowboy.”

“I don’t like it when you sleep with your back to me,” I whispered.

Cici took my hand and pulled it until it rested on her breast. “I don’t like it when you don’t touch me.”

“God, Ceec.” I nearly came undone when she moved the same hand down between her legs.

“Please, Porter. You know what I want.”

I knew exactly what she wanted and how. I slid my fingers down the front of her pajama bottoms and inside her panties, pressing the length of one against her clit, then sliding it down farther so just the tip was inside her.

When she started to move so I’d go deeper, I stilled. “You know what I like too, Cici.”

She froze. “Please, Porter,” she whined.

I reached down more, and her thighs fell open.

“That’s what I like, baby,” I murmured as I thrust two fingers into her pussy.

“I can’t hold back,” she warned me.

“Don’t. Go ahead and take what you need.”

She ground against my hand, her back arching when her heat clenched my fingers. When she whimpered, I pressed my hardness between the cheeks of her tight bottom, wishing so much I could let go, let myself sink into the place that had always felt like exactly where I belonged.

We both froze when a rap on the bedroom door came seconds after we heard Mav’s uneven footfalls on the hallway’s wood floors.

“Porter? Are we goin’?”

“Yeah. Give me a sec.”

“Be in the kitchen.”

Cici and I both listened as he made his way down the stairs.

“Are there any meetings that aren’t at the butt crack of dawn?” Cici whined.

I didn’t miss her acknowledgment of where her brother and I went most every day. “This is cowboy country, Ceec. We’ve got chores to get back to.”

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Speaking of cowboys, don’t the guys from the Roaring Fork have to get home? I mean, do we still need them here every day?”

I shifted so I could see her face. “Why? Did something happen?”

“No.” She hesitated just enough that I knew something had.

“Talk to me, Cici.”

“Has it escaped your attention that I am the only woman on this ranch?”

“Did someone hit on you?” If my hand wasn’t still down her pants, I would’ve clenched my fist.

She rolled her eyes. “No. I’m just not used to having so many people underfoot.”

“Like this place hasn’t always been overrun by cowboys. What’s really going on?”

“I don’t like having people here who I don’t know. I mean, if it’s necessary, that’s one thing, but can’t my crew and I go back to running the ranch on our own?”

“I think so, but I’d like to talk it over with Steel, Jagger, and maybe Decker. How would you feel about that?”

“Seems reasonable.” She removed my hand from between her legs. “Mav’s waiting, and I’m going back to sleep.”

“If the guys return to the Roaring Fork, your days of sleeping in will come to an end.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get goin’, Port.”

I rolled out of bed, put on a clean set of clothes, and kissed her cheek on my way out.

Mav’s eyes barely met mine when I joined him in the kitchen. Was it because of our conversation yesterday, or had he heard his sister’s moans of pleasure at my hands?

“Made coffee,” he muttered, motioning to the travel mug he must’ve filled for me.

“Appreciate it.” It was the first time he’d done something like that.

“Yesterday, I mentioned remembering something about the accident,” he said once we were on the road.

His words felt like a knife in my gut. “Is there more?”

Mav shook his head. “No, but there is something I haven’t told anyone.”

“Do you want to now?”

“At the meeting.”

I nodded, wishing I could set aside my fear that he was about to reveal something in front of a room full of people that could potentially land him, Kaleb, and me in jail. This wasn’t about me. If Mav was ready to speak at a meeting, I had to encourage him to do so.

When we arrived, Kaleb was standing near the table where coffee and pastries had been set up. I realized I should’ve called him to let him know what Buck said about every trace of evidence of what we’d done the night of the accident being gone. Except now, with Mav saying he wanted to talk, the lack of evidence might be a moot point.

“He says he’s ready to speak,” I said under my breath.

When Kaleb nodded, I could see the same internal struggle I felt. This wasn’t about either of us. It was about Mav’s journey, and we had to respect that, regardless of the consequences either of us would face.

“The other thing has been taken care of,” I said as quietly.

We took our seats but not together. Like always, Mav and I sat in the back.

We were nearing the end of the meeting, and Mav hadn’t made a move. Just as I thought he might’ve changed his mind, he stood.

The guy standing near the front nodded once. The rules were, you could stay where you were and speak, or move to the podium. Mav stayed put.

“I, um, my name is Henry, and I’m an, um, alcoholic.”

It was the first time I remembered that he’d been named for his dad but used Maverick instead.

“I get that I’m supposed to talk about my problem with alcohol, so, uh, I guess this is where it all started.”

When he pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, I remained expressionless. His hands shook as he opened it, and from where I sat, I could see letters cut out of a magazine like the ones Cici had shared. Bile rose in my throat as I read what the note contained before Mav read it out loud.

“Your fault. They were out looking for you,” it read.

“So I, uh, got this the day of my parents’ memorial service. Someone left it for me at the funeral home. It says it’s my fault they died.”

The typically quiet room went completely still, as though everyone held their breath.

“The night they died, I was at a party. First time I got drunk. I was fifteen. Every day since, until the last few, I’ve…done the same thing.” Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the paper he held. “I don’t know of another way to make the pain stop.”

He sat down, hung his head, but handed me the paper. I folded it but didn’t give it back. The meeting concluded, but until Maverick got up, I wouldn’t. Kaleb walked past us, and I made eye contact with him, but not anyone else. And when Mav did stand once the room was empty, I silently followed him out to my truck, used the fob to unlock it, and drove back to the ranch.

Since he didn’t speak, I didn’t either. Maybe that was wrong, but I had no idea what to say.

I parked in my usual spot, not far from the ranch house, and cut the engine.

“You think I should tell Cici.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

“That’s up to you.”

“She’ll hate me.”

I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder. “You know she won’t, Maverick. The other thing you know, if you dig really deep, is that what’s in this note could very well be someone fucking with you. We don’t know why they went out that night. We’ll never know.”

His tears fell fast, and his body shuddered. “I know.”

Disputing his belief wouldn’t achieve anything, so I kept my mouth shut other than to say he could trust I would never reveal what he’d said either at the meeting or now. “I do think you should tell Cici, but whether you do or not isn’t up to me. It’s your decision, and I’ll respect it.”

Mav used his jacket sleeve to wipe away his tears, then opened the door but hesitated to get out.

His back was to me when he spoke. “Just another one of my secrets you’ll keep. Right, Porter?”