Chapter 21
21
The sleepy woman curled up in his sheets holds his attention with an iron grip.
He considers it a small miracle he’s only ten minutes late to work.
Hours, minutes, or maybe only seconds after I fall asleep, a gentle jostling wakes me up again.
Groggy and confused, I squint through bleary eyes at the wide chest cradling me close, the bulky arms cocooning me. I try to move, to stretch out limbs so stiff from being curled up in a tight, tense ball for who knows how long, but a quiet shushing stills me.
“Sorry.” The word brushes against my temple, so close I can almost feel the lips whispering it. “Go back to sleep,” I hear too, not quite registering the meaning, not when there are far more important things to worry about. Like warm sheets and a downy comforter and a nest of plump pillows, and a light touch sweeping across my cheekbone, behind my ear.
Something else is said, I think. Something sweet. Soft and gentle like everything else about this moment. I don’t catch the words, but I latch onto them anyways, hugging them close the same way I hug a pillow to my chest.
I must be dreaming, I decide as a puff of air warms my brow. As someone tucks me beneath the covers. As more words are whispered against my skin, an inexplicably regretful promise to be back later that sings through my head like a lullaby as sleep pulls me back under.
Thin curtains do nothing to stem the assault of bright, morning light as the marching band parading around in my head drags me to consciousness. Rolling onto my stomach with a groan, I bury my face in the couch cushion that somehow got comfier overnight, palms pressed to my temples like that might stem their throbbing.
Never again.
Never ever ever again as long as I live will I drink like that—will I drink, period. No matter how bad things get, I will not be him.
Shame burns my veins—or maybe that’s tequila—as I slowly rise onto my knees. A blanket hanging heavy around my shoulders, I squint through one eye, jolting when I’m not where I expect to be.
It takes a long, anticipatory moment to put a name to my location. Partly because the cacophony in my brain makes it hard to think. Mostly because I’m really, really hoping I’ll wake up for real any second now and be back on the sofa instead of on a king-size mattress.
Bile burns my throat as I scramble out of bed, eyes wide and heart pounding. How did I get here? God, please don’t say I drunkenly sleepwalked my way into Hunter’s bed—that would be par for the humiliating course.
Pushing my tangled hair back from my face, I suck in a couple of deep, mildly nauseating breaths as I wrack my brain. Someone… someone carried me in here—I thought it was a dream, but evidently not. Someone as big and soft as the bed they tucked me into, who left their warmth and scent behind.
In the wee hours of the morning, sometime before he left for work, Hunter picked me up off the sofa and put me in his bed.
I’ve never been so happy to be alone, so grateful that there’s no one around to witness the flush that pinkens every inch of my skin. Before the mere sight of the bed makes me burst into flames, I avert my gaze, and it lands on the nightstand.
The bottle of Gatorade sitting makes me whimper. A cruel compliment to the pounding in my skull, my mouth and throat are so dry, it’s borderline painful. Careful not to upset my rolling stomach, I reach for the bottle. As I pick it up, something detaches from the bottom—a Post-It flutters to the floor. My knees ache as I crouch to grab it, reminding me why I’m here in the first place, but I hastily shove that thought aside as I squint at the neat scrawl on bright orange paper.
drink it all and take two.
Something funny knots in my chest as I snag the Advil container sitting on the table too, doing as the note says and washing down two pills with a gulp of Gatorade. The plastic crinkles as I chug the blue liquid right down to the last drop, and it’s a desperate thirst for more that drives me from the bedroom. Slow as molasses, I creep around the bed, reaching for the doorknob, but pausing halfway there.
I doubt anyone is here—the alarm clock by the bed reads early morning, the busiest time of day on the ranch. Yet still, as I glance down at the borrowed tee covering my body and imagine, with a wince-inducing grimace what the rest of me looks like, a sudden bout of self consciousness grips me.
Don’t be silly, Caroline, I chide myself silently. You can’t look any worse than you did last night.
Still, I back up a couple of steps. I start turning towards the ensuite I cleaned up in last night. I abruptly freeze when I hear a door slam close, and then heavy footsteps stomp my way too quickly for me to do anything but pray I don’t look as bad as I feel.
The bedroom door swings open and I reel backwards, trying and failing miserably to look casual with my back against the wall, my arms crossed over my chest. Honestly, I can’t tell who’s more uncomfortable; me or the hulking man filling the doorway.
Hunter does one tangible visual sweep of my body before he glances at the bed. Gaze lingering on the twisted sheets, he clears his throat. Drags a hand through his hair. Stares at me again.
I glance at the bed. Clear my throat. Drag a hand through my hair. Stare at him again.
Neither of us are responsible for breaking the silence. A lucky thing, too, considering I have no intention to, and it doesn't seem like he’s too keen on it either.
Excited yelps echo off the walls as Herc barrels towards me, his small but growing body slamming off my shins. I drop to my knees, a smile stretching my lips as I pepper kisses of gratitude all over his sweet little face—a yapping puppy is a hell of an icebreaker, and an even better conversation starter.
“What’re you doing here?” I croon at the pup trying his best to burrow beneath my skin, knowing it won’t be him that answers.
Sure enough, it’s not. “Thought you could use the company.”
That’s nice of him. Really nice. A little unnecessary, though, considering I don’t plan on being here long enough to need company. In fact, I’m hoping to flee any minute, even if I have to walk home.
“I brought you breakfast.”
My stomach growls, the little traitor.
“If you want,” Hunter adds, and I swear I don’t imagine how he stumbles over the words a little. Like he’s nervous I’ll refuse—like I have the willpower to give up a free breakfast, no matter how mind-numbingly awkward it might end up being. And I don’t think I imagine the flash of relief across that handsome, rugged face when I nod either.
I wait until Hunter disappears into the kitchen before rising with Herc cradled in my arms. Releasing a rib-rattling breath, I brush my cheek against a silky, floppy ear. “Get ready to be the buffer of the century, little guy.”
I choose to take his teeth nipping my chin as a binding agreement.
I take the liberty of stealing a pair of sweatpants—and tying the waistband in a comically-sized knot to keep them from falling down—before creeping out of the bedroom. With my eyes on Herc’s squirming form, I don’t see Hunter watching me, but I certainly feel it.
Holding the brunt of his attention is like being struck by lightning. It has every nerve ending writhing, every ounce of awareness my body possesses jolting to life. It’s unsettling and so damn unnerving, and I try to avoid the full force of it, to avoid eye contact for as long as possible, keeping my attention on Herc as I put him down and he slopes over to the—
I frown at the dog bed tucked in the corner of the living room. Did I see that last night? I don’t think I did. I would’ve commented on it, surely.
I turn to Hunter to ask him about it, but something else quickly steals my attention.
It’s not the brown paper bag with Bishop’s logo stamped on the side that accosts me so aggressively, nor the plastic to-go cup of what I immediately recognize as their signature spicy lemonade.
No, it’s the bundle of flowers in every shade of orange that renders me speechless.
I don’t dare look at Hunter. I don’t want him to see the wetness in my eyes. I don’t want to assume they’re for me—I don’t want him to assume I’m assuming they’re for me. But as I look closer, there’s no mistaking the single word on the note attached to the bouquet by the same peach ribbon tying the stems together.
The letters of my name in the same swooping letters scrawled on the Post-It.
“I’m sorry.” The apology is whisper-quiet, staggeringly sincere. “I’m so sorry, Caroline. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”
Fingers twisting around the hem of my t-shirt, I nervously tug on the material. “Why did you?”
If I didn’t know any better, I would swear the twitch of Hunter’s fingers was a little nervous too. “I was pissed. I took it out on you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I know.” Propped against the counter beside the bouquet, the perfect, beautiful bouquet, Hunter stoops until his earnest eyes find my wide ones. “I’m sorry. Those girls…” Full lips thin out, that bearded jaw ticking. “Didn’t like how they were talkin’ to you. Didn’t like how you were just takin’ it. Makes me a fuckin’ hypocrite, I know, but I snapped. Got frustrated. I tried to come back and apologize, but your dad said—”
That has me snapping upright. “You spoke to my dad?”
“He said you didn’t live there anymore.” The words are careful. So careful. “Seemed mad.”
My eyes screw shut.
“It was your dad,” Hunter says. Not asking. Sounding eerily calm. “Last night, and the night you left the ranch.”
The shake of my head is instinctive, but it comes a second too late, after a moment too long of frozen hesitation, and Hunter sees right through it.
“Okay.”
I open my eyes to watch that broad chest rise and fall slowly.
“Okay, honey.”
I brace, but I’m not sure what for. The anger so clearly simmering to boil over, maybe. For him to storm away like he did last night, for me to expend energy I don’t have begging him to come back inside.
I’m so sick of doing that. Begging . Screaming for someone to listen to me only to be ignored time and time again. Not having any control over my freaking life. I’m so tired of feeling so damn powerless.
When Hunter moves towards the front door, I block his path. “Hunter, nothing happened.”
He brushes past me easily, my frame no match for freaking Goliath. “I think you’re lying.”
“I think it’s none of your business.”
A veritable growl escapes the man as he grasps the doorknob. “Like fuck it isn’t.”
“If you go to my house, I’ll never speak to you again.”
That makes Hunter pause. Slowly, he turns around, face set in tentative disbelief.
I swallow. “You could buy me a whole field of flowers and I wouldn’t forgive you.”
A frustrated noise rattles his chest. “ Caroline ,” he… begs. Yeah. He begs . Like asking him to do nothing is killing him.
Even though my spine feels like jelly, I stand firm. “I mean it.”
Another growling grumble leaves him. He faces the door again, and I almost think my gamble didn’t pay off, that I overestimated how much he actually likes me, that I gave too much weight to my presence in his life.
But then his hand falls away from the door handle. He leans against the wood, knocking his head against it once, twice, three times before he turns and demolishes the distance between us. It all happens so fast, I don’t realize his hand is on my cheek, his forehead is nudging mine, his lips are all but touching mine until I taste the words he utters lowly. “You don’t go back there. If he calls you, you call me. Anything happens, you call me. Don’t care when, don’t care where. Call me .”
I try to swallow again, but my throat is suddenly remarkably dry. “Hunter, nothing happened.”
His head shakes as his hand slips into my hair, gliding through the strands. “I mean it.”
I know he does. I can tell. Everything about him screams ‘I mean business,’ but there’s something… soft there too. As soft as an accusation with no real venom behind it. “I know you’re lying to me.”
We’re close enough to share breath, and I can’t help but stare at his mouth.
“But that’s okay. You’ll tell me when you wanna.”
When . Not if .
“You’re not going back there.”
Again, no hesitation. No room for alternatives.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and I momentarily forget what he’s even apologizing for, too distracted by the feel of him cupping the back of my head. “You don’t embarrass me. You hear me, Caroline? Not even a little bit. You’re good, honey. Too good for those girls, too good for your daddy, too good for—”
Maybe if I wasn’t so distracted by the close proximity, I would care that he doesn’t finish his sentence. If I wasn’t channeling all my energy into breathing, staying upright, not doing something very rash, very foolish —like lean forward and kiss the man tracing the contours of my face with his fingertips like he’s trying to erase last night’s rough touch.
“You don’t deserve it, okay? You don’t.”
Staring sincerity in the eyes, I believe him. For possibly the first time in my life, I take a man at his word, no doubt muddying the moment.
I am good. I don’t deserve it.
He’s so convincing, so all-consuming, that even when he whispers words he can’t possibly mean, words I barely hear because they’re so quiet, I believe them too.
“Ain’t got nothing better in my life, Caroline.”