Women Make Weak Legs
COLT
I move through the week like I’m walking on sunshine. I haven’t been getting much sleep, but you wouldn’t know it from the burst of energy I wake up with every morning.
I beg to differ. Yeah, I’m so spent at the end of the day after Lainey and I hook up that I practically face-plant into my mattress. But I feel stronger—healthier—than I have in years.
Lainey comes over for dinner every night.
Last night, she and Dean went through her notebook together again and spent an hour drawing in the pages using her fancy set of colored pencils.
I’m still not over how talented she is—I totally underestimated her.
He helped her draw some cowboy boots, and she showed him how to spell Double U.
Then we put him to bed and I took her to my bed. Despite the fact that we had to keep it quiet, the sex was incredible. The kind I wanted to have again in the middle of the night and again first thing in the morning.
We can’t, of course, because Lainey had to leave.
But God, I miss morning sex. I gotta figure out a way to make that happen without Dean finding out.
Last thing I wanna do is confuse him or break his heart.
He’s already half in love with Lainey. I can only imagine how hard he’d fall if she were around all the time.
If she weren’t leaving, I’d ask her to be exclusive. But I don’t know what her plans are when her contract is up, so I don’t talk about the future and neither does she. I’d like to think it’s not so much us avoiding the subject as it is us enjoying the present.
But yeah, every once in a while, I’ll think about what life will be like when she leaves. The idea of going back to business as usual, back to how it was before she came barreling into town—
Fuck.
I don’t got a choice, though. It’s not like I’m gonna give up everything I’ve helped build here to follow a twenty-four-year old to some sprawling Texas suburb.
And Lainey may be many things, but a country girl ain’t one of ’em.
Even if she is becoming a decent rider. And all our ranch hands know her name now because she’s always asking to help them out.
Still, Lainey and I are different. But if there’s one thing we do agree on, it’s honesty. Authenticity.
That’s what makes me think I shouldn’t be so scared to open myself up, because not everyone is going to lie to my face.
Not everyone is going to betray me.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
I blink against the ardent morning sunshine that slants across my face as Beck and I ride out to fix a fence in the northwest pasture. “Pardon?”
My brother smiles, giving his reins a gentle tug to slow Stilton, his five-year-old palomino. Only my foodie brother would name his horse after a stinky cheese from England.
“She fucked your brains right out of your head, didn’t she?”
I bite back a smile. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
I gotta kiss that girl at least once before she goes.
“You like her. A lot.”
My first impulse is to throw up my walls again. Deny, deny, deny. It’s nobody’s business how I feel about Lainey.
But she’s teaching me how good it feels to air shit out. I say I like people who aren’t bullshitty, but I hadn’t realized how bullshitty I’ve been until recently. Lies by omission.
I’m done keeping it all inside. The anger and the pain.
The joys and the wins.
“I didn’t think we’d hit it off like this.” I squint into the distance, clocking the trampled fence that needs mending. “Shocked the shit out of me.”
Beck nods, his Stetson casting a long shadow over his face. “I know all about shock. Guess who showed up at the restaurant?”
“Who?”
“Posey Adkins.”
My eyes bulge. “No shit! I always wondered where she ended up. That summer she was here, you all but disappeared.”
Beck gives me a look. “Can you blame me? She was gorgeous. And off-limits. Of course I disappeared with her.”
I let out a low whistle. “The way her daddy hated you.”
Posey is the daughter of Byron Jones, a legendary Texas billionaire whose family spent that summer at the sprawling ranch they own nearby. She was a boarding school princess, and Beck…well, he was hell on wheels back in high school.
“To be fair, I had a less-than-stellar reputation,” he says, echoing my thoughts.
“Still do. You gonna fall for her again?”
Beck cuts me a look. “I thought we were talking about you.”
“You’re the one who brought up Posey.”
“You’re the one falling in love with Lainey.”
My chest seizes. Not because my brother is out of line saying shit like that, even though he is.
But because I think Beck is right. And hearing him say out it loud is…a lot.
The steady sound of the horses’ hooves in the dirt fills the silence that stretches between Beck and me.
“Am I out of my mind to want to make it work?” I ask.
Beck stops a few feet from the fence and dismounts. “Yes. But that’s why you gotta try. You’ve been a Steady Eddy for far too long, brother. Which, fine. That’s safe. But you’re not gonna find what you’re looking for if you don’t put yourself out there. You gotta make shit happen.”
Sighing, I swing my leg over the horse and land on the ground. “She’s changed my mind. About the rebrand. And our future.” And everything else.
Beck smiles as he digs tools out of his saddlebag. “She’s persuasive.”
“Very.”
“Smart.”
“Yes.”
“She keeps it real.”
Putting on my gloves, I grab the shovel I tied behind my saddle and toss it onto my shoulder. “It’s what I like most about her.”
“Then you gotta lock her down.”
Letting out a bark of laughter, I walk over to the fence. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’re thinking with your dick.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
It’s not lost on me that I’m talking about mending fences with Lainey and my sister and my past while actually mending a fence.
The universe may be one sick son of a bitch, but instead of feeling victimized by it, now I can laugh with it.
That’s progress, right?
“She’s young.” I plunge the shovel into the earth. “Has big dreams for her future. I can’t hold her back.”
“Of course you don’t hold her back. You help her figure out how to leap forward doing something she loves while loving you.”
“I’m not sure she’d be happy here. In Hartsville, I mean.”
“I dunno. She seems awfully happy anytime I see her these days. Keep taking her out on the horses. Really, just keep doing what you’re doing.
” He grabs the fence post and centers it in the hole I just dug.
“And remember, this is the year of our lord twenty-twenty-something. Airplanes exist. So does the internet. Telephones too. Just because she decides to stay with you doesn’t mean she’s stuck here. ”
My heartbeat throbs in my ears. Warm sunshine pours over my shoulders and back, making my scalp prickle with sweat.
Shit, could we actually make this work?
“I haven’t even asked her to stay yet,” I say. I haven’t even kissed her. “After she’s done with the rebrand. She could say no.”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we wanna hire her to do some stuff for the restaurant. That’ll buy you some time.”
“Still time that’s borrowed.” I wipe my brow. “Thanks, though. For thinking of her. She’s ridiculously good at what she does.”
“Somebody’s changed their tune. I’d call you out on doing a one-eighty, but it needed to happen.”
I dig my shovel deeper. “What about Dean? I tell him, right? That Lainey and I are together?”
Beck’s eyes flick to meet mine. “That’s a big step.”
“I’m ready. I just gotta make sure Lainey’s on board too, obviously.”
He grins. “She will be.”
It strikes me that he baited me into making that commitment out loud.
I wanna punch him.
I also respect him for doing that.
“I’m just scared out of my mind that I’ll fuck up and he’ll end up hurt.”
Beck pulls a pair of pliers out of his back pocket. “Always a risk.”
“I don’t like risks.”
“You gotta take this one, though. Think about it this way. Yeah, you could fuck up. Or you could get it right this time. You’ve learned a shit ton from what you went through with Abby. Trust yourself to do things differently. Do them better.”
I chuckle despite the swell of emotion that blocks my throat. “You believe in second chances?”
Beck thinks on this for a minute as he wraps the barbed wire around the post. “I do.”
“Interesting you say that just when Posey appears.”
Beck doesn’t take the bait. Means something is going down, but he’s not ready to talk about it.
I know better than to push him. He’ll spill the beans when he’s ready.
We’re finishing up, loading our supplies back onto the horses, when Beck puts a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m here, you know. We all are. To fill in if you need to, I don’t know, show up even later than normal—”
“Fuck you.” I smile.
“Fuck you right back. But seriously, we’re here to support you if you wanna make this happen. Do it right. The ranch isn’t gonna fall apart if you take a day off. Even a week.”
“A week?” I stare at him, even as a feeling of warmth spreads its wings inside my chest. “Where the hell would I go for a week?”
He looks at me like the answer’s obvious. “You go down on Lainey. Not, like, for the whole week, obviously. Just for most of it. If that doesn’t convince her to stay, then I’m out of ideas.”
“That’s”—scoffing, I put my hands on my hips—“out of line.”
“Exactly why you gotta do it.”
“And here I thought I was the one who needed to get laid.”
Beck puts his hands on his saddle. “Everybody needs to get laid, if you’re any indication. When was the last time you grunted as a response to someone?”
I actually have to think about that for a minute. “I…don’t remember.”
“Hm.” He climbs onto his horse. “The last time you had an angry outburst?”
I climb into the saddle too, taking the reins. “With Billie and Ryder.” Weeks ago.
“You’re gonna make that right, though? Because you’re a changed man now that Miss Lainey Brown’s worked her way into your tiny black heart?”
“Matter of fact, yes.”
Beck blinks, like he wasn’t expecting me to actually agree with him. “Gotta feel pretty dang good, not being grunt-y and angry anymore.”
Feels fucking fantastic.
I just hope I can hold on to that feeling for a little longer.
If I’m lucky, I’d like to hold on to it forever.