CHAPTER 32
COLT
I pulled my quilt up over her, covering as much of her body as I was willing to lose.
“Colt,” she whispered my name.
I looked up from the curve of her knee, lips still brushing her skin, and caught her gaze.
Her eyes were clearer than I’d seen them since she came home.
There were no walls left between us, no games.
“Yeah, Strawberry?” I tried to soften the edge in my voice, but the term of endearment made her cheeks flush.
She reached for me, weaving her fingers through my hair, her touch light as if testing whether I might vanish under her hands. Her inhale was shaky as she searched my face and then the ceiling.
“What are we doing?” she asked. There was a wobble in her voice, a ghost of old wounds I hadn’t been able to take away. Her hand stayed at my nape, as if she needed the anchor, and despite the softness of her just a few moments ago, she was now tense.
I let out a long breath and propped myself on my elbow. I took her hand from my hair and brought it to my lips. I slowly kissed the inside of her bare wrist as she watched me.
“We’re doing the only thing that makes sense. You and me. It’s always been that, hasn’t it?” I watched her eyes shutter, watched her try to hide the relief, but it was there in the way her fist unclenched and her breathing eased.
Her fingers brushed over my jaw, and there was so much hope and fear mixed in her eyes.
“We said we wouldn’t do this,” she whispered, her voice cracking as her lower lip quivered. “This is why we agreed to be casual. We don’t need to make each other promises we can’t keep.”
My gut twisted at the word casual . Nothing about this was casual, even if she clung to that word as if it would keep her safe. But there was nothing safe about the way I loved her.
“Why can’t we keep them?” I pushed the hair off her cheek, my fingertips lingering on the fine spray of freckles.
She gave a watery, disbelieving laugh, and her gaze darted back up to the ceiling as if it could offer her the answers she was searching for. “You make it sound so easy.” The words were a challenge, but I could hear the plea buried inside. “We broke our promises before.”
When she finally looked back at me, the hurt in her eyes was a mirror to the hollow space I’d carried inside me. My chest ached with the weight of everything we’d lost.
“We were kids then, Blaire. We didn’t know what we were doing.” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to tell her the truth. “I was scared of not being enough for my family. I was too damn scared to watch you realize I’d never be enough for you.”
I could see the tears in her eyes she wouldn’t let fall, and even though I wanted to say more, I forced myself to wait for her. I let the silence hum between us as my hands traced slow circles over her ribs.
“I was scared too,” she whispered, and her voice was so raw.
“You always seemed so sure of yourself, like nothing could touch you. But you were the one person who could break me.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and I felt her chest shudder under my palm.
“I hated that about myself. Hated I couldn’t outgrow it, that I never stopped wondering if you’d show up on my porch one day and?—”
Her voice broke on the words, and I kissed her hairline as I held her against my chest. The shape of her pain was a living thing, thumping against my ribs in sync with hers, and when her breath hitched, I felt it down to my bones. I wanted to take every bit of that hurt away from her.
But she kept talking, and I let her, even when my every instinct screamed to tell her I would spend the rest of my days making it up to her.
“I always wanted to be my own person,” she whispered, and her voice was smaller than I’d ever heard it.
“But it’s like no matter where I went, or who I was with, there was a part of me that was always waiting for you.
” She exhaled, and the sound was shaky and so damn lonely it made me want to scream.
“I was so fucking sure I’d finally figured my life out, you know?
I thought if I did everything right, if I kept my head down and my heart locked up, then maybe I could—” She went quiet, and I could practically feel her trying to find the right words.
“But the harder I tried to move on, the less I recognized myself. I know that’s not your fault.
That was on me and what I allowed. I’d look in the mirror and see a stranger with my mother’s face, but none of her fire.
” The tears finally came then, and I gently wiped them away with my thumb as I held her tighter. “My mom wouldn’t recognize me.”
“She would,” I said, unable to control the raw edge in my voice.
I cupped her face with my hand, thumb pressing under her jaw, lifting her gaze so she had no choice but to meet my eyes.
“Your mama would be so proud of who you are. You’ve never been small, Blaire.
Not one goddamn day of your life. Not when you left, not when you came back, not now. ”
The words tore out of me because I needed her to feel them.
She blinked, and I could see the fight in her, the stubborn denial, the part of her that still believed she was all the things other people said she was.
Her lips parted, and the beginnings of an argument formed, but I didn’t let her speak.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then another to the tip of her nose and the corner of her mouth, lingering there as her breath hitched.
“I should have told you this years ago. I should have grabbed your arm that day and fallen to my knees and begged you not to go.” My voice broke, and I kissed her again. “Fuck, Blaire. There wasn’t a single part of me that wanted you to leave, and I’ve been drowning every goddamn day since.”
I wanted to tell her how I’d scraped myself raw trying to figure out how to keep her and keep the only home I’d ever known, but the words caught in my throat. But Blaire deserved the truth, even if it made her hate me.
“That day when I told you to leave with your father, when I said I couldn’t do this anymore.” I forced the words out, my voice rough. “I lied to you, Blaire. Every damn word of it was a lie.”
Her eyes flashed wide, lips parting with unspoken questions, but I pushed forward before courage could desert me.
“Your father showed up at the ranch.” My hand trembled as I pushed it through my hair, the memory flooding back with sickening clarity.
“He was already dragging June through court, and she was barely keeping her head above water. Then he pulled out those loan papers, and I didn’t even know about it until that moment.
Those papers had my parents’ signatures right next to June’s, and he told me exactly what would happen if you stayed.
” I had to look away from her then, shame burning hot through my chest. “He said he’d drag June through every court in the state, that June and my parents would lose everything they worked for.
And anything tied to your mama’s estate?
He swore he’d take that too. And I—” My voice cracked.
“I was eighteen and terrified, Blaire. I thought I was protecting you, protecting everyone. I’d convinced myself that you were better off without me.
I couldn’t give you the life that he could. ”
For a moment, the only sound was the hitch in Blaire’s breath and the thunder of my own heart.
The words hung in the space between us, heavy as summer thunder.
I felt a sick, hollow need in my gut for her to understand, and I realized I was gripping the sheet so hard it might rip.
But I couldn’t let go, couldn’t even reach for her, because I was terrified that if I touched her now, she’d slip through my fingers for good.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Blaire. I hate what I did to us.
What I did to you.” The words rasped through my throat, making my chest burn as I forced myself to hold her gaze.
Her brown eyes were wet with the tears she refused to let fall, but was unable to hide.
“Every morning since that day, I’ve woken up with the weight of my regret.
Your father gave me no choice, but I still should’ve chosen you. ”
I could see the impact in the way her lips trembled, the way her jaw clenched as if she could trap the ache inside her mouth before it escaped. My hand hovered inches from her cheek, desperate for contact, but I didn’t touch her. I didn’t have the right. Not after all I’d done.
“You deserved the truth then, and you deserve it now. When you left, I tried to put everything back the way it was. I threw myself into the ranch. I helped June. I tried to rebuild my own goddamn soul from the pieces you left behind. But no matter what I did, no matter how many times I told myself it was for the best, loving you was the one thing I never figured out how to stop.” I said the last part so quietly I wasn’t sure she heard it, but she did. She heard every damn word.
Her throat worked as she swallowed, then slowly, with the kind of hesitation that felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, she reached for my hand. Her fingers laced through mine, shaky at first, then with more certainty, as if she needed to anchor herself to something real.
“I spent years hating you,” she whispered, her voice catching on the words. Her fingers tightened around mine until I could feel her nails pressing into my skin. “Every night I’d lie awake replaying everything, searching for the moment I became someone you couldn’t love anymore.”
My chest felt like it was splitting open, all the things I’d never said clawing their way out at once. I could barely breathe past the knot in my throat, but I forced the words out anyway, because if I didn’t say them now, I didn’t know if I would ever get the chance again.