Chapter 13
Opening up
Cole
I can handle it. I can handle being a fling. A short summer thing. A cowboy she spends a few weeks with before she goes back to her real life. At least, that’s what I keep telling mys elf.
Because being in her bed last night, having that moment with her, feeling her wrapped around me, has my head completely fucked today. I’m out here on the ranch trying to work, and all I can think about is Layla. Layla. Layla.
That girl does something to me I can’t explain. No woman ever has. And I’ve only known her for a month.
I didn’t want to get out of that bed this morning. I didn't want to leave her there. But making her breakfast? Watching her eat what I cooked, wearing nothing but my shirt and then taking off said shirt. Smiling at me like she belonged there—hell, that might’ve been the highlight of my year.
I shake my head and try to focus.
“Why did you have to wake me up so early?” Luke groans beside me. “What do we even need to be up this early for? Can’t you handle all this stuff on your own?”
I shoot him a look. Fuck, I’ve babied this kid too much. After Mom died, I let him get away with everything. Dad did too. We were all just… surviving.
“You’re gonna have to help run this ranch one day,” I tell him, keeping my voice steady. “You can’t sleep your life away, Luke. I know it’s nice. I know it feels good. But this place doesn’t run itself, and I can’t do it all alone.”
He sighs. “Alright, alright. What do you want me to do?”
“I need you grooming the horses. Summer shed’s coming in, and Callie’s pregnant. Ready to give birth. I want her cleaned up before things get harder on her.”
“Yeah, of course,” he says, already heading toward the stables.
As I set up the tack, I glance toward the guest house. And there she is.
Layla steps outside wearing a bikini top and those damn shorts, carrying a lounge chair like she owns the place. Laptop tucked under her arm. Notebook and pen in hand. Writing already. Always writing.
She settles into the sun, sunglasses sliding down her nose as she looks up at me.
I swear to Christ, I almost forget how to breathe.
She sprays herself with water, smiling softly like the heat doesn’t bother her. It’s already eighty degrees out here. Makes me think we should’ve gotten a pool years ago. Maggie would’ve loved that. Hell, everyone would.
Something about Layla being here—about her presence—makes me realize how shut off I’ve been. How tense. How closed down. And now? It feels like something’s cracking open.
Maybe this is what I needed. Maybe she’s not here to stay, but maybe she’s here to remind me how to feel again.
Luke jogs back over, grinning. “Man,” he says. “You really got a thing for her.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, though I’m smiling as I rub Callie’s neck.
“Hey girl,” I murmur, my hand resting over her warm belly.
But my thoughts drift right back to Layla. The way she sounds when she laughs. The way she looks at me like she sees something worth wanting.
I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t want her.
“You think she’ll stay?” Luke asks suddenly.
The question hits harder than it should.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “She’s got deadlines. A whole life waiting for her.”
“You gonna ask her to?”
I stiffen. “Drop it, Luke.”
He nods, going quiet, and I exhale slowly.
This damn kid needs to mind his business.
I glance at him, trying to change the subject. “What about you and Stephanie?”
He brightens instantly. “What? Want to talk about my love life now?” He raises an eyebrow at me. ”I’m thinking about marrying her.”
That stops me cold.
“You’re nineteen!” I say louder than I should’ve.
“We’ve been together six years,” he says. “High school, everything. I don’t think about other girls. Steph’s it for me.”
Something settles in my chest.
“That’s… good luke,” I tell him, and I mean it.
Watching him talk about love so openly, without fear, without walls, makes me proud of my baby brother. Maybe I didn’t screw everything up after all. Or maybe Layla just walked into my life and showed me exactly what I’ve been missing.
After I finish grooming the horses with Luke, I finally let him off the hook. Truth is, I’m exhausted, not from work, but from the night before with Layla. We were up pretty damn late, and I can still feel her skin against mine if I think about it too long.
She’s still out there, stretched out in the lounge chair, laptop balanced on her thighs.
She keeps scribbling things in her notebook, then typing fast on her computer, then scribbling again like her brain can’t keep up with her fingers.
I never thought I’d go for the nerdy type — hell, I never thought I’d find writing sexy — but the way she does it?
Focused. Intense. Lost in her own world.
It’s hot as hell. But also annoying as hell.
I walk over to her, and she doesn’t even notice me at first. She’s completely in the zone, lower lip caught between her teeth, brows pinched together like she’s wrestling something important onto the page.
“Hey,” I say, leaning closer. “You gonna write all day, or do you have time to take a break?”
She jumps a little, then looks up at me and smiles that easy, warm smile that hits me right in the chest every time.
“Take a break,” she says loudly, snapping her laptop shut. “Thank goodness.”
I chuckle under my breath.
“Do you have any plans, or…?” she asks, tilting her head and winking at me like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
“Actually,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck, “I thought we could go on a trail ride.”
Her face lights up immediately. “Sounds fun! Let me put my stuff up.”
“I’ll get the horses and meet you up here,” I mumble, already turning away before she can see the way my jaw tightens just being this close to her.
She stands, steps toward me, and kisses my cheek before heading inside with her things.
That simple little kiss damn near knocks the wind out of me.
My body heats instantly, hotter and hotter every time she’s near, but when her mouth touches me, even like that, it does something else entirely. Something deeper. Something I don’t have a name for and don’t really want to examine too closely.
I head to the stables and grab Magic and Shadow. Her horse.
Nobody ever chose Shadow before her. He’s picky. Stubborn. But a great horse who likes who he likes. Guess that makes him hers now, at least in my head. It’s weird thinking that way, like I’m already claiming things that belong to her.
She comes back out wearing those cut-off jean shorts and a white T-shirt, her bikini top visible underneath if you look long enough. And I do look long enough. Too long.
She wears bikinis like she doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks, soft belly, thick thighs, curves she doesn’t try to hide. Layla’s a bigger girl, and the confidence she has in her body? It’s such a damn turn-on it almost hurts.
She swings herself up onto Shadow like she’s been doing it her whole life.
“Where to, Scrooge?” she asks, winking at me.
I shake my head, laughing despite myself. “You’ve really gotta stop calling me that.”
She just grins wider.
We ride side by side out into the pastures, the sun beating down, the land stretching wide and open in front of us. For once, my chest doesn’t feel so damn tight—and that alone pisses me off. It’s just us and too much open space, and I don’t like how easily she slips past my guard.
I tell myself this is nothing. Just a ride.
Just another afternoon. But it already feels like a road I shouldn’t be on—and I’m riding it anyway, because turning back would mean admitting I don’t trust myself around her.
And I invited her on this trail ride to show I can be a gentleman even if she thinks otherwise.
I glance over as our horses move in step.
The late afternoon sun catches in her hair, turning it into liquid fire, and I hate that I notice.
Hate that she looks comfortable out here, legs loose in the stirrups, one hand resting on the horn like she belongs in a saddle—even though I know damn well she doesn’t.
She shouldn’t fit this easily. She shouldn’t make it feel this effortless.
And that’s exactly the problem.
“What do you got waiting for you back home?” I ask, keeping my voice casual even though my pulse is already kicking up. “I mean your friends? Your writing business? Are you famous? Are you famous and I don’t even know it?”
She throws her head back and laughs—full, unguarded, the kind of laugh that makes my chest tighten. God, that sound does things to me. A sound that I find somewhat annoying also easy something in my brain.
“I’ve sold a lot of copies in my career,” she says when she finally catches her breath, “but I go by a pen name, so nobody knows my real name when I’m walking down the street.
True fans might recognize me from social media or the author pages, maybe catch the way I phrase things or the little quirks I can’t quite hide, but that’s it.
And friends?” She shrugs, gaze drifting out toward the dark line of pines.
“I’ve got a best friend, but she moved to Florida with her husband a couple years back.
I have a few acquaintances I’ll hit clubs with after work, grab drinks, dance until my feet hurt—but nobody close.
Nobody who’d notice if I didn’t come home for a week. Just work. That’s all that’s waiting.”
Her voice stays light, but there’s an ache under it that makes me want to pull her off that horse and into my lap right here. But neither of us really want that.
“Why do you ask?” she says, turning those big eyes on me.
I shrug, playing it cool. “Just small talk.”
She smiles, small, private, like she’s keeping a secret and damn if it doesn’t make me want to kiss it right off her mouth. But I’m not letting this chick know she’s got my interest. She said she wanted no strings attached and that’s what she’s getting.
Then she gets quiet for a beat. “Sooo, what happened with you and Abby? Like… what really happened?”