Chapter 10 #2
I’m assuming a lot. But in the universe we live in, you have to think about these things. You don’t survive as a rancher if you can’t rely on your neighbors and friends to be honest and show up for you when you need them.
A betrayal like this might not seem like a big deal to the outside world. But to ours, it can literally be the difference between life and death. If Colt can’t trust Ryder—if he can’t trust me—I’m not sure where that would leave us.
Or maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill. Ryder and I are two consenting adults. What we do behind closed doors is our business, no one else’s.
I think it’s worth the risk. I really do.
Because not only is Ryder a good guy, a better friend, and a super superhot cowboy.
He’s also showing he can change. When his parents died, he shut parts of himself away.
Like the part that played the guitar and sang along with me to pop songs.
Before the accident, he was lighthearted.
Thoughtful. He’d talk to me about everything and anything, never making me feel stupid or silly.
But after he lost his parents, he started responding to my questions with grunts. I’d try to start a conversation, but he would never reciprocate the effort. He just…vanished in a way.
Then I mention that guitar recently, and all of a sudden, he’s playing again.
He’s trying.
I wanna keep drawing out this side of him. What a waste it would be if he kept living half a life, one where he didn’t feel pain, but where he didn’t get to experience joy and love and connection either?
“You likin’ the boots?” His eyes slide down my legs to my feet.
I bite the inside of my bottom lip. “I love them. Thank you again. You really didn’t have to—”
“But I wanted to.”
If he doesn’t want me, he sure as hell is making it very confusing as to how he feels about me. Us. Whatever’s happening here.
Do friends do this kind of thing for each other? Buy boots and set up picnics and risk the wrath of a particularly ornery mutual acquaintance just so we can hang out?
Somebody pinch me. I still can’t believe Ryder and I are hanging out on a Friday, just the two of us.
Just because.
Really, just because I had the balls to show up at his place for a second time in a week. I am down bad, and I guess I don’t care who knows it.
Only, I care very much. At least, I should care. And therein lies the rub.
We park beside a juniper tree and set up camp on top of a nearby ridge, where the Rivers boys and my brothers used to hang out back in the day.
There’s a moment when I’m holding one end of the Pendleton blanket I brought and Ryder’s holding the other, and the blanket billows upward on a breeze as we try to set it down on the ground.
It flies out of my hand and blows in Ryder’s direction. He lets out a yelp of surprise before the blanket knocks his hat clean off his head.
“Whoa whoa whoa.” He pretends to flail backward as he’s tangled up in the blanket, arms windmilling, eyes wide, lips pulled into a wide, white smile. “You tryin’ to kill me, Billie Wallace?”
“Why do you think I brought the blanket?” Without thinking, I dart forward and grab his hand, yanking him upright.
I yank him against me. Well, almost. My arm—the good one—ends up trapped between his chest and forearm. We’re suddenly close.
Very, very close.
When I look up, his mouth—his face—is two inches from mine. I can make out the flecks of indigo in his otherwise crystal clear cerulean irises.
“Why’s that?” His chest rises. Falls. His hair sticks up every which way. It’s adorable.
My lips throb. “I planned to use it to roll up your lifeless body. Obviously.”
His eyes do that crinkling-at-the-edges thing again. “You’re puttin’ some kinda murder on me, that’s for sure.”
“Oh yeah?” Is he joking? He can’t be joking. But—
“Yeah.”
We hold eye contact for one heartbeat. Another.
Another.
I’m not sure my pulse worked this hard during my one and only official rodeo race. There’s a flutter between my legs too, the longing in my core unfurling so quickly it takes over my whole body in the blink of an eye.
But then Ryder is clearing his throat. He lets go of my hand and turns, setting the blanket down on the ground.
I’m disappointed he didn’t kiss me. But I’m also…thrilled? Because I could tell he wanted to lean in.
I can tell the tension between us is eating him alive too.
Is this actually gonna happen? Is this cowboy actually going to let me lay him down on that blanket and do as I please?
Bending down, I help straighten the blanket, then I grab Ryder’s hat. He holds out his hand, but I shake my head.
“You know what has to happen if I wear this hat.”
“But then your DNA is gonna be all over me”—he grabs my wrist, and a bolt of lust cracks down my middle—“and you’ll be the primary suspect in my suspicious death.”
“I want to make a joke about little deaths—you know, the French word for—”
“I know, Billie.” Do I detect a hint of pain in his voice? He releases my wrist. “Hat, please.”
“Fine.” With a sigh of exasperation, I go up on my tiptoes and drop the hat onto his head. “But we both know it would look better on me.”
“Darlin’, everything looks better on you.”
Get over here, then.
“Let’s take a shot,” I blurt.
“Don’t gotta ask me twice.”
He grabs the picnic basket, and I grab the tequila. We sit on the blanket, keeping a respectable distance between his right arm and my left.
I’m the one who’s going to end up dead, I think as I uncork the bottle and take a swig. The tequila is sweet on my tongue. I want to smack my lips at the deliciousness of the liquor’s fiery slide down my throat.
“Sorry I forgot to bring cups.” I hold out the bottle to Ryder.
He takes it from me, shaking his head as he brings the bottle to his lips. “Tastes better straight from the bottle anyway.”
I watch, transfixed, as he tips back his head and his throat bobs on a swallow. I feel the slide of his Adam’s apple between my legs.
I hold out my hand. He presses the bottle into my palm. Taking a longer pull of tequila, I imagine I can taste him on the glass.
Now that I’m a little buzzed, I ache everywhere. My hands shake as I help Ryder build a bonfire in the firepit he and the boys dug out here years ago. I can barely eat the supper I packed us even though it’s really good stuff: Mom’s fried chicken, succotash, and broccoli-and-cheese cornbread.
The sky darkens, and the stars put on a spectacular show. But they don’t hold my attention the way Ryder’s mouth does. Or his legs. He stretches them out toward the fire, and it hits me just how long they are.
The man is huge. And strong. And thick in all the right places.
My eyes stray to his crotch. Is he huge and thick everywhere?
He’s got the tequila in his hand again, and he’s looking intently into the fire. A pair of deep, thoughtful grooves are etched into the spot between his eyebrows. My stomach flips at his handsomeness. Heart throbs with the desire to know what he’s thinking.
To understand him. Or maybe to know him in a way he’s only now allowing me to, years into our relationship.
Let me in again, Ry. Please.
“What’s on your mind?” I tug at my jeans as I casually stretch out my own legs, pretending like my pulse isn’t going haywire inside my skin. “I can tell those wheels are turnin’.”
He tips his chin downward and uses his palm to pop the cork back into the bottle. “I was thinking about what song I wanted to play for you.”
I smile. “So you really are gonna play.”
“You really want me to?” He sets the bottle aside.
“Of course I want you to.” Reaching back, I grab the guitar that I carefully set behind me earlier. “Why the hell do you think I brought you out here?”
“I thought you wanted to thank me for the boots.” He taps his toe against mine. “And for the excellent CPR.”
I hand him the guitar. “I like you best when you’re doing your cowboy-who-knows-music thing. So please, please play.”
“Yeah?” Arching a brow, he folds up his legs and settles the guitar in his lap. “You forgot the hot part, by the way. Hot cowboy who knows music.”
Laughing, I nudge his knee with mine. “I think you’re hottest when you open up and lose yourself in the music and just…let go.”
He scoffs, running his fingers over the guitar strings. “Of course you do.”
My heart lurches as goose bumps rise on my arms at the sound. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head, the light from the fire flickering over his features.
“You’re just…you. Like no one else. You cut to the quick, and you ask the hard questions, and you push my buttons, and…
yeah, Billie.” He turns and meets my eyes.
“I know we joke a lot, but I appreciate how unbullshitty you are. It’s a breath of fresh air. ”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Unbullshitty?”
“It’s a compliment.”
Oh Lord, I’m about to have a heart attack, aren’t I? “Why does that appeal to you?”
“Because.” He strums the guitar again, breaking eye contact to reach up and tune a string. “Makes me realize how full of shit I’ve been about some things in my life. Or numb to them, at the very least.”
“What things?”
“I think we’re done with twenty questions, darlin’.”
“I like it.” Swallowing, I tuck my hair behind my ear. “When you call me that. Since we’re being honest and shit.”
He smiles. A real, joyful smile, the kind that makes deep grooves appear around his mouth in the shape of half-moons.
“Honest and shit. You in a nutshell.” When his eyes lock on mine, my heart heaves at the way they reflect the flames of the fire. “Please don’t ever change.”
Then he starts playing a song. It takes me all of three seconds to recognize the lilting notes.
“Landslide,” by Fleetwood Mac.