Chapter 18
LENNON
Not even my audiobook could drown out the thoughts in my head as I tried to soothe myself to sleep.
Banished at fourteen.
For masturbating—or so that gross old men could have a few extra wives. I still wasn’t sure which was worse. I felt terrible for Jeremiah, for everything he’d been through, but I felt even worse for all those girls who never left. At least he’d escaped, no matter how painful that had been.
But still. Fourteen fucking years old.
What the fuck! What. The. Fuck.
Of course I had bungled it. I wasn’t the kind of person people opened up to about things like that—the sad and painful things that had built them brick by brick.
I was the good news girl. The one they turned to with a promotion or a birthday.
I hyped them up. Made them feel special.
People liked me because they liked themselves when they were with me.
I laughed at their jokes, so they pushed themselves to be funnier.
I cheered for their successes, so they tried even harder.
They sparkled all the more brightly because I held up the mirror.
Making people feel good about themselves made me feel good about myself. I didn’t have much to offer the world, but at least I could do that.
And all that was real—I didn’t fake a damn thing—but it was surface-level shit. My relationships were babbling brooks: pretty and frothy. But Jeremiah had pulled me into deep waters, and I didn’t know how to swim.
A normal person might have shown a little empathy.
Maybe shared a piece of themselves in return.
I could have told him that I knew what it was like to have disappointing parents.
That my mother hadn’t banished me, but she was the reason I banished myself, because she hadn’t protected me from the men in her life.
I could have told him that their actions don’t define us, but we had better lives because of what we did about it.
But I hadn’t said any of that.
No.
I said, Sit there and look pretty, cowboy.
Fuck a duck. What the actual hell was wrong with me? Thank god he kissed me because at least I couldn’t talk when my lips were occupied with his. For approximately two seconds before I’d made it weird again.
Now I was lying in bed alone. That was how it should be, no matter how much I wished he were in bed with me.
Because Jeremiah was a good man. The kind of man who gave a silly girl his coat when she was standing in the rain.
The kind of man who used his body to protect hers from harm.
The kind of man who would make a woman his reason for everything.
The kind of man who deserved a woman worthy of that.
And that woman…that woman wasn’t me.
I was the last person a man like Jeremiah should get tangled up with.
The sun was streaming through the curtains by the time I pried my eyes open.
Sleep hadn’t come easily last night. Even after I’d finished my audiobook, I’d lain awake for hours thinking about what Jeremiah had told me. All the things he’d said, and how I’d given him a big fat nothing in return. Guilt had kept me tossing and turning.
People were looking for me. Good people, bad people, it was all the same to me. They wanted something I wasn’t willing to give. If they found me here—if I brought that trouble to Jeremiah, after everything he had been through—I wouldn’t forgive myself.
I should tell him. But if I told him what I was running from, wouldn’t he be in danger, too? Scratch that, I shouldn’t tell him. What I should actually do is leave.
But I was too selfish to do that. I felt safer here than anywhere I’d ever been.
It wasn’t just the ranch that made me feel that way.
It was Jeremiah. He made me feel more than safe.
He made me feel…I didn’t have words for what this was.
My lips felt branded by his. I had never experienced anything like that.
Never knowing if he fucked like he kissed felt like cruel and unusual punishment.
And that was the other thing that kept me tossing and turning all night. I was horny as hell over a certain mustached cowboy who seemed to think we had all the time in the world to figure this out. Which we didn’t. June was almost over.
Shit! It was almost ten. I’d missed breakfast—both eating it and cooking it. Cecily and Amos were probably furious with me. I knew they could handle the workload without me, but they shouldn’t have to. Not when I’d promised to be there.
A knock on the door had me tumbling out of bed in a panic. Cecily, maybe? Amos coming to lecture me about responsibility? I pulled my hoodie on as I made for the door and breathlessly flung it open. “Hey—”
Nope. Not Cecily. Not Amos.
Jeremiah.
I slammed the door shut in his face.
“Two minutes!” I hollered, hoping he could hear me from the porch. “Just give me two minutes!”
I raced to the bathroom, did my business, scrubbed my teeth for a brisk thirty seconds, and didn’t bother with my hair because as it so happened, I had the kind of wave that looked hot rumpled.
When I opened the door again, Jeremiah was right where I had left him, only now with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his lips. I smiled brightly. “Good morning.”
His scowl deepened. “The day is half gone. I didn’t see you when I came by this morning, and Amos said you never showed up at the kitchen. Randy said you weren’t at breakfast with the other guests, either.”
I cocked my hip against the door jam, one ankle crossed over the other, and folded my arms. “Aw, that’s sweet. Were you worried about me, caveman?”
My words hung in the air. Jeremiah studied me calmly as the silence stretched a beat past comfortable. “Are you feeling all right, Lennon? No fever, upset stomach, anything like that?” His tone was as placid as a summer lake under a cloudless blue sky.
It made me nervous.
“No, I’m not sick.”
“How about your mental health? You doing okay there? Anxiety, emotional distress, that sort of thing?”
I stared at him. Yes, not having your dick inside me has caused me immense emotional distress, thank you for asking. I am in agony. But I would sooner move back home with my mother than tell Jeremiah Bell that pining for his dick had kept me up last night.
“What an odd question,” I said sweetly, and then left it unanswered.
“So you’re fine?” he pressed. “Physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy?”
“I’m right as rain,” I chirped, and then winced internally. Who the hell said shit like that? Not the mentally healthy, that was for damn sure.
“Good. That means I can yell at you without feeling bad about it.”
My spine snapped straight and my mouth dropped open. “What—”
“Yes, Lennon, I was fucking worried about you.” His voice rose with every word. All pretense of calm was gone. Thick tendons in his throat popped out as he loomed over me, jaw ticcing.
“I was fine!”
“No one knew where you were. The last time we didn’t know where someone was, he drove off a cliff. I didn’t know if you were hurt or sick or just gone.” He put a hand to my belly and moved me backwards into the cabin, then kicked the door shut behind him.
Holy shit, he was really worried about me? My breath stuttered. No one had ever worried about me before. People enjoyed my company, and I liked to think they missed me when I wasn’t around. But no one had ever claimed responsibility for me like that. I took care of myself. Always.
But Jeremiah…he acted like I was his to keep safe. He had been taking care of me since the day I got here. Protecting me from the cold and rain and cowboys intent on making me bleed.
“I’m sorry.” I swallowed past the gravel in my throat. “I didn’t mean to make anyone worry about me. I didn’t know anyone cared.”
“I care. More than I should.” He lifted my chin with his fist, his thumb tracing my jaw. “What are you doing here, Lennon? I need to know.”
My brows pinched in confusion. But before I could ask him what he meant by that, I heard the swish of paper gliding against the wooden floor. The smell hit the back of my throat and I gagged.
I was dimly aware that Jeremiah was no longer touching me. He stooped to pick it up, then opened the door and peered out. My knees shook.
“No one is there. What is this? Is this for you?”
My hand twitched at my side, but my limbs were lead, too heavy to lift. I tried to breathe, but every breath brought in that same smell.
Vanilla and citrus.