Chapter 10 Ina
Ten
Ina
I drive home with the dumbest grin on my face.
It lasts about seven minutes. Somewhere between the Redding Ranch gates and the turnoff to our property, the grin dies.
The warmth drains out. And that bitch in the back of my brain…
the one who’s kept me alive through a shitty marriage and a shittier divorce…
finally gets loud enough to drown out the butterflies.
He said permanently, Ina. Permanently. Name. Kids. The whole damn thing. You’ve known this man for three days. THREE. And you sat there crying into your pancakes like a fool.
I grip the steering wheel. I can still feel his rough thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand from the truck ride. The phantom touch won’t fade. Like he left his fingerprints on my skin.
And you let him see it. All of it. The tears, the soft parts, the needy, desperate parts you swore you’d never show anyone again.
Remember what happened last time? Remember what Mark did with your soft parts?
He weaponized them. Every single one. Threw them back in your face in court, like they were evidence of your weakness.
My jaw tightens.
Beau’s not Mark.
Yeah? You thought Mark wasn’t Mark either. Not at the beginning. At the beginning he was sweet and sure and said all the right things too.
Fuck.
I pull into the driveway. Kill the engine. Sit there with my hands on the wheel, staring at the house I grew up in. The house I ran back to with my tail between my legs.
I’m still wearing Beau’s shirt under my clothes.
I can feel the cotton against my stomach…
soft, stretched wide from his massive shoulders, the neckline loose around my collarbone.
And the smell. Cedar and leather and his warm, clean skin.
It’s all over me. On my chest, in my hair, between my breasts where I pressed against him this morning while he told me he wanted me permanently.
I pull it off over my head. Fold it neat. Set it on the passenger seat. My hands linger on the fabric for a second too long. Then I go inside.
The shower is too hot, and I don’t care.
I stand under the spray and try to scrub my brain back to normal.
But the water runs over my body and all it does is wake up every place he touched.
My neck…where his stubble scraped while he whispered filthy things against my throat, my tits…
still sensitive, my nipples tightening under the water, remembering his full lips pulling, his tongue circling, the suction that I felt all the way to my clit.
My belly…where his big, rough palm pressed flat while he was inside me, feeling himself move.
Between my thighs…sore, swollen, tender.
I can still feel the stretch of him. The impossible thickness.
The way he filled me so completely that I forgot where I ended and he began.
I press my forehead against the tile and close my eyes. And there he is. His golden eyes burning into mine while he thrust inside me. His square jaw clenched. The vein pulsing in his thick neck. His massive shoulders flexing above me. His full lips parting as he groaned my name.
I turn the water to cold. It barely makes a dent. My body doesn’t want to forget him. It wants to marinate in him.
I throw myself into ranch work like my life depends on it.
Check on the pregnant heifer with Miguel. Go over the feed order twice. Fix a gate latch that’s been bugging me for weeks. Reorganize the tack room. Sweep the barn aisle. Then sweep it again because apparently I’ve lost my damn mind.
My phone buzzes around noon.
Beau: How’s my girl?
Three words. Three stupid, simple, possessive words.
And my stomach flips so hard that I grab the workbench.
I can hear them in his voice…that low, gravelly rumble that vibrates through my chest and settles between my legs.
I can see his face saying them. The calm certainty in his golden eyes.
The way his full mouth barely moves when he talks, like every word costs him effort and he only spends them on things that matter.
I stare at the screen for a full minute. Thumbs hovering. I want to type come over; I miss your hands. I want to type I’m scared and I don’t know how to not be.
Instead, I type: Good. Busy day. Talk later?
I hit send before I can overthink it. Set the phone face down on the bench. Go back to organizing the bridles I already organized yesterday.
He doesn’t push. Doesn’t call. Doesn’t show up in his big black truck with that slow walk and his golden eyes and his huge calloused hands that know exactly where to press and how hard.
Somehow that makes it worse.
By evening, I’m back on the porch swing, with a lemonade. Same spot where Beau kissed me senseless and took me apart with his fingers and walked away with my taste on his lips.
And I’m doing the thing. The thing I swore I wouldn’t do. I’m picking apart something beautiful because I’m too chickenshit to just let it be good.
He’s thirty, Ina. Thirty. In five years he’ll still be young and fine and turning heads everywhere he goes …
that square jaw, his honey eyes, that body built like it was designed in a lab to ruin women’s lives.
And you’ll be forty-three with creaky knees and gray hairs you pluck in the bathroom mirror.
What happens when the novelty wears off?
When he wakes up one morning and looks at you…
really looks…and realizes he could have someone younger?
Tighter? Someone without stretch marks and a past that weighs a hundred pounds?
I sip my lemonade. It tastes like nothing.
And the kids thing. He said kids. Plural.
You’re thirty-eight. Your eggs aren’t exactly doing cartwheels.
What if your body says no? What if you can’t give him that?
He stays and pretends it’s fine? Smiles while something inside him goes dark?
You’ve already been the woman who wasn’t enough. You barely survived it the first time.
My phone buzzes.
Beau: Thought about you all day. Sleep well, sweetheart.
My chest cracks wide open. I press my thumb against the screen like I can feel the warmth of his rough skin through the glass.
Like if I push hard enough, his big hand will come through and hold mine the way it did on his thigh in the truck.
Steady. Sure. His thumb tracing slow circles on my knuckles.
I type: You too. Goodnight.
Then I close my eyes and press the cold lemonade glass against my forehead.
Because what I want to type would fill a damn novel.
I want to tell him I’m scared shitless. That nobody has ever made me feel the way he does, that when he looks at me with his gold eyes I feel rare instead of used up.
That the sound of his low voice saying my name rewired something in my chest that I thought was permanently broken.
But saying that means trusting him with it. And the last man I trusted took twenty years of my life, fucked someone else in our bed, and then dragged me through family court like I owed him something for the privilege.
So I don’t say any of it. I sit on my porch. Drink my lemonade. And hate myself quietly.
The next day is worse.
I wake up reaching across the bed for a body that isn’t there.
My sheets are cold. My room is too quiet.
And my first thought…before coffee, before the alarm, before anything…
is the weight of Beau’s arm around my waist. Heavy.
Warm. His rough forearm pressed against my bare stomach.
The thud of his heartbeat against my back.
His breath, slow and hot on the back of my neck.
The way he whispered, stay like losing me would break him.
I get up, make coffee, burn my toast… then I stand in front of the fridge for three minutes doing absolutely nothing. Just staring at my phone.
Beau: Morning, cowgirl. Miss you.
Goddamn it. Two words. Miss you. And I’m standing in my kitchen with tears in my eyes like a pathetic, lovesick idiot.
I can picture him typing it. His big hands dwarfing his phone, his beautiful eyes focused.
His jaw set. Probably standing shirtless in his kitchen…
his carved abs, that trail of dark hair, the V of muscle disappearing into his sweats where his cock was making itself very obvious yesterday morning while he flipped pancakes.
I want to drive to his ranch, climb into his bed, and not leave for a week. I want his hands on me. His rough palms sliding up my thighs, his mouth on my neck, my tits, between my legs. His big, warm, solid body wrapped around mine, making the world feel safe.
But instead, I type: Morning. Crazy day ahead. Check in later?
I stare at the words. They’re cold and careful. Nothing like the mess inside me. But I hit send anyway.
Because I’m a goddamn coward.
Around three, Tanya calls me. I’m at the kitchen table, buried in paperwork I don’t need to do, pretending I’m not waiting for my phone to buzz.
“You’ve been quiet,” she says. No hello. No, how are you. Typical Tanya.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Girl, please. You’ve been hiding.”
Silence.
“Ina, talk to me. And don’t you dare say you’re fine.”
I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling, and everything just comes out.
“He told me he wants me permanently, Tanya. Kids, marriage, a whole life. He said it over breakfast. After one night.”
“Okay. And?”
“And?! That’s crazy! I’ve known the man three days!”
“So? Bobby proposed after six weeks. We’ve been married fourteen years.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you’re not broken!”
It comes out louder than I mean it to, sharp and painful, and the line goes quiet before I hear Tanya exhale.
“Okay,” she says softer now. “We’re doing this. Hold on.” I hear rustling, then a door closing. “Alright. I’m in the bathroom. The kids can’t distract me. Now talk to me. How do you feel about him?”
“Terrified.”
“That’s not what I asked, and you know it. How do you feel about Beau?”