Fifty-one
Cooper
Cody was in the tack room doing night chores when I caught him alone. Glancing over my shoulder to make sure there was no one else in the barn’s corridor, I stepped in behind him, reminding myself that no one should be condemned without a fair trial.
“Hey,” he said, covering the fact that I’d startled him.
“I need to ask you something.”
Cody frowned, his blond eyebrows drawing together. “What’s up?”
“Did Peter really kiss someone at the bar?”
Cody chuckled, allowing the sound to delay his answer. “Why? You jealous or something?”
“No, but I think you are.”
He scoffed in disgust. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We all saw the way you were watching Sarah. You hated Peter from the moment he stepped foot on this ranch because of her. My gut says you lied.” I shook my head, forcing my hands to stay loose at my sides.
“Peter remembers almost everything about what happened except that. Something doesn’t add up. ”
“Maybe your darlin’ Peter has selective memory and is tryin’ to cover his ass.”
“No, that’s not it. I’ve already talked to Harlan and Rudy. No one saw the kiss but you.”
Cody laughed again, and I briefly wondered if I ever looked like him—like I had no one to love and nothing to lose. The idea of it made me hate myself. He rose a brow, undeterred. “I guess you’ll never know the truth.”
Something in me snapped.
I lurched through the space between us, my fists grabbing up handfuls of his shirt and throwing him against the tack wall. With a loud swear, his head knocked against a saddle peg and his hands came to my forearms, pushing back as I bore my weight into the spot right above his collar bone.
Size wise, we were evenly matched. Eye-to-eye.
But I had a few more pounds on me than Cody. And I used each one to my advantage, leaning my weight into him. “Start talking. Right now.”
Air eked out of his lungs with a wheeze. Still, he chuckled. “I didn’t peg you as the type who cared that much, Coop. I’m impressed.”
“Start talking.”
“Fine.” He wheezed, his voice croaking now. “But let me go first.”
I stepped back, Cody falling a few inches as he righted himself, rubbing the hollow of his neck.
“Calm down. It was just a joke, alright? He was drunk outta his mind and flirtin’ left and right ‘n I hated his guts ‘cause of the way he’d let her roam the ranch with tears in her eyes. I would’a done anything to get my hands on that woman for five minutes.
So I told a little fib to make his life harder. Sounds like it worked, and I’m glad.”
My hands turned to fists.
He continued, “The fact that you call that prissy bastard your friend is wild to me.”
Scarcely able to draw a breath, my voice hissed out. “Cody?”
I waited till he looked me dead in the eye.
“You pegged me wrong.”
And then, I let my fist fly.