Chapter 15 #2
She doesn’t turn her head, even when I brush the backs of my finger against hers. “You know why.”
I press my lips together. “Come here?”
Every word is still so tentative, so new. I swallow hard as Lanie backs up the few steps to the tailgate and hefts herself onto the cold metal. My hands hover behind her, but I don’t dare to touch her again until I’m sure of what she wants.
She tucks her knees beneath her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs. Goose bumps speckle the tiny amount of exposed skin at her wrists. I grab her wolf blanket from the toolbox where I stowed it earlier in the hope she would come out here with me.
The soft material drapes around her and she lets me tuck it across her shoulders with a gentle “thanks.” It suits her, the handmade throw, and the fact that I want to stop her from returning to Alaska, where she belongs, hits me in full.
Guilt swamps me as I risk resting my hand against her lower back, tracing circles there over the blanket. I’m a selfish bastard to keep her here. But I don’t want her to leave, either.
After a moment she nods, and, given permission, I gently tug her luscious hair free to flow across her back. Lanie releases a long sigh, leaning back into me. Breath shudders from her even though she still won’t look at me, but it’s more than I ever hoped for from today.
I swallow painfully, my heart slamming in my chest as I absorb her heat, the shape of her resting against me.
Deep garnet hair tumbles over her exposed wrists, tangling around us.
Cinnamon and sugar and… something that reminds me of Coyote Falls, as though she belongs here now.
With me. Hell, I can’t let her leave. Not that it’s my choice if she does, but then it’s not really in me to take no as an answer.
I stroke my fingers through the silky locks as she sighs, even though she seems as distant as the surrounding mountains.
The darkening forest suits her, remote and wild. Many women would look out of place at the top of a ridgeline, diminished by the formidable mountain range, but not Lanie. Here, she’s a part of the elements, made for the breeze that lifts her hair, her pale cheeks receiving its icy kiss.
I stroke my fingertips across her shoulders, beneath her hair, drawing the edges of her blanket together. Her hand emerges to make a knot between her breasts, pulling the corners of the wolf blanket tight.
“It’s beautiful here,” she whispers, tucking her legs beneath her. Her brow dips as she stares into the forest, and she leans forward abruptly. “Cord—”
“What?” I frown, watching her carefully, and then follow her gaze, but all I see is trees and the top of the waterfall, its pool serene and clear. “Lanie?”
She sinks back against my arm. “Nothing. I thought I saw—” She shakes her head. “It’s silly. Ignore me.” The curve of her cheek rests on her knees, her gaze focusing on some point in the distance.
“Not your wolves?” I murmur.
“I wish.” A sigh leaves her body soft beside me.
I itch to touch her, to hold her again. To kiss her and give her some deeper part of myself, even if she doesn’t return my affection.
She’s worth the risk and she needs the distraction right now.
“Can I show you who I am?” I ask, catching a wayward lock and laying it over her shoulder.
My fingers brush her cheek, and she rewards me with a shiver.
“I don’t think we’re quite there yet.” Lanie doesn’t quite look at me, her fingers flexing around her shins.
I lean back, retracting my touch, and settle beside her. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Lanie sneaks a sideways glance at me. “The Cord I thought I knew wouldn’t let that go.”
I suppress a grin. “You’re absolutely right.”
She huffs a laugh, turning eyes on me that finally sparkle again. “Good to see that hasn’t changed,” she says dryly. A speck of curiosity flickers there, too. Maybe I haven’t lost her, after all. “Tell me what happened.”
I don’t insult her by pretending not to understand what she’s asking.
Dust a decade old coats my tongue, cloying my throat.
“It was a championship ride, defending a title I pulled every year without contest. Kids like Billy came from towns around to watch, stayed up late to hear that bell ring past eight seconds.” I flex my hand over my knee, the ghost of the rope beneath my fingers still present.
“That buckle should have been mine. I drew a sweet little bull by the name of Wrecking Ball that no one had seen yet back then. A wild card entry. And by sweet and little, I mean huge and terrifying.”
Lanie snorts. “I can’t see you being afraid of anything.”
“Maybe, once. I was after that ride.” I exhale long and slow.
“We came out of the chute awkward. It’s always a bit wild, but my seat was poor and everything seemed to shift beneath me.
The whole world disappears for those eight seconds.
If you can see and hear the crowd, you’re not going to stay on that bull.
He demands your respect. Your focus. Everything you have.
Sweat. Aching muscles. Sixteen heartbeats. And you should give it.”
“You live for this, don’t you?”
I straighten, unbuttoning my shirt with stiff fingers.
Memories of dirt and sawdust kick up around me; the scent of bull that’s never left me mixes forever with a hideous sanitary hospital tang.
“I came off. I wasn’t on for long, and that night easily counts as one of my worst rides.
My foot tangled in the rope, which didn’t come undone the way it should have.
I got dragged, came up a little trodden.
The rodeo clowns did an amazing job, but they couldn’t get close without being seriously injured.
I was pretty messy by the time the bull and I disengaged.
” I finish unbuttoning my shirt and shuck it off my shoulders despite the frigid air closing around us as the day’s light fades.
Just enough left to see by.
Balling my shirt in my hands, I brace my elbows on my knees, letting my head hang forward.
Lanie hesitates and then takes the invitation, trailing her fingers across my back, seeking what I want to show her.
When I gently grasp her cold hand and place it over the dead patch of skin at the base of my neck, she finally discovers the thin scar there.
“Do you have any sensation here?” she asks, her fingers pressing lightly.
“Some. Not on the scar. It’s numb. There’s a lot of damage, and they reconstructed what they could. Money wasn’t the issue.” I shrug back into my shirt, rubbing my neck when the twinges start. “But I’m not supposed to ride again.”
“Or you’ll be paralyzed,” she finishes for me.
I stare at the mountains I don’t see anymore. “No. I’ll be dead.”
Lanie presses her lips together tight before she speaks. “And you’re going to ride.”
“All because a line about being inspirational got into my head.”
She frowns. “Is that what started all… this? A need to inspire someone?”
A bitter laugh breaks from my lips. “Yeah. I thought I might try to make a difference. My impulsive is broken.”
She pulls a dry grass stem from the corner of the truck bed and fiddles with it.
“That’s not being impulsive, Cord. That’s fucking suicidal.”
I smirk humorlessly at her potty mouth. “That’s what West said.”
“West is smart. You should listen to him.”
“I did.” I finish buttoning my shirt and press my hand flat to the tailgate. “West stood by me through every PT session. The man had to put up with me crying on him on more than one occasion.” A crooked smile twists my lips.
“I’m amazed you can look at that part of your life and smile.” She twists the grass stem in her fingers, turning to face me.
“I couldn’t always.” I meet her eyes, luminous in the falling dusk.
Lanie remains quiet. The grass stem falls from her fingers as hers creep forward to fold around mine.
“And you’re still going to ride?”
“I have to.”
Her eyes blaze into me for a pensive second. Then her gaze shimmers, and a single tear tracks her cheek. A brisk wind freezes the breath between us and she turns away before I can sweep the salt from her skin, my false promise unspoken between us.
Stay with me.
Don’t leave me here alone.
The words remain on the inside, trapped within the hollow confines of my chest, as we stare at the dusky mountains concealed within their azure haze. We stay that way for an age. I don’t think she minds that we forget to look for her wolves before we head back.