I sniffed on the other end of the line. “Yes, honey, what is it?”
“Are you sad about something? You sound like you’ve been crying.”
The set off the motion of another set of tears that I had to fight back. I had to get off the phone. “No, no, no,” I lied. “I just have bad allergies. I do have to go, but I will see you soon, darling.”
“I hope you come back real soon. Daddy is sad without you here.”
“Bye, Bella.”
I’d cried for hours after that. What the hell was I supposed to do? The wind picked up, causing me to shiver, shifting my hair over my face. I turned upward to the sky. It looked like a storm was brewing. Funny how California weather could just turn like that. My placemats started to fly off the little ramshackle table I had out front, and the wind began to howl. I wrapped my sweater around me, trying to keep warm.
“Dammit!” I ran after the flimsy cloth placemat into my driveway. I squatted to pick it up. My eyes landed on a pair of tan, detailed cowboy boots. They were attached to thick, toned, muscular legs, most likely from hard work over the years on the farm. I peered up. Colt. He put his boot over the placemat to stop it from flying away.
“Here, let me, little lady.” In his hand, he held an assortment of flowers, dainty and all different colors. His pale blue eyes met mine, even with my hair flying everywhere.
“Maybe we should go inside. It’s getting kind of windy out here now. A storm is coming in for the night. A bad one, too.”
All my doubts melted away as soon as I saw him. “Sure,” I called above the wind.
I opened the door to my quaint cottage and assessed him. He looked like something out of a Western. He even had his cowboy hat on. I wanted to leap into his arms and have him take me. The urge was incredibly strong, but I stood tall in front of him. Defiant, almost.
“Colt, what are you doing here? I told you I need time.”
Colt’s blue eyes blazed true. He saw right through me. He placed his hardworking hands on both sides of my face, taking hard possession over my mouth. I folded under the sensual penetration of his lips. I moaned desperately. We were intrinsically linked in a way I couldn’t fathom.
“Colt,” I breathed into his mouth as he continued.
“Amber,” he let out in an excruciating tone.
The erotic assault continued as he greedily explored the inside of my mouth with his tongue. I matched his passionate energy. I bit his bottom lip, not letting him take the upper hand in the pleasuring. My hands made their way from feeling the hard outline of his tightly muscled chest to resting behind his neck. He wrapped his arms around my waist. We came up for air with the roof rattling from the wind and pelting rain.
“You don’t need a break. You need me, and I need you. Simple as that. I told you before, I’m not letting you get away from me like that. I want you to be a part of our lives. The trouble is over. We’ve made it together through all of this. We can’t turn back now. I have a dream of the horse ranch with you on it.” He took a breath, and I watched the shadow of his face in the dim darkness. I let him get it off his chest. “Now you don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to work on the ranch, but Bella and I will run it. I’m going to have the kids come from all over Merced to ride the horses. We have trails on the back of the property that run right into the mountains. You’re my family now.”
He stood back and ran his hands through his hair. My chest was rising and falling like the wind outside. The door was swinging. I heard it slam, and I jolted. I’d left it open to air out the house after work. Colt didn’t flinch.
“I love you so much that I would be okay if we were just friends. I can’t lose any more people that mean something to me. I lost Anna. I wasn’t there because of my own stupid mistakes. I can’t do that again. When I learned she died while I was in prison, it almost broke me. I wanted to hang myself with the sheet. But I didn’t. I had Bella to look forward to. Now you. You’ve made me a better human and taught me something I never knew was possible. True love.”
I watched in silence as this man poured his heart out to me. This big tough guy cowboy. “Colt Winters, I don’t want to be your friend, and I want to plain slap you for saying that,” I replied sassily.
“Slap me, baby. I would be fine with it,” he responded in jest.
The corners of my mouth threatened to turn up in a smile. “You’re an incredible man. I was just scared, is all. The thought of that guy trying to kill you, and it was my fault. It just drove me insane. I thought it might be best for you and me both.” I looked down at the outline of his boots.
“Nope. You have nothing to feel guilty about. You didn’t hold a gun to my head. It was my choice, and your brother is a good kid.” The rain continued to batter down on the house, and it wasn’t the peaceful kind. Colt kneaded my fingers with his, soothing me.
“I want to be with you, too, and I like your plan for the future and us. I want to be a part of it with you and Bella. She called me, you know.”
“She did?”
“Yes. She told me how sad you were without me.” I smiled slyly at Colt through the darkness.
Colt just laughed. “Now I got a spy in the works. Never ends with you women.”
I shook my wild hair in the twilight. “No, it doesn’t. Better get used to it. I thought I wanted this promotion at work, but I don’t. I’ve gone back and forth about it for a long time. The job is wearing me down. I want to be free. Every time I come to your property…I don’t know, something changes in me.”
The windows clanking and moving with the deafening wind caused me to divert from the conversation with Colt. I moved to the kitchen windows to check that they were locked properly. We both realized we were standing in the dark, talking to one another.
“Perhaps we should turn on the light.” I giggled. I saw the shadow of a smile on Colt’s lips as he flicked on the switch.
