“He doesn’t get to…he doesn’t…” His jaw tightened and he shrugged away from her when she touched him, his voice hoarse. Blood trickled from a split lip, and his left eye was already swelling shut. “He’s going to call the cops.”
“We need to get you cleaned up. Come on.”
She led him through the dark house to the barn, not wanting to wake her grandfather. Oh, he’d be furious. Maybe even get in his truck and drive over to the Jenkins household and have it out with Alden.
And maybe get hurt too.
No, it needed to be an official visit, with Rowan the one filing charges.
In the tack room, she found the first aid kit they kept for horse injuries and guided Rowan to sit on a hay bale.
“This might sting.” She dabbed antiseptic on the cut above his eyebrow, her touch as gentle as possible.
“Doesn’t matter.” Rowan winced but didn’t pull away. “Nothing matters anymore. He’s going to press charges, and I’ll go to jail.”
“Don’t say that. We’ll fight him?—”
“He’ll win. What I say won’t matter.” He looked away, so much wreckage on his face.
“You matter, Row. To me, you matter.”
He looked up at her then, eyes holding pain that went deeper than physical wounds. “Sierra…”
“I love you.” The words spilled out before she could stop them. “I’ve loved you since we were kids, and I can’t stand seeing you hurt like this.”
Something broke in his expression. He reached for her with shaking hands, pulling her down until she straddled his lap on the hay bale. “I love you too. Wow, Sierra, I love you so much it terrifies me.”
When he kissed her, she tasted blood and desperation and so much longing, it just spilled into her.
She lost herself, her hold on the right now. On anything but him.
Rowan’s hands tangled in her hair, and she poured everything into that kiss—all her love, all her faith that they could build something beautiful together despite the ugliness that he had to live with.
“I have to leave,” he whispered against her mouth. “After what happened tonight, I can’t stay in Renegade anymore.”
“Then take me with you.” She met his eyes, held his gaze. “I don’t want to be without you.”
He pulled back to study her face in the dim barn light. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
And at the moment, that night, she was. Sure of her choices, sure of the way she loved him, let him love her.
Rowan seemed as scared as she was, or maybe that was simply the trauma of the night shaking out of him, but he turned his attention to her in a way she’d never felt before. Spoke her name in whispers that embedded her soul.
He made her feel precious and powerful and completely loved. And gave her promises in the hay-scented darkness. Forever promises. Family promises.
“I’ll come back for you,” he said the next morning, right before he drove away.
Sierra jerked awake to the sound of crying. Her heart pounded as she oriented herself—her bedroom, not the barn. Present day, not ten years ago.
And not her tears.
The crying sounded from down the hall.
“Huck?” She leaped out of bed, down the hall to her son’s room.
He was thrashing in his sheets, trapped in a nightmare. His sandy-brown hair stuck up at odd angles, damp with sweat, and his face was flushed. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he fought invisible demons.
