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 typecomeover;I miss your hands.I want to typeI’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 nobodyhas 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,staylike 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. Hisbig, 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.
