West’s silence speaks for him.
Then Tripp’s words from last night roll back through my mind: Coyote Falls means everything to me. Well, almost everything. Lanie has shown me that, though she has no idea of the impact she’s had on my life. The ranch is nothing without the people who live here, who rely on this place for both my sanity and theirs.Under Jed’s hand, however, Coyote Falls won’t flourish. The magnitude of what I’ve committed to threatens to floor me.
“Yeah, only a decade of our blood in this dirt.” West smacks the wooden frame with his fist, leaving the rails shaking beneath my hands. “You do remember how this place was built, right? Who stood beside you back then?” He seethes at his shadow, still refusing to face me. Or maybe it’s our past he can’t face. His shoulders rise and fall in deep, ragged breaths.
“I remember a man who bled when I did, who sat here with me at the end of a damn long day,” I offer softly. “I remember a man running from his own past, trying to work out who in the hell he’d been so he could figure out who he would become.”
“Fuck the history.” West spins on his heel to face me, fury blazing from eyes as dark as the razorback mountains behind the homestead on an overcast day. “It’syouI’m talking about.Youcan’t ride again.Youin a goddamn wheelchair for life. The doctors warned us. Not even a bike. And you think you can do Wrecking Ball? Throw your life’s work away, Rand. But don’t commit suicide on my motherfucking watch.”
West sends me a fathomless glare and slips into the shadows. I follow him into the darkness with my gaze, but I can’t make out the difference between what’s a shadow and what’s my imagination.
My blood boils at my own stupidity as I stride back through the homestead. Heavy footfalls I barely recognize as my own reverberate through the floors. My fingers brush every beam I pass, every doorway.
The house I built for a family I might never have.
Everything is falling apart. The rodeo, the ranch.
At the doorway to my room, I stop.
Laine sits in the center of my bed, one of the bedside lamps on but dimmed. A long-sleeved white cotton nightgown covers her beneath the almost-black cherry hair in the darkened room, the natural curls cascading to the bed. My exhales coming fast, I step into the room. She looks up at me, her blue eyes sparkling.
Fuck, I made her cry.
I want to kneel at her feet and beg her forgiveness, but before I have the chance, she slithers off the bed, pads across the heavy carpet, and pauses a breath away. Her hands trace the outline of my shirt.
“Forgive me,” I murmur, my voice cracking. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”
“You’re dangerous, Cord.” The tears that shimmer in her eyes break their banks, tumbling over her cheeks. The sight lances through my heart. I brush one tear away with my thumb, but she shakes her head violently, knocking my hands away. “I know there’s something else with you and West that I don’t understand, but it’s more than that. These men—they trust you. They love you.” Her voice strains with all the pain in her that I put there. “And in giving Jed what he wants, you threw their trust away.”
I nod, swallowing back panic, needing to be more for her. “You’re right. I fucked up,” I admit softly. Her eyes flare wide, but I press my thumb to her lips. “I can’t take back what I’ve done, only try to make this right. And I don’t expect you to forgive me. I’m not…the usual sort of man you date.”
“No shit,” she mutters, glaring at me through jewel-encrusted lashes. A drop trickles along her cheek.
I sweep it up and lean down to kiss the path, relieved when she doesn’t pull away. “My world has been on its head for a while, Lanie. This is just…seeing it for what it is.”
“Yeah?” she challenges me. “Then you need to face those men tomorrow and show them you’ll fight for them. Because Jed isn’t—” She bites her lip.
“He’s an asshole,” I agree wryly.
Her eyes flash in the dimmed room. “Right now, you’re an asshole, too,” she huffs.
“Fuck, you’re cute when you’re angry.” I cup her jaw, tipping her face up to study her.
“And you’re reckless,” she whispers.
Fear shimmers in her next layer of tears, but I don’t wait to see them fall, pulling her sharply into me so that our bodies collide,transforming all the fear and panic and uncertainty of tonight into cold, hard desire. I fist a silky skein of her hair, pulling her head back as she arches for me on demand.
Lanie stares at me through heavy-lidded eyes without protest, her chest heaving.
“Maybe reckless is all I have left,” I snarl, lifting her to her toes as I claim her mouth.
Every soft noise she makes brings out an opposite reaction from me. For each gentle stroke of her fingers over my face, my hands tighten on her, crushing her to me. Her sweet kiss is returned with a brutal one. She moans against my mouth, tugging at the buttons on my shirt.
Releasing her hair, I grab the front of her nightgown and tear the fragile material straight down the front. I capture the lobe of her ear in my teeth. “I’ll buy you another. Ten,” I growl into her ear as she shivers for me, gripping my arms tight.
I flick the material away from her skin until she stands bare before me, surrounded only by a shimmering dark halo the color of wild cherry. Lanie breathes fast, her hands loose by her sides as I circle her, trailing my fingertips over her pale skin where the fall of her hair has left her body exposed, where it brushes the curve of her buttocks. She trembles with each touch, her pants coming faster.
Hell, I can scent her arousal from here, knowing the power play does it for her. I knew back on the ridge when I pinned her down and made her gush all over my hand. The situation I’ve set up arouses her as much as it does me.
