"A long time." Her voice is barely audible, like she's afraid speaking too loudly might break the spell. "Since before my mother died. Maybe longer."
The pain in those words makes my arms tighten around her instinctively. I want to ask more, want to understand what puts that wounded look in her eyes sometimes.
But I also know the crushing weight of secrets too heavy to share.
"When my mother died, I just... lost myself for a while. Made some poor choices, trusted the wrong people. Ended up in a situation that was..." She pauses, choosing her words with surgical precision. "Difficult to extract myself from."
The careful way she phrases it sets every protective instinct I have ringing like alarm bells. A situation difficult to extract herself from. That could mean a dozen different things, none of them acceptable for a young woman alone in the world.
"Did someone hurt you?" The question comes out rougher than I intended, edged with violence I'm trying to keep leashed.
"Someone tried to control me," she corrects, and there's steel in her voice now, pride and hard-won determination. "Tried to convince me I was broken, that I couldn't take care of myself. That I needed... management." The worddrips with disgust. "I got out. I've been taking care of myself ever since."
The pieces start clicking together like tumblers in a lock. Her jumpiness around authority figures, the way she flinches sometimes when men raise their voices, the careful distance she maintains. Someone did more than try to control her. Someone succeeded, at least for a while.
Rage builds in my chest, hot and vicious and barely controlled. The urge to find whoever hurt her and make them pay is so strong it's almost physical. But underneath the anger is something else. Recognition.
"I understand keeping secrets," I tell her, my voice rough with emotion I can't quite contain. "Sometimes we think we're protecting people by not telling them the truth. Sometimes we're just protecting ourselves from having to face it."
Lucy goes very still in my arms, and I can feel her processing my words. "What kind of secrets?"
The question hangs between us like a challenge, like an invitation to jump off a cliff together. I could tell her everything right now. About the guilt that's been eating me alive for two years like acid in my veins.
But the sun is starting to paint the horizon with streaks of pink and gold, and Lucy is warm and trusting in my arms, and I'm not ready to shatter this perfect moment with the wreckage of my past mistakes.
"The kind that feels too dangerous to share," I say finally. "But too heavy to keep carrying alone."
She turns to look at me again, and in her eyes I see understanding. Not judgment, not demands for explanations, just recognition of shared pain and the careful dance we all do around our deepest wounds.
"Maybe someday," she says softly, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw. "When we're both ready to trust that much."
"Maybe someday," I agree, though the words feel like both a promise and a threat.
We settle back into comfortable silence, watching the sun climb higher, painting the world in shades of hope and possibility.
In the distance, I can hear the ranch starting to wake up, horses nickering, cattle lowing, the distant sound of truck engines. Soon I'll have to go back to being the boss, the responsible one, the man who has everything under control.
But for now, I'm just Beau, holding a woman who somehow makes me feel whole again.
"Beau?" Lucy's voice is thoughtful, careful.
"Yes?"
"Yesterday, with you and Colt... that couldn't have been easy. After everything that happened between you two."
I consider her words, the diplomatic way she's approaching the minefield of our history. "No, it wasn't easy. But it was... necessary, I think. We've been circling each other like wounded animals for two years. Maybe it was time to stop circling and start healing."
"And now?"
"Now I think we will figure out what comes next. All of us." I pause, gathering courage for what I need to say.
"Lucy, what happened yesterday, what's happening between all of us... it's not just physical attraction. At least not for me."
She's quiet for so long I wonder if I've said too much, pushed too hard into territory she's not ready to explore. Then she speaks, her voice barely audible.
"For me either."
Relief floods through me, followed immediately by terror. Because this is dangerous territory we're entering. Four people trying to navigate something most of the world would never understand or accept.
