“And we’ve already got men ordering supplies for the ranch,” he continued abruptly, like he didn’t want me to interrupt. “Builders are lined up and new foundation will go down within the week.”
I blinked at him shocked and confused. “You’ve already?—?”
He shrugged slightly. “Figured you’d wanna get back home as soon as you can.”
Emotion swelled in my chest again, warm and overwhelming. He stood there, his arms hanging at his sides, his bruised hands clenching and unclenching over and over like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“You didn’t have to do all that for me, Tex. I would have figured something out.”
A slow smile crept up his face. “I’m sure you would. I know how capable you are, but I wanted to help. The club wanted to help.”
Our eyes met and something shifted. There was so much there. So much still unspoken between us. The air thickened, charged with something neither one of us seemed brave enough to name.
I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me. How much I trusted him. How much he’d unexpectedly become someone important to me.
But then the doubt crept in.
He was Tex.
Strong, dangerous, untouchable Tex.
I remembered what we’d said back at the clubhouse when the cartel had come in, but those things had been said in the heat of the moment. When life and death were hand in hand.
And of course, like he’d already said and made clear, there was no future for us. How could there be?
What would he even want with someone like me? And how would I fit into his life?
And even if I did, what kind of life would that be for either of us?
When I looked at him, I saw the same hesitation and uncertainty in him. Like he wanted to say something too, but didn’t think he should.
Like perhaps he didn’t think he was good enough.
Which was ridiculous, because to me, he was everything.
I don’t know when it had happened, but Tex had become my world. My up and my down. My ground and my sky. He was both my anchor and my kite letting me fly free.
Somehow, and somewhere, along this path of death and betrayal we had been on together, he had become someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to live without.
My palms felt sweaty, my heart was racing with the desperate need to tell him all of this.
But neither of us spoke.
Neither of us voiced our thoughts—our truths—and for some reason, we let the moment slip quietly away.
6 Weeks Later
The house the Kings had let me stay in was small but comfortable. Clean, quiet, and very…masculine. It really was a place where they let their members stay when they were in town, and it showed in the funniest ways. It was nice though, and Tex had sent people to clean it before I arrived and buy new bed sheets for me. It still felt strange waking up somewhere that wasn’t my ranch—no sound of horses or cows in the distance to wake up to—but at least now there was hope.
I was just finishing my coffee when I heard the rumble of his bike, and as it always did when I knew he was close, my heart jumped instantly.
I walked outside just as Tex pulled up on his bike. His helmet was in his hand, his eyes already on me.
“You ready?” he asked.
“For what?” I asked, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. He watched my every movement with a sort of hunger that strangely didn’t make me feel even remotely self-conscious.
He smirked slightly. “Thought you might wanna see.”
