21
ROWAN
Iwoke to a silence that didn’t feel like morning.
The ranch was usually quiet at dawn, sure, but it was a living quiet. Horses shifting, wind nudging the barn doors, the kettle clicking as it cools on the stove. This silence felt emptied out. Like something had been removed.
I knew before I even sat up that Tex was gone.
When I went downstairs his jacket wasn’t on the chair. His boots weren’t kicked off by the door. The coffee pot was cold. And outside, instead of his bike, a different one sat in the dirt, black, unfamiliar, and definitely not his. A man I didn’t recognize leaned against the porch rail, arms crossed, scanning the horizon like he expected trouble to come riding in at any moment.
One of the Kings of Anarchy, but definitely not Tex.
The two prospects were still around too, hovering near the barn like they’d been told not to let me out of their sight.
He hadn’t even said goodbye to me.
A stupid, sharp sting hit me right in the chest and I pressed my palm there, trying to smooth it out. Wondering why it hurt so much.
There’s no future for us.
That’s what he’d said and I’d hated him for saying it last night, yet now I got it. Now I understood and agreed with him.
No, there was no future for us.
We were from two different worlds, and our worlds should never have collided like they had.
I let out a slow breath and nodded like he was there and I was telling him it was okay. It was better this way. I told myself that twice, then again when it didn’t stick. He had a club to help run. A life that didn’t include babysitting a ranch girl with a dead family and a pile of unanswered questions.
Still, he could’ve said goodbye at least.
I pushed the thought away before it could grow claws and get ahold of me.
The house felt heavier than usual, like the walls were holding their breath and waiting for something to happen. I made myself coffee and some toast so that I could take my meds, and I was glad when the pain relief kicked in, turning the sharp pain in my arm to a dull ache.
I headed to the front of the house and opened the door, and the man that was standing there turned around slowly like he had all the time in the world and no cares. He was taller than Tex, his head shaved and showing off tattoos along his skull. A nose ring sat through his septum so large that I wondered briefly if it had been taken off one of my bulls.
“Coffee?” I asked.
He shook his head but said nothing, just continued to stare at me silently. Blue sapphire eyes that were clearer than any ocean I had ever seen.
“Beer?” I asked, reluctantly.
He waited a breath, the silence echoing, and then he nodded. “I could take a beer.”
I kept my judgement at bay and headed back to the kitchen. I grabbed one of Tex’s bottles from the refrigerator, but after five minutes of trying to pop the lid off with one hand and not drop the bottle I gave up and headed back outside. I held out the bottle to him and he took it.
“I couldn’t get the lid—” I began but he cut me off by popping off the lid with his teeth and taking a long drink. “Never mind.”
He stared at me, his forehead clear of worry and his blue eyes looking like they held the answers to the universe.
“I’m Rowan,” I said.
“I know,” he replied.
I waited to see if he would tell me his name, but when he didn’t I groaned and rolled my eyes.
“And you are?”
