When her eyes glossed, he bit off a curse. ‘If you don’t want that, if you feel nothing for me anymore, tell me. Tell me now.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Yes, it is.’ And even as she eviscerated him, Benji’s heart soared because she couldn’t lie to him. And he knew she still loved him too. ‘You can be scared, Sierra. You can tell me you’re not ready. You can tell me you might never be ready, and I can accept that. But don’t fucking push me into a future with some other woman.’
‘I don’t want to hold you back anymore.’
‘You don’t hold me back,’ he said, exasperated. ‘I ammeantto be wherever you are. Christ, that’s the entire point. It’s not walking away when shit gets tough. It’ssticking. It’sstaying. I don’t know what else I can fucking do to show you that!’
She didn’t shout back like Sierra-Before would have. She just calmly asked, ‘What if I never get there, Benji?’
She looked so lost, so sad. And it killed him. He knew her, and he could see that she believedthatand that she truly thought she was doing what was best for him.
‘What if I’m nevernormalagain?’ Sierra demanded. ‘And then one day you look back, and you regret not finding someone else, not having a family? What if you end up hating me anyway?’
For Benji, the answer was easy. ‘I could never hate you. I’d still be happy. Because I would haveyou.You. And you are enough.’ His old insecurities rose, reminding him of all the ways they were different. ‘And ifI’mnot, if you want someone else—’
‘Don’t say that,’ she insisted, her voice raised for the first time, but only in frustration. ‘I haven’t even looked at another man since …’ She trailed off abruptly, her embarrassment clear.
‘Is that true?’ It shouldn’t have made a difference; he would have felt the same way about her irrespective of how many men she’d been with. But there was a stupid, primal part of him that liked knowing he was the only man to have been with her.
‘You know it is,’ Sierra said pertly. ‘Mysex life hasn’t exactly been a priority over the past year.’
He heard her emphasis on ‘My’ and knew that she was goading him. ‘Neither has mine. Is that what you want to hear?’
‘No. I don’t care who you fuck.’
‘Bullshit,’ Benji said again. But because he could feel his anger taking hold, he finished the conversation with, ‘I haven’t fucked anyone else since the day I dropped you at the airport to go back to school.’
And then he walked away before he said something he regretted.
Sierra watched him go. Half of her wanted to follow him and have it out. The other half of her wanted to let him simmer in his own bad mood, just as she had to. She honestly wasn’t even sure what the fight had been about.
Maybe that wasn’t entirely true.
But she had meant what she’d said: he shouldn’t wait for her. She would never be the woman he’d once loved. That woman had been brave and confident and fun. She had loved and fought for what she’d wanted with her whole heart.
That woman had died along with her baby.
All she had to do was make Benji realize that before he wasted any more time on her.
‘You’re early!’
Sierra turned to see Skye leading Smokey into the round pen, Bandit on her other side. With a simple hand signal, the wrangler told her dog to stay outside. Bandit backed up as Skye closed the gate, but he didn’t sit or relax. He rested his head on the corral fencing and watched his owner with an intense look of love.
‘I figured I’d watch you do some groundwork with her first,’ Sierra replied as she pushed Benji to the back of her mind with an ease born from practice.
She studied Skye’s mare as she drew nearer. The American Quarter Horse was named because they were typically the fastest horse breed – but only for the first quarter mile. After that, the Thoroughbreds took over. Still, considering a standard barrel pattern in a full-sized arena covered just over four hundred linear feet, Quarter Horses were often favoured in barrel racing for their explosive speed.
Smokey had the compact Quarter Horse build. Her chest was broad and muscular, her back relatively short, her hindquarters well defined. She was a horse that should have had no issues turning tightly around the barrels.
Sierra watched as Skye started Smokey at a brisk walk, first in one direction and then the other, before she moved on to neck stretches and hindquarter yields and, finally, through the faster gaits.
‘Her left side’s weaker,’ Sierra said loudly as Skye drove Smokey to the left at a canter.
‘Yeah, but not by much.’
‘Barrel racing comes down to split seconds. Every bit counts.’
