‘But I only wanted you.’
He nudged her with his shoulder. ‘I knew that. But I felt too guilty to acknowledge it. It made me angry.’
‘Why angry?’
Benji didn’t reply for a long moment even though the answer popped into his mind instantly.
‘Benji?’ Sierra prompted. ‘Why angry?’ She turned those big brown eyes on him.
‘Besides from the fact that you wereseventeen?’
‘Hey, I knew what I wanted. And besides, you never even let me near you until I was in college.’
‘I was angry because I was me,’ he said. ‘I was a nobody, looking down the barrel at a lifetime of ranch work. Even if I had wanted to go to college, I could never have afforded it. At twenty-one, I knew exactly what the rest of my life would look like.
‘And you were you. You had the potential to do anything, be anyone, and I didn’t want to mess with that. I didn’t want to disappoint your parents or hurt Mav by admitting how much I wanted you.
‘Your dad taught me about horses. He taught me how to be a good man.’ Benji pushed past his emotion, to add, ‘But your mom … She was the first woman I ever loved, and I would never have done anything to hurt or disappoint her. When she died … Losing her felt like losing the lighthouse beacon, you know …’
Sierra nodded at that, but she didn’t let him get away with the old feelings of inadequacy. ‘You never disappointed them. My parents loved you, and they were proud of you.’
‘I know,’ he replied instantly. ‘But it took a really long time for me to see what they saw in me, and even then …’
‘Even then?’
‘I might never have done anything with my life if it hadn’t been for you.’ It took a lot to admit it to her now, especially after seeing how she’d so neatly stored him away.
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. The day I stopped resisting you, I made a promise to myself that I would be a man you’d be proud to have. And making the promise helped me to reach beyond that white trash future I’d always expected to have.’
Sierra’s dark eyes glistened with tears. ‘That makes me so sad.’ She shook her head, dislodging the first tear. ‘I never, Benji, not even once, not even After, saw you asbeneathme or trashy.’
Unable to resist, Benji reached up and swiped the tear away with his thumb. ‘I know, Si. It was how I saw myself.’
Sierra pressed her face into his touch like a kitten who’d been deprived of affection, and Benji wondered how long it had been since she’d been touched, comforted, even casually, by another human. It had been over a year for him. And his body flared with the need to be close even as his mind flashed with all those warning signs he was so good at ignoring when it came to Sierra.
He didn’t kiss her because she would have to be the one to make that particular move, but he did drag her onto his lap with an exaggerated grunt of effort.
Sierra squeaked in surprise. Her hands came to his chest to steady herself, and her touch there shook him to his very core.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.
‘I’m holding you,’ he replied, and reached around her to reposition the quilted blanket over both of them.
She slowly, almost cautiously, relaxed against him. Her head dropped onto his shoulder, and Benji couldn’t resist his urge to kiss her temple.
Sierra closed her eyes as his lips touched the side of her head. It was soright. Being in Benji’s arms was exactly where she was supposed to be. It was home. And, still, that fear beat a constant tempo in her chest.
Terrified of it, she nestled closer and roped her arms around him, binding him to her, binding herself to safety. Because even though she didn’t want to need him, shedid. And even though she was terrified of letting him close again, she was so tired of pushing him away. It was like trying to move something that withstood the test of time – a mountain or an ancient sea cliff that the weather took hundreds of years to erode and still, could never quite eradicate.
Benji’s hand rose to rub those slow, calming circles on her back. Beneath her, his thighs were rock solid, a foundation that could carry her weight with no give.
It occurred to her as they sat there that he had suffered everything she had with nobody to catch him, to comfort him. Benji had lived through her parents dying, and instead of caving to the grief, he had stayed strong for her. And for Maverick. Benji had organized the funeral, she remembered, because she and Mav had only been capable of the most basic input immediately following the accident.
Benji had worked like a dog alongside Mav to build the resort, even before Sierra had come home to take over the hospitality management.
He had lost Baby Girl too, and he hadn’t ever let himself grieve in front of Sierra because he’d thought he needed to be strong for her. And when she’d pushed him away, he had left Hunt Ranch, his home. But he had done it for her, to give her space. Sierra knew that.
