Boone spits out the grass. “I don’t know. You’ve been quiet since Tuesday. You’re walking around like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. You’re snapping at Knox.”
“I’m not snapping at Knox.”
“You are,” Boone insists. “Okay, spit it out. Are you mad at me or something?”
I look at him. I look at the man I’ve known for years. The man I’ve worked beside, trusted with my life.
“I’m not mad, Boone,” I say. “We aren’t teenage girls. I don’t need to pour out my feelings every time we have a disagreement.”
Boone scoffs. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Then what is it? You’ve been acting weird since Saramaria left the other day. Every time her name comes up, you shut down.”
I stare at him. The rain runs down the brim of his hat, dripping onto his coat. He looks annoying. He looks stubborn.
He looks like he’s hiding something.
I take a breath. I need to know. I need to know if my instinct is right. I need to know if the dynamic has shifted permanently.
“The day she left,” I say. “The day she took the truck and drove off in the rain. You weren’t at the house when she got back. You were gone for hours.”
Boone doesn’t flinch. “I was riding Midnight.”
“Riding,” I repeat.
“Yeah.”
I take a step closer to the edge of the ditch. “Did you find her, Boone?”
Boone’s eyes darken. “What are you asking me, Rhett?”
“Did you fuck her?” I ask.
The words hang in the air between us, heavier than the rain.
Boone goes still. He stops chewing the grass. He just looks at me, his expression unreadable.
“Did you sleep with her?” I press. “Is that why she’s staying at Pearl’s? Is that why she can barely look at us? Because you crossed a line and now she’s regretting it?”
Boone stares at me for a long moment. The rain pours down, filling the silence between us.
Finally, he reaches up and adjusts his hat. He looks away, toward the meadow where the mustang runs.
“It wasn’t like that,” he says, his tone rough.
“Then what was it?” I ask. “Because she’s been a ghost since then. And you... you’ve been walking around like you won the lottery and lost the ticket all at the same time.”
Boone looks back at me. There’s a vulnerability in his eyes that I rarely see.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” he says. “But I... I wanted to.”
He pauses, running a hand through his wet hair. “We were in the meadow. The rain... things got out of hand. I touched her. I tasted her. She... she touched me back.”
He stops, shaking his head. “She ran away, Rhett. She got on that horse and took off like the hounds of hell were after her.”
I stare at him. Jealousy burns in my gut. He tasted her. He touched her.
“She’s confused,” I say. “And you complicated things.”
“I know,” he says. “I know I did. But I couldn’t help it. It’s like... it’s like this gravity between us. I’ve tried to fight it for years. Since we were kids. Since the day she left. But seeing her here, fighting for this place, needing us... it broke something in me.”
