But she wanted to stand with Cody.
Then, surrounded by the family that he had created with all that goodness inside of him, Marlowe realized.
She was in love with Cody Grayson.
It was stupid. It was too soon. It was absolutely not the right time, and he had told her that for him it never would be.
But it didn’t matter. Because she wasn’t looking for the easy thing, the same thing, the convenient thing. She wasn’t looking for roots. She thought about the wild mustangs and the way they flew across the landscape. Effortless. Free.
She didn’t want safe. She wanted to fly.
She had come to Mustang River to find something new.
And she had found more than that.
Finally, she had found love. Real love. The kind that made things magical, not just love that existed to serve as a Band-Aid for issues it couldn’t quite heal.
And she knew right then that she was willing to risk anything to have it.
Because safety wasn’t her goal anymore.
She wanted to live.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After everyone cleared out, Cody was still nursing a foul temper. He had tried his best to enjoy the rest of the evening for everyone else, but his thoughts were scattered, overwhelmed by all the strange places his mind had been tonight.
And Marlowe was still there.
Something inside of him wanted to push her away.
Push against her.
But that felt silly and self-destructive, so he did his best to push the impulse down. To keep it at bay.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
She brought a cup of tea over to where he was sitting on the couch and sat right down next to him, her thighs touching his.
Was this what a relationship was like?
The person was just there with you?
Even when you were in a bad damn mood?
Was that what this was? A relationship.
The word had come up in his mind a few times recently. But he had told her that he didn’t want one. Well, he told her he didn’t want to get married or have kids.
He looked up at her, and something heavy lodged itself in his chest.
Kids. Kids who looked likeher. Who looked like him. Who were theirs to love and raise.
And take care of.
The response to that thought was so visceral, and he couldn’t tell if it was desire to have that, or intense repulsion. A need to turn away from it.
It hurt. And he couldn’t figure out why.
