Page 46 of Wild and Wrangled

The only downside was that the house was fucking cold (and that I still didn’t have a bed frame, but I preferred to ignore that). I’d checked the thermostat, and it said sixty-eight degrees, but it felt a hell of a lot colder than that. I was layered up—leggings, sweatpants, long-sleeved shirt, fleece pullover, and my new favorite big warm wool socks. I was under three blankets, and I was still freezing. My nose felt cold to the touch.

I stared at the big black hole that was the wood-burningfireplace. I’d been making aggressive eye contact with it since the house’s temperature started to drop this afternoon. It would definitely help. At the very least, it would warm the living room up.

But the fireplace came with strings attached—well, one string attached. A very handsome and kind and flirty string.

Being with Dusty on Christmas was…nice. He was so kind, and I liked getting to know the man who still had parts of the boy I used to love—maybe the most important parts.

He still made me laugh and knew how to make me feel so comfortable—whether it was after my not-wedding, building Riley’s bed, or around a holiday dinner table. He made me feel at ease, and he didn’t even have to try.

But I was also reminded that there were years between us—years where he didn’t stay put for longer than a season, where he went off to Buenos Aires and learned new skills and god knows what else, and he was happy doing that. I didn’t know how someone who seemingly loved to hop around as much as Dusty did could be happy in one place for very long. And that made me feel unsteady.

But then there was the gift he made for me. Incredible. That handmade, genuine, quality leather set would’ve cost thousands in a store. But he made it just for me. I’d been using the pieces every day since. I’d probably use them for the rest of my life. And the day after Christmas, I found a bottle of leather conditioner and a cloth on my front porch with a note.

I forgot to give this to you yesterday. Use this once a month or whenever your leather is starting to look a little worse for wear. I hope they last forever.

Dusty

But there was a big difference between acknowledging a thoughtful gift and showing up on his doorstep on New Year’s Eve and asking him to light my fire—my actual fire, not a metaphorical one. I flopped down on the couch and covered my head with my blankets.

Maybe I could just ask him to teach me, and then I could do it myself? Anne didn’t have to know that, right?

Who was I kidding? I loved rules. Even the thought of not following the ones that Anne had laid out for me gave me hives. What an annoying fucking quality to have.

I closed my eyes under the blanket. Dusty probably wasn’t even home. It was New Year’s Eve, after all. He was probably out doing…actually, I didn’t want to know what he was doing. What if he was with a woman? Would I care? No.

Yes.

But I didn’t have a right to care. An image of Dusty at the Devil’s Boot with some faceless woman, grabbing her and kissing her at midnight, made my stomach turn. God, this was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. It wasn’t like he and I were anything more than…friends. Right? I think it’s safe to say we had regained some semblance of friendship. But sometimes, it still felt like there was something…else…bubbling beneath the surface.

I couldn’t believe I could still feel so drawn to him. Dusty wasn’t the only man I’d ever loved, but I had to admit that he was the one that I compared every other love to.

And none of them ever measured up.

I used to say it was just because he was my first—that there was no way it could’ve been as good as I remembered. It was all nostalgia and youth. And that was probably at least partly true. But even now, Dusty still felt like…more. More than Iwas able to understand logically. And more wasn’t really an option for me at the moment—at least, I didn’t want it to be. I was happy to have him back in my life, but I just wanted to be able to maintain something stable and easy between the two of us.

Okay, I would look out the kitchen window, and if his light was on, I would ask him to start the fireplace. If it was off, I would leave a note for Gus to find with my last will and testament because I would freeze to death before morning.

Perfect.

I took a deep breath before whipping the blankets off myself and heading to the kitchen before I could second-guess it.

As I peered out the window, I saw a soft orange glow coming from Dusty’s little house.

Well, fuck.

Here I go, I guess.

I slipped on a pair of snow boots that I kept by the back door, turned off the oven so I didn’t burn the house down, since, you know, that’s exactly what I was trying to avoid by enlisting Dusty’s help.

It wasn’t until I was halfway across the snowy yard that I remembered that I was wearing nothing, well, cute. Too late now.

I’d obviously seen the small house before, but I’d never been this close to it. It was small, brown, and brick, and couldn’t be bigger than a few hundred square feet. There was a pathway through a thicket of trees from my house to his. Dusty had shoveled it.

When I got to his door, I hesitated—even though it was freezing, or below freezing, rather. It was just a fire. This would be fine.

I took a deep breath before raising my arm and tapping on his door three times. The sound made me think about when Dusty knocked on the bathroom door of the Devil’s Boot on my wedding day. Was that really just a month ago? I wondered what that day would’ve looked like if Dusty hadn’t rescued me. Because that’s exactly what he did: rescue me. Now, when I thought of that day, I didn’t think about Graham or the fact that he didn’t show up. I thought about Dusty and the fact that he did.

He always showed up.

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