Page 43 of Marked

“What’s up?”

I tried to act casual, even though the butterflies in my stomach were causing a riot. Lee and I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to talk since my return. Sure, we spoke on the phone a few times a year, but he was my twin, my other half. Leaving him behind ripped a giant hole in my heart.

“You’ve made a good life for yourself.” Crossing the room, he took Noah’s seat. “You never would’ve had that here. Mom and Dad were right.”

Stunned, I opened my mouth to respond, except the words got stuck in the middle of my throat.

“I’m pissed.” He didn’t stop. “More at myself than anyone. I gave you up without a fight. We shared a womb for nine months, Little Bit. If that doesn’t scream lifetime commitment, I don’t know what does.”

“Leland, have you been getting into Dad’s hash stash again?”

“I’m being serious here.”

“Then stop being dense. We both made mistakes. Now we move forward.”

“Simple as that?”

“My life is complicated enough, Lee. I love you. End of story.”

“Love you too.”

Noah

We waited five days until Lanie wasn’t taking more than Tylenol to manage her pain and she could move without wincing before deciding it was time. My personal preference would’ve been to hold off until her stitches came out the day after tomorrow, however, I was unsurprisingly vetoed by my entire team. To make matters worse, the local hotels were completely booked due to some romance book conference, which meant the yurt became overcrowded very quickly. The sooner we took care of business, the sooner we could head home. Neither of us had mentioned Huntington again since the ambulance, but I could tell we were on the same page.

Lanie was a bundle of nerves from the moment she woke up this morning. Honestly, it’d been the same every morning since the shooting. Even after we all sat down with her parents and Leland, the stress hadn’t faded. She was putting too much pressure on herself, holding too much inside. There was only so much I could do until she let me in.

Much like she had the past few days, Lanie disappeared after breakfast. Thankfully, I knew right where to find her. Sliding the large wooden barn door along the tracks, I entered the stables, finding my girl sitting on a bale of hay in front of her boy. Whiskey’s head was over the top of the gate, nudging at her arm, while Smoke whinnied from the stall next door. I made my approach slowly, even though she was looking straight at me.

“It’d take some doing, but if we clear out a half an acre of trees behind my house, there’d be plenty of room for a small barn and a pasture.”

“You wanna be a farmer now, Cowboy?”

She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. Taking a seat next to her, I brushed several loose strands of hairbehind her ear. Even gloomy, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

“Only if you do, Darlin’. Do you want to take him home with us?”

A sigh left her mouth. “It would be a dream, but I can’t separate him from Smoke.”

Palming her cheek, my thumb caressed the soft skin under her eyes. Watching her the past few days had been enlightening. When Lanie was with the horses, she was at peace. They calmed her spirit and stilled the restlessness.

“We’ll take them both. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

“Smoke isn’t mine.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, then finally her lips. “Let me deal with the logistics.”

Sleep had been scarce for both of us, so I wasn’t surprised when she slumped against me. Our tanks had been running on empty and it was beginning to show. But here in the barn, the rest of the outside world melted away. Adulting didn’t exist among the horses and hay. We could breathe easily.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay in our little bubble forever. Responsibility was knocking at the door and that bitch was unyielding.

“This afternoon is going to be brutal,” she blurted.

“We can hold off for a few more days, Lanie. There’s no rush.”

“No, we’ve waited long enough. Besides, we’ve got a bunch of Russians to bring down and we can’t do that from here.”

“What can I do to make it easier on you?”

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