Page 28 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

Chapter Seven

They were pastthe halfway mark in September and despite more pretty days than not, the growing chill in the early mornings and at night was making it clear that the sunshine and warmth wouldn’t last.

Seasons made sense to Wilder. There was an order to them, a progression. None overstayed their welcome. They had their moment and then moved on, no harm and no foul. It was orderly and expected.

What he couldn’t figure out was how this thing with Cat was still going.

Or how this secret, forbidden, unbearably complicatedthinghe couldn’t even name had somehow become the longest relationship he’d ever had.

The temperature had dipped down low this morning. He could see his breath as he sat out on the porch, wearing a few more layers to keep the chill away. The coffee was perfect this morning, and he wasn’t a particularly superstitious man, but Wilder did take his ability to make himself a perfect cup of coffee as something of an omen for how the day was likely to go. His brother Boone had once pointed out that Wilder had taken longer to figure out how to make a decent cup of coffee than he ever had with any of the women in his life.

Wilder had obviously responded that he was shocked that Boone was putting himself forward as the poster child for serial monogamy, since he was so busy filling up his hope chest for a married woman—namely, Boone’s constant companion and, sadly, completely platonic best friend, Sierra Tate.

The conversation had deteriorated after that, as he recalled.

But he found himself smirking a little at the memory, even though Boone’s words had, regrettably stuck with him. Even though he’d said it years ago.

He was still thinking about it as he drove to the main part of the ranch later that morning, meeting up with Harlan to ride down into Marietta. They needed to pick up some supplies that the feed store in Cowboy Point didn’t carry.

Harlan drove. Wilder lounged in the passenger seat, looking out at this land he knew so well. “Do you think it’s weird that none of us ever had a long-term girlfriend or an early marriage, or any of that stuff? That it took Dad’s…” He couldn’t say it. “That he figured he needed to kickstart it?”

“Everybody sure thinks it’s weird,” Harlan replied in his usual understated way as he navigated a rough patch in the dirt road that led off their property. He slid Wilder a look and Wilder nodded, making a note to get out here and smooth out the bumps some. “I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I was always too worried about where the ranch was going. You and Ryder, on the other hand, seem to be involved in a belt-notching competition.”

“I wouldn’t call it a competition,” Wilder said with a drawl. “Ryder has always been interested in quantity and flash. Myself? I prefer quality.”

“Yeah, you’re a connoisseur,” Harlan said with a laugh, and took his time shaking his head at thevery ideathat Wilder could be interested in anything but a single hot night. Something that had always been true before. Something that had never bothered him to admit before, for that matter. Something that sat on him heavy and wrong today.

Harlan finally moved on from thedisbelief. “I suppose you could argue that Boone is long-term, anyway.”

Wilder considered that. “He’s been the longest relationship with a woman, I grant you. Too bad she doesn’t know it.”

He pulled out his phone when the signal came back—briefly—as they crested the hill near the lodge and texted Ryder.You’ve been voted the biggest player in the family, known for your excesses and belt-notching. Do they make fancy buckles for that?

I can’t help it if I’m the pretty one, Ryder replied, making Wilder grin.

“Knox, on the other hand,” he said as he put his phone away. “He’s always been the wildcard.”

“He had that girlfriend in high school,” Harlan said. “Didn’t he?” He slid a look Wilder’s way. “All of you blend together for me.”

Wilder ignored that obvious attempt at provocation. “Knox was the only one who brought a girl home, yes. I’m not sure that I would call her a girlfriend, though who can say with him? He’s unknowable.”

“He’s a punk,” Harlan retorted.

They drove in companionable quiet for a while, winding their way down the side of Copper Mountain, and for once, Wilder didn’t completely lose himself in the spectacular view of Paradise Valley as it sprawled out before him, making it seem as if he could almost see all the way from Livingston in the north to Gardiner down south at the gate to Yellowstone. He checked the mountains for the snow line, and he could see the hints of the coming fall all around in the burnt-gold and yellow colors of the larch and the aspen, but he was too busy thinking about other things.

Like how unusual it was in a big family like theirs, to have so few of them paired off. That wasn’t how things went around here. Folks tended to marry young, settle down, and have their families early. Come their thirties, those same folks were looking for do-overs in the bars at night.

Wilder had always been of the opinion that his was the wiser path.

But then, he’d never had a glimpse of how it could go the other way, before now. He’d never found it so difficult to imagine walking away. He’d never spent more time than he wanted to admit counting down the hours to the next time he’d see her.

He’d never walked around with this aching beneath his ribs. He’d never showed his hand, going out there on Labor Day weekend to find her—and Lord knew, it was worse now.

And it was getting harder to pretend he wasn’t getting wrecked by the day.

“I think it’s because of Mom,” he said, out loud, into the quiet between the two of them.

Harlan muttered something that sounded like a curse. “You’re going to give me whiplash, Wilder. What’s going on with you?”

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