Page 34 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

Sheneededthat to mean something.

Once they made it up to the house, Cat stormed inside. She threw open the front door and tugged Wilder directly into the living room. Her mother was sitting there on the couch, her dark auburn hair piled on the back of her head, her nighttime bowl of popcorn in her lap, one of her shows on the television, and a startled look on her face.

“Hi Mom,” Cat said. Or, really, it was more of aproclamation. “Wilder and I have been together for the past month. Tennessee and Dallas just stormed the woods, apparently because they’re sad little stalkers with nothing better to do.”

“Evening, ma’am,” Wilder drawled, nodding at Jenny.

“There’s actually nothing stalkery about looking out for my younger sister,” Tennessee gritted out from behind Cat. “I’m not going to apologize for it.”

“I was trained to do recon by the U.S. Army,” Dallas chimed in. “It’s a feature, not a bug.”

“Wilder Carey.” Jenny’s face was unreadable for all that it was sweet. It was one of her superpowers. She set aside her bowl. “I think you might very well be the first Carey that has ever set foot in this home.”

“He’ll be the last,” Tennessee growled. “If I have anything to say about it.”

“It’s an honor,” Wilder said, nodding his head again in Jenny’s direction, as if Tennessee didn’t exist.

Cat wished he didn’t, just then. “What makes you think youdohave anything to say about it?”

“I regret to inform you, Mom, that this man you’re being so friendly with was in a compromising position with Cat. Out in the woods. In the dark.” Tennessee made this announcement as if he deeply regretted that he had to do such a thing in the first place, a tone he had not taken with Cat in a long time. It was amazing how well she remembered it, from that span of years when Jenny had been a mess. Tennessee really had been the adult in the room then, though he’d still been a kid himself. “I doubt very much that this was the first time that she snuck off to meet up with him.”

Cat reminded herself that no one here was a kid now. Especially not her.

“Is this true Cat?” Jenny asked, but very mildly. So mildly it was almost like she was commenting on the weather.

“It is absolutely true,” Cat said, turning to glare at Tennessee. “Not that it’s any of anybody’s business but mine. And Wilder’s.”

Beside her, Wilder didn’t comment on that. Did she imagine that he tensed? Or was she making these things up, that broken-off sentence still swirling around in her head…?

“I have to commend you, Cat,” Jenny said after a moment. “When I told you that you ought to get out there and explore, I didn’t mean men. I didn’tnotmean men, but I always thought you imagined yourself traveling. Still, I have to applaud the fact that you went out and found the most unlikely one around.” She eyed Wilder for a moment. He looked amused. “Then again, you must be your mother’s daughter. I too liked a pretty face, to my detriment.”

“Mom.”Dallas looked revolted. “Please. You told us the stork brought us.”

“Wilder Carey has the distinction of being the biggest—” Tennessee cut himself off, shooting a look at Wilder, then at his mother. But not at her, Cat noted. Of course not. “He’s the freest with his affections of all his brothers.”

“I know what a man whore is, Tennessee,” Jenny replied in that mild way of hers that only the unwary failed to notice had a sharp edge or two. “I was married to your father.”

“I take exception to that,” Wilder said while the Lisles in the room digested the fact that their usually sweet and contained mother had just uttered the termman whore. “Ryder is a rodeo star. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what he does with his…” He glanced at Jenny, then smiled.“Affections.”

“It wouldn’t matter if Wilder slept with every woman above the age of consent in Crawford County,” Cat said hotly, though the truth was, that would actually matter to her. It would matter to her more than she wanted to admit, but that wasn’t the point she was trying to make. “I’m an adult and I’m going to do what I want. That’s the end of the discussion. The only reason we’re standing here having this conversation at all is because I don’t want you two—” and she pointed at her brothers, each in turn “—to run around thinking that I feel like this is anything to be ashamed of. Because I don’t. You want to know why we decided not to tell anyone about this?”

She could feel Wilder’s eyes on the side of her face, and Cat understood that this was dangerous ground. She shouldn’t be speaking for him. She had no idea what he’d been about to say.

But she supposed that in that moment she trusted him enough to go along with her, even if he disagreed.

If only to annoy her brothers.

So she didn’t wait for the two of them to answer. Or for Wilder to correct her.

“Because of you,” she told her brothers. “Because ofthis. Because you’re overprotective to the point of psychosis, and I didn’t want you involved. I love you, but I don’t care what you think about this.”

She looked at Tennessee directly. “You’re not actually my father,” she told him, and he flinched. “I understand that you had to step into some heavy stuff while we were growing up, and I’m grateful to you for that. We all are. But I’m not your daughter.”

“No,” Jenny said softly. “You aren’t.”

Cat looked at Dallas then. “And I’m deeply sorry for the things that you went through, that left you numb and grieving.” When he started to protest, she lifted a hand. “We don’t need to lay them all out. But we both know you should focus more on yourself and a whole lot less on me.”

She moved back then and put her arm around Wilder’s waist, as if they really were a couple. A daring gesture that she wasn’t sure she’d thought through, but once she’d committed to it, there was no taking it back. Because she wanted them to think they really were that kind of couple. The kind of couple that she could admit, standing here in her mother’s living room with her entire family staring at her, she had wished they were all along.

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