Page 49 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

This, he understood, was what he’d most wanted to avoid. Always.

And the person he least wanted to tell this part to was Cat. But he knew that she would accept nothing less than the truth—and anyway, it would solve all their problems, wouldn’t it? She would see who he really was, who he’d been even as a small boy, and that would be the end oflove of your lifediscussions.

This conversation was a mercy killing, that was all.

“We made our mom suffer,” Wilder said, matter-of-factly. “Roberta smacked us and she made sure we listened after that. Every day for the rest of the summer she would wake us up and remind us that every bit of pain our mother felt, every labored breath, could have been easier.Wemade it harder.Wemade it hurt.”

There, he thought. It was done.

Now there was nothing left but watching her walk away, the way he should have done before any of this happened.

Cat seemed to forget that she was wearing a blanket. Because it was cold out here, with frost on the yard and a snowstorm brewing in the far hills, and she reached over and got her hands on him again.

Not seeming to notice when the blanket fell open and let the cold in.

“Wilder. Listen to me.” Her palms were on his cheeks, and it was like her blue eyes were tearing him open. “Have you been carrying this around your whole life? You have to know that you didn’t make her sick. You didn’t hurt her. That’s not how it works.”

All he could do was swallow, hard, and shake his head. “When we were older, we each asked our dad individually what had been going on that summer. Was Mom hurting that whole time, that kind of thing. And he told us—separately—that she could have taken more medication to address the pain, but it made her sleep. And she didn’t want to miss what moments she had left, so she refused it.”

He stared at her, waiting for her to understand, and to recoil.

To look at him in the horror he deserved.

“Because she was your mother,” Cat said softly, and her eyes looked too full, almost like she wanted to cry. He didn’t understand. “She loved you. She wanted to savor the moments that she had.”

“I think that’s just a way to pretty it up,” Wilder managed to scratch out. “Cousin Roberta was right. We were responsible, no matter what shine you try to put on it.”

Cat stared at him for so long that he couldn’t take it, and the cold was a factor. Why wasn’t she treating it like one?

He stood, picking her up again and carrying her inside, then depositing her on his couch. He stoked the fire in the stove. Then he went back out and fetched their coffee, planting hers down in front of her.

“What?” he all but growled when she smiled at him.

Because why would shesmileat him after what he’d just told her?

It actually made his chest hurt.

“It’s difficult for me to take this seriously,” Cat said, carefully. But not unkindly. “You think you’re such a terrible person but you can’t even bear for me to be a little bit cold for a few minutes. I did grow up here, Wilder. I know what a Montana morning feels like.”

“This isn’t something you can argue me into or out of, Cat,” he told her, trying to find that clarity that had come so easily when he’d woken up this morning, her soft weight tangled up beside him and her hair across his chest. “None of this should have happened.”

“But it did.”

She leaned forward and picked up the coffee he’d made her, then settled back on the couch. And he couldn’t help but notice that she looked perfectly calm and contained. She sat back against the couch in a manner he could only describe as lazy.

Almostamused, in fact.

He didn’t like it.

“It shouldn’t have happened, though,” he said, very deliberately. “The very fact that all this did happen is evidence against me. I don’t understand why you don’t see that.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Cat waved her coffee mug in the air, as if to dismiss his concerns on this subject. It did the opposite, but she kept on going. “I’ve been in love with you the whole time. Maybe even sooner.”

She laughed at the expression on his face, and Wilder wasn’t surprised, because he felt literally dumbstruck. “The only question is, how did you not realize that was what was going on with us? You chased me down at Mountain Mama that night when I didn’t show up. You clearly don’t like spending a night without me. You asked me to marry you, then did. Everything changed the moment we stood next to each other at that bar in Marietta, Wilder.” That smile of hers was like honey, and it caught at him. “Catch up.”

His ribs ached. He thought maybe he could have handled this if she’d been crying, or begging, or involved in one of the dramatic scenes he’d experienced before, from women he’d spent far less time with.

She didn’t do any of that. If anything, she looked perfectly content in every possible way, sipping his coffee in his shirt in his cabin, and it only made him want her more.

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