Page 46 of Sweet and Wild

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lemon

The sound of an engine roars through the late evening, and I wipe the tears from my cheeks and stare in surprise at West’s shiny red truck coming up the drive and kicking up dust in his wake.

Great. Of course Colt would call the brother who hates me.

I evaluate my options—walking all the way through the west pasture back to the house, or enduring a five-minute car ride with my brother while having to listen to yet another lecture. I don’t make a move toward the truck, but West surprises me by cutting the engine and climbing out.

His long strides eat away the distance between us and he sits beside me on the front porch steps. “So, he finally had the balls to show you the house.”

“I think I kind of forced his hand.” I laugh and close my eyes. Everything I’ve ever done when it came to Colt was push. Maybe that’s been our problem all along. “Did you and Daddy really help him build it?”

West doesn’t answer for a beat, and then he looks out over the front yard. “You remember when Colt, Daddy, and I were gone for those three days camping out on the property to check on those longhorns that’d gone missing?”

“I remember being not so thrilled that he was leaving me.”

“We poured the slab and built the frame that weekend. I put up that tire swing in that oak tree there, hoping my niece or nephew would play in it someday.”

My eyes prick with tears and I blink them back, but they fall anyway. Aside from Daddy’s funeral and that fateful week when I lost everything, I don’t think West has ever seen me cry. And it’s clear from the muscle popping in his jaw and the way he shifts on the stoop that he’s not real comfortable witnessing it now.

“You two had the odds stacked against you from the very beginning. I know I’ve never told you that I don’t blame you for leaving, but I don’t.”

I frown at him.

“And I haven’t given you a lotta reason to believe that, but it’s true. My whole life I knew I was gonna be married to this ranch. There was nothing else in my blood, but you ain’t like that, Lemon. You were born with fire in your veins, a light nothing and no one could smother. I knew you weren’t gonna stay forever. It broke my heart when you left, not just for Mama and Daddy or Colt. Not because I was never getting out, but because I knew this place would be darker once that light of yours was gone.”

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He laughs and bumps his shoulder to mine. “Don’t get too used to it.”

“It broke me to leave all of you too, you know?”

“I know, and I get why you had to go.”

“Then why were you such an asshole when I came back?”

He chews his lip and angles his body, looking at the house behind us. “Because I wasn’t sure we’d survive you coming back and then leaving us all again. I don’t know if you belong in New York. I won’t pretend to know anything about your life there, but I do know you and Colt were meant to be forever, at least that’s what I thought. He would’ve followed you to that big city, but it would have broken him to be away from all of this. And it might’ve broken you if you’d stayed.”

“You know this isn’t really helping.”

“I’m not sure this is supposed to be an easy decision to make.”

“Well, Colt made it clear he had nothin’ more to say, so I guess he made the decision for me, now didn’t he?”

“Darlin’, you could put Colt through just about anything—torture, humiliation, cheatin’—and he’d still rip the heart from his chest just to keep yours beating. He’s hurtin’. He’s been hurtin’ since the day you left, but he ain’t ever gonna stop lovin’ you.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Look around you, Lemonade. He finished this house, furnished it just the way you would have, and he did it all for you. He did it all knowing that one day you’d come back, and he’d finally get to show you that he never gave up on the two of you.”

I draw my knees in tight and lean my chin against them. “You didn’t see his face when he drove away.”

“Nope, I didn’t. But I heard the panic in his voice when he phoned me to come pick you up. That man ain’t done lovin’ you. He’s never gonna be done lovin’ you.”

I stare at the first stars flirting with the evening sky and wipe away my tears as West stands and holds out a hand to me. “Now come on. Mama made cobbler, and I got a feeling Wade’s gonna be claiming yours and mine if we don’t get on back.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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