Page 59 of Not Our First Rodeo
She says nothing about the last few months of silence. Nothing about the separation. Nothing about the way I asked Beau to leave and then left them too.
Just genuine, pure delight.
It makes my throat tight. “Yeah, Chey, you are.”
She reaches up, wrapping her arms around my shoulders tight enough to hurt, but I don’t mind. I hold her back, breathing in her familiar scent. Wildflowers and sunshine.
“I’m so glad you’re home.”
This time, I can barely speak around the lump in my throat, but I manage to say, “Me too.”
“Come on, let’s go inside,” Beau says, breaking up the moment.
I’m thankful for it, because I need a moment to compose myself so I’m not sobbing as I walk into the big house.
I follow the two of them, barely hearing Cheyenne’s chattering over the pounding of my heart, as we head up the wooden porch stairs. My breath catches as I walk over the threshold. The houseI grew up in never really felt like home, but this one did from the first moment I stepped inside it.
It’s a classic ranch home. Wood everywhere. School portraits and family photos lining the walls. Boots discarded by the door and a hat rack with more than enough hooks. Sunshine bursting through the windows and the smell of earth that never quite leaves. Noise, the kind I never had in my house. Voices talking over each other and laughter and music.
Home. It feels like I’m finally coming home after too much time away.
I don’t realize I’ve stopped in the foyer, but Beau does, and he motions for Cheyenne to keep going and turns back to me. His boots are heavy thuds on the wood floors as he closes the distance between us, matching the heavy falls of my heart.
There are voices coming in our direction, and before I can think about hiding my emotions, putting on a brave face for them, Beau tugs my arm, pulling the two of us into the coat closet and closing us in.
It’s dark in here, too dark to make out his expression, but we’re close enough for me to feel the pounding of his heart against mine, the heat of his breath on my skin. It smells like leather and shearling and dust in the cramped quarters.
“We’re in the closet,” I say dumbly.
Beau huffs a laugh, ruffling the hair fringing my face. “Shit, I thought this was a bedroom.”
I roll my eyes. “Whyare we in a closet?”
“You looked like you needed a minute,” he says.
My heartbeat slows infinitesimally. He’s been seeing more lately, a combination of him looking in the right places and me working hard not to hide as much. At first, it scared me. It still does sometimes. But right now, I’m grateful for it. I’m happy he saw that I was overwhelmed with every single emotion this placedrags up in me and gave me a moment to digest it before seeing everyone.
“Thank you,” I say and mean it.
His hand snakes around my hip, squeezing it, and the contact feels almost electric in this small, dark space.
Then his thumb slips over the waistband of my jeans, and my breath hitches in my throat.
“Are your pants unbuttoned?” he asks, sounding amused.
“Unzipped too,” I say, trying not to focus on how his hands feel on me. How starved I’ve been for touch the last few months.Histouch.
A laugh gusts out of him. “Why?”
“They don’t fit anymore,” I complain.
“We can buy you some new pants,” he says.
I can hear the smile in his voice so clearly I can picture it. The way his eyes are crinkling and his lips are curling one edge at a time.
I shake my head, and my hair catches in the stubble on his cheeks. “They’re all ugly. I looked.”
He laughs again, his thumb still tracing the waistband of my jeans through my shirt in a way that feels all too distracting. “You can’t just go walking around with your pants unbuttoned all the time.”
