Page 53 of Waiting for the Rancher
What did it matter now if she told him the truth? “I think I’ve always loved him.”
“Always?”
“Yes, always.” Maybe even from the first moment she’d met him, when his family had ridden over to welcome them to Summit County and he’d bounded over to her, lanky and handsome even when he was thirteen and she was only nine.
Sterling cracked his knuckles again. “We promised each other that we wouldn’t ever let ourselves develop feelings for each other’s sisters.”
“You did?”
Sterling nodded solemnly.
She could see the storm cloud forming inside him and guessed he felt betrayed by Maverick. Again. “No, it wasn’t like that. Maverick never noticed me. I’ve always just been his best friend’s little sister.”
Hanging his head, Sterling leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
“I vow it, Sterling. Maverick never showed any interest in me beyond friendship.”
With his head bowed low, Sterling clasped his hands together.
“You have to believe me.”
“I do,” he whispered.
She released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
“I’ve always known he liked you,” Sterling continued. “Maybe that’s why I had him make the pact with me.”
“He doesn’t like me.” She couldn’t hold back the bitterness that crept into her tone.
Sterling twisted his thumbs around each other, almost nervously. “Actually, last week he told me he loves you.”
Her heart stopped beating, and a strange silence settled through the brokenness of her chest. Maverick had told Sterling he loved her? Before he’d said it to her?
She wanted to push Sterling to say more, to tell her everything. But she knew her brother wouldn’t say anything he didn’t want to.
Sterling cleared his throat. “He rode over the day after the big snowstorm stranded you at the Oakleys’.”
The morning after their kiss? Where had she been? Had she been home, or had she still been at High C Ranch?
“He told me that he slept with you and kissed you.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “It wasn’t like that. It was innocent—”
“I know.”
“It didn’t mean anything.”
“It meant something to him, because he came over with every intention of asking for my permission to court you.”
“He did?” Hope sparked to life inside her, but just as quickly she doused it. It didn’t matter. Maverick had walked away from her, and that was the end of them.
“I told him to stay away from you.”
She pushed up, her loose hair tumbling about her in disarray. Now Maverick’s distance that week after their first kiss made more sense. When Sterling had shut him down, he’d tried to honor Sterling’s request to stay away from her.
Sterling still hung his head. “I’m guessing that’s why he left our ranch and went home.”
“Why?”
