Page 4 of Bolt To Me
“I think we passed PR-friendly back at shot number two,” he replied, mouth twitching.
She laughed once, bitter and brief. “Fair point.” She shifted slightly, the dress rustling like autumn leaves in the wind, and stared at the endless fields slipping by outside the window. “Okay. Real version: I realized I was about to marry a man I didn’t love, to live a life I didn’t want, because everyone expected me to. Because it was easier to say yes than admit I didn’t fit the picture they’d painted.”
Cory let out a low whistle, the kind that wasn’t mocking but full of something like respect. “Damn.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t elaborate, letting the word hang in the air like smoke.
He didn’t push. Just kept driving, both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, as if giving her space was something he was good at. Then, a beat later, his voice returned, thoughtful and almost too gentle. “So, what do you want?”
The question shouldn’t have hit like a punch to the ribs, but it did. She blinked, startled by the directness of it, by the simplicity, by how much it asked of her when she didn’t even have the beginning of an answer.
“I don’t know,” she said, quieter now. “I used to think I did. I wanted to teach high school English. Or open a little boutique on Main Street. I wanted to travel. I wanted to matter, in a small but real way. But then Thomas came along and suddenly everything was… brunches. Charity galas. Pearls andpolite applause and causes I couldn’t name without a cheat sheet.”
Cory nodded slowly. “Sounds exhausting.”
“It was.” Her voice cracked around the edges. “I kept telling myself I was lucky. That I should be grateful for a man who checked every box on paper. But walking down that aisle today… it felt like I was disappearing. Like I was handing my whole life over to someone who didn’t even ask me what I wanted to do with it.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward or cold. It was soft, thoughtful, almost reverent. Like the night had leaned in to listen.
“I get that,” Cory said, voice lower now, like he wasn’t used to admitting things out loud.
Carli turned her head, genuinely surprised. “You do?”
He shrugged, one hand sliding off the wheel to rest against his thigh. “People look at me and see a title. A legacy. Hayes Ranch and oil money and whatever job title I’ve got slapped across LinkedIn this month. They think I’ve got it figured out because my boots are polished and I remember to send Christmas cards. But no one really asks what I want. Not even my own family. They just assume I’m fine with carrying the torch.”
She looked at him for a long moment, really looked, and for the first time she saw something beneath the charm. Loneliness. A bone-deep weariness. A man who wore his confidence like armor but still flinched from the weight of expectation. “And what do you want?” she asked softly.
His eyes flicked toward her, moonlight catching the edge of his profile. He smiled, but it was a quiet, tired thing. “Still figuring that out.”
Carli held his gaze longer than she meant to. There was something magnetic about him, this quiet, sardonic man whosaw more than he let on. Her heartbeat thudded a little faster, not from nerves this time, but something warmer. Something undeniably dangerous. She looked away, forcing herself to breathe.
The truck turned onto the long dirt drive that led to the Santana property, the tires crunching softly over gravel. Ahead, her family’s big white farmhouse came into view, its porch lights still burning, flickering faintly like they couldn’t decide whether to stay on or give up for the night. The house stood quiet, but the chaos it once contained hovered like a shadow behind the windows.
“Looks like the circus hasn’t made it back yet,” Cory murmured, voice light but cautious.
Carli stared at the porch for a long second, her hands tightening in her lap. “I’m not ready to go in.”
“You want me to circle the block until sunrise?” he offered.
She grinned, unexpected and wide, the first real smile she’d allowed in hours. “Tempting.”
He shifted the truck into park and cut the engine, letting the silence settle around them like a blanket. The air buzzed with the low hum of cicadas and the distant bark of a dog somewhere down the road. In the stillness, the moment seemed to swell between them. It wasn’t tense, or awkward, but charged with something unspoken. Something real. “We can sit a minute,” he said. “No pressure.”
Carli let her head fall back against the headrest, her eyes fluttering closed. She could feel the heat of him just inches away, the warmth of his presence, the solid comfort of the cab around them. She hadn’t realized how deeply tired she was until this exact second. She was tired not just in body, but in soul. “Thanks for the ride,” she said quietly.
“Anytime,” he replied, and she believed him.
She turned her head again, studying the curve of his jaw in the moonlight, the way his lashes cast shadows across his cheeks, the faint furrow between his brows that he probably didn’t know he had. He was watching her, too, openly, without apology.
“Cory?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“If I kiss you right now… is that a mistake?”
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. “Probably.”
But she was already leaning in.
