Page 82 of My Cowboy Trouble
"And someone needs to check the fence line where Gavin and Asher were working yesterday. Make sure it's holding."
"Trent, hey." I grab his arm as he reaches for the door. "Don't pretend this didn't happen."
"I'm not pretending anything." But he won't look atme, won't meet my eyes. "I'm being practical. We have work to do."
"Fuck work." The curse gets his attention, his head snapping toward me in surprise. "You just fucked me against a workbench in your tack room, told me you wanted to make me yours, and now you're talking about cattle? Really?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say something real. Something honest. Something that isn't about ranch work or responsibilities or any of the other bullshit you hide behind when things get too real."
He's quiet for a long moment. It’s so easy to see the part of him that wants to retreat, battling against the part that was just intimate with me.
"I want you to stay," he says finally, the words seeming to cost him. "Not just for the thirty days. Not just until you get tired of playing cowgirl. I want you to stay forever."
My heart stops. Actually stops beating for a full second before kicking back to life with painful intensity.
"Trent—"
"But I know you won't. I know this is temporary, no matter what we just did. You have a life in New York. A real life with real responsibilities and real future prospects. Not just some failing ranch in the middle of nowhere."
"This ranch isn't failing?—"
"It is. We all know it is. We're holding on by our fingernails, pretending everything's fine, but the numbers don't lie. We've got maybe two years before we have to sell." He finally looks at me, and the pain in his eyes makes my chest ache. "So you'll go back to your real life, and we'll sell to some corporation that'll tear down everything my father built, and that'll be that."
"It doesn't have to be that way."
"Doesn't it?" He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "What's the alternative? You give up your successful business to play house with three cowboys? You trade designer clothes for work boots and Broadway shows for cattle auctions? Come on, Kenzie. We both know how this ends."
I want to argue with him, want to tell him he's wrong, that there are other possibilities he's not seeing. But the words stick in my throat because part of me knows he's right. Part of me is already planning my return to New York, already thinking about the clients I need to call back and the apartment I need to return to.
"So what was this, then?" I gesture between us, at the tack room where we just redefined our relationship. "Just sex, huh? Just scratching an itch?"
"This was me being selfish." He straightens his shirt, smoothing down his hair, erasing any evidence of what just happened. "This was me taking something I wanted even though I knew I didn't deserve it."
I shake my head. "And now?"
"Now we go back to work. We pretend this didn't happen. We get through the next few weeks without making things more complicated than they already are."
"I don't want to pretend?—"
"It's what's best. For everyone." He opens the door, flooding the dim tack room with bright morning sunlight. "I'll be in the south pasture if you need anything."
And then he's gone, leaving me standing alone in a room that smells like leather and sex and broken promises. My legs are still shaky from what we just did, my body still humming with satisfaction, and he wants to pretend it never happened.
I sink onto the workbench where we just had sex, pressing my palms to my eyes. This is what I get for falling for the strong, silent type. This is what I get for thinking I could crack through Trent Mercer's walls and find the man underneath.
Except I did crack through them, didn't I? For a few minutes there, I did. Vulnerable and desperate and honest about what he wanted. And what he wanted was me. Not just for sex, not just for now but forever.
The problem is, I think I might want the same thing. And that terrifies me more than anything has in my entire life.
Eighteen days. Eighteen days to figure out if I'm brave enough to stay, if I'm strong enough to fight forsomething I never planned to want. Eighteen days to decide if a failing ranch in Montana is worth giving up everything I've built in New York.
Eighteen days to figure out if love is enough to overcome the practicalities of two completely different lives.
I look around the tack room, at the saddles still scattered on the floor, at the workbench where everything changed, and make a decision.
I'm not giving up. Not on Trent, not on this ranch, not on whatever this thing is between us. He can retreat behind his walls all he wants, but I know what I felt when he was inside me, what I heard when he told me he wanted me to stay.
