Page 26 of Craving Her Cowboy
She shook her head, hair brushing his chin. “Not even close.”
He grunted, a satisfied sound, and pulled the quilt higher, tucking it under her arm.
For a while, they just lay there. It could have been minutes, or an hour. Neither cared.
“You ever think about just walking away from all of it?” Asha asked the question she’d been struggling with for a while.
He didn’t answer right away. She could feel the question sink into him, settling somewhere deep.
“Every fucking day,” he said, finally.
She smiled, hidden in the shadow of his neck. “What would you do? If you weren’t some bigwig corporate guy who called the shots?”
He flexed his hand on her belly, fingers drumming that old pattern—three, two, three. “Never thought I’d make it past thirty,” he said. “But now…”
He let the thought die in the dark. She let it go for now.
“What about you?” he asked.
She took a breath, held it, then let it out with a sigh. “That job offer in Colorado is still waiting for me. It’s good work. It won’t be a lot of pressure, but it won’t be easy. Working with wounded and adjusting veterans never is. But the pay is really good.”
He was quiet. Not stiff, not angry, just… waiting.
“I don’t know if I want it.” Saying the words out loud was one of the scariest things she’d done in a while. Isn’t this what she’d been hoping for? Had Gavin really changed her so much?
“You don’t have to decide tonight, right?”
“I know.” She pressed her face against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. Steady, strong. “Suddenly, the decision’s become a little bit harder,” she quipped. “But it’s what I’ve been wanting.”
He didn’t say anything, but the arm around her tightened, just a little.
They fell silent again. The quiet wasn’t charged. It was just there, like a new animal they’d learned to trust.
Asha drifted on the edge of sleep, eyelids fluttering. She felt him brush a strand of hair from her forehead, the touch gentle. For a second, she imagined what it would be like to wake up in this bed every day, to let herself get used to the idea of someone needing her back.
The thought didn’t scare her as much as it used to.
She mumbled, “Don’t let go.”
“Not a chance.” Gavin was only going to be a fool once. Now that she was in his arms, he would do his damndest to keep her there.
She fell asleep like that, heartbeat slowing to match his, arms and legs knotted in the tangle of the quilt.
Chapter 11
The next day, Asha rolled from her own bed, bare feet finding the battered linoleum. She stepped into her sweats, brushed her hair and tied it up with a band she plucked off the lamp. She filled the water reservoir on the coffeemaker and set it to percolate, fingers drumming the counter while the brew sputtered to life. The routine was automatic, but it made her feel like she had control over at least one thing in her world.
She stood at the window, mug cradled in both hands and looked out over the ranch yard. Horses clustered in the near paddock, shoulder to shoulder, breath clouding around their noses. On the other side of the dirt road sat Gavin’s cabin, dark except for the faint light leaking through a slit in the curtains.
She could picture him inside. Shirtless, bent over his desk, or maybe already up and out, taking the morning at a dead sprint. She remembered the last time she saw him, the way his eyes tracked her as she walked away from him, the unspoken thing hovering between them, not quite dead and not quite breathing.
Asha reached for her phone, which sat face-down on the table. She flipped it over with her thumb and tapped the screen. The top of her inbox was an email marked URGENT—New Direction Vets, Boulder, Colorado. She’d already read it twice, maybe three times. She pulled it open again anyway, scanning the words:
We are pleased to offer you the position of Veteran Program Lead. Full relocation package. Start date flexible. Please confirm your interest by Friday…
She read it and reread it, the text so clear and reasonable compared to the clusterfuck of her feelings. The offer was perfect. Or as close as anything ever got. Boulder was only a state away, the job was exactly her lane, and the money was more than she’d ever made. But every time she tried to picture herself there—desk, computer, a nameplate with her title—her chest went tight.
Her fingers tapped out a rhythm on the countertop, too fast, like she was trying to Morse code herself into making a decision.
