Page 26 of Tattooed Cowboy
His wounded hand comes up, carefully tracing the line of the bracelet, burned like a tattoo into my arm. Throbbing, awakening at his gentle caress. I stare curiously as his hand covers it, ancient words passing his lips, a flicker of warmth, then nothing.
“Took too much from me last night,” he apologizes. “Have to heal the old way. Use some of your Grandma’s salve.”
“Do you think it’ll glow like your marks?” I ask, awe threading the question.
“Don’t know,” he answers, eyeing me sheepishly. “But to me, every part of you glows, golden like the high desert when the sun hits its zenith. Most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
His words thrum through me like a pulse, mind relaxing, letting me seep back into him. Emotions bleed in. Fierce love. Total devotion. Deep-rooted fear… not for himself but for me, for our future.
I feel the thought before he speaks it—old and heavy, soaked in shame.
I thought extinction was mercy.
Images flicker through his mind: fire, screaming, the crackle of resonance tearing through the hills.If I stayed silent, maybe the world would forgive us.
Martin and June’s faces appear in his memory—steady, kind, the only humans who knew when to look away, when to let him follow his nature.
They gave me peace,the thought drifts, aching.I wasn’t supposed to take it away by wanting you.
My breath catches. I reach for him through the bond, my mind brushing his.You didn’t take anything away,I whisper silently.You brought it back.
His eyes lift to mine, and the guilt that’s lived there for decades finally breaks open.
“I’m sorry, Melody,” he whispers, voice raw and haunted.
“Sorry for what?”
“For needing you more than my selflessness could bear. For not being able to let you go when I should have.”
My heart sinks at the sound of his pain. I stir in his arms, turning to straddle him, palming his square-cut cheeks. I force him to look at me, my gaze defiant, unmoving. “There is no you or me anymore—just us. You never had a choice. Neither did I.”
Sunshine snickers a distance away. Winnie’s tail flicks as she steps forward to drink from the cool stream.
“But even if I did,” he says, eyes overflowing with love. “I would still wait for you, Melody. Still chooseyou. Whether right or wrong.”
“Did you always know?” Emotions swirl inside, uncertain I want his answer.
He opens his mind, his heart, lets me peer inside. Clean thoughts. Innocent for the neighbor’s little girl. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not strange or different.
Then, he drifts forward, to me pulling up in my GTI, and his world shatters. A pulse, like pain, living beneath his skin. Burning like fire, drawing him to me in the barn and then pushing him to the north pasture. Conflicted feelings, shame, anger, frustration—all burned clean and pure in the searing light of love.
I add my own memories. Grandma and I in the kitchen. The rich, earthy tones of coffee mixed with cream. The brown Carhartt on the porch rail.
The corners of his mouth turn up. “Left that for you, just in case.”
“Test passed.”
He shakes his head, cerulean eyes burning into mine. “Love found.”
“But where do we go from here?” I ask, mind swirling with too many possibilities to speak.
He presses my hand to his chest, eyes meeting mine, gaze steady. “You stay with me. We make a life together.”
“But the mountains? The?—”
He shakes his head. “What we did last night. How we defended ourselves. We can do that again.”
I try to relax; fear still snakes through me. “The dampener, the bracelet? What do we do without them?”
