Page 12 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
But she loved him for it, she thought as she watched him take a seat in an empty booth away from everyone—instead of a spot at the counter like he normally did. Worried, she joined him. Did he just want peace and quiet? Or did he want to continue their argument from earlier?
“Get you something to drink?” she asked quietly.
He raised his head to look at her and what she saw in his eyes made her stomach drop. “I need you to move in with your cousin.”
She stared at him, the words not making any sense. Not this again. She’d hoped after their last breakup that they were moving in the right direction toward marriage and kids and a life together. She’d given him some time, then they’d found their way back together. She’d moved a few things into his house and soon she was living there again. He’d certainly not said anything as they’d gotten closer.
Until now.
Was that what he was afraid of? How close they’d gotten living together? “Are you going tell me why?” she asked as she dropped into the booth across from him, her legs shaking.
He looked so pained it made her heart hurt. “I just need you to move out as soon as possible. Today.”
She tried to find words, only coming up with, “Is this about Cordell? Is he moving in?”
Max shook his head, then his gaze met hers and held it. “As much as I hate doing this…” She saw him swallow before he finished. “I need you to give me some space.”
“For how long?” she asked, her words heavy with emotion.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the future holds, but I need you to do this. I’m sorry.”
She leaned back in the booth across from him, her pulse a thunder in her ears as her heart threatened to break. She fought to keep her voice down when she wanted to yell to the rafters. She’d been so patient with him. She could only guess at the life he’d had before arriving in Dry Gulch, he and his brother looking like the orphans they apparently were.
She cleared her voice. “We’ve been going out for years, living together the last four. How much slower could we have moved, Max?”
“Goldie, please don’t—”
“Please don’t what, Max? You’ve had plenty of time. Why don’t you admit what’s really happening here. You’re breaking up with me.Again.”
“I don’t want to keep doing this to you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I should have never let it get this far.”
She took a ragged breath as the impact of the words hit home.This man is never going to marry you.She’d only been fooling herself thinking he needed time. While she didn’t know everything about his dark past, she knew enough from the horrible nightmares she’d witnessed and always pretended she hadn’t.
Letting out the breath, she rose from the booth and looked down at this man she’d loved from as far back as she could remember. “You’re right about one thing. You can’t keep doing this to me.”
* * *
Cordell had beenlooking forward to Goldie’s dinner special, so he wasn’t thrilled when his brother entered the cellblock empty-handed. Then he saw Max’s expression and knew. “What did you do? You broke up with Goldie.”
His brother merely grunted in reply as he motioned him out of the cell.
Max had always been the coolheaded one, the person he knew he could trust with his life. “I’m so sorry.” Cordell hated this. Goldie and Max belonged together, yet he understood why his brother had held off on marriage. “In all this time together, you’ve never told Goldie the truth about your past?”
His brother shot him a look that made it crystal clear he had not. Nor did he ever plan to tell her. “I’d suggest you keep your distance from Josie, as well.”
Cordell let out an amused laugh. “Like that is going to be a problem. She doesn’t seem to want much to do with me. If anything.”
“It’s for the best right until this is over,” Max said.
He wondered if Goldie would feel that way when it was over. “I can see this is tearing you up,” Cordell said. “Couldn’t you have at least told her what’s going on?”
“No,” Max snapped. “She’d want to get her gun and be part of a standoff against the man. I don’t have to tell you, do I, that Josie would be the same way. Everyone in this town has to believe that I broke it off with Goldie. It’s the only way I can protect her.”
He could see that there was no changing his brother’s mind. “I’m sorry, but I really wish you’d told herafteryou picked up our dinner.”
Max cursed in answer. “You can really think of food at a time like this?”
“Yeah. I’ve always been like this, hungry. I think it’s from going without in the past.” He fell silent for a moment. Like Max, he’d thought all of this with Grimes was behind them. “You know he’s on his way here.”
