Page 8 of My Apocalypse Cowboy
I reach for his belt…And reality crashes down.
Three years of survival instinct screaming at me all at once. Don't get attached. Don't need anyone. People die. People leave. People turn into the things we just killed in the yard.
I push against his chest. Hard.
He releases me instantly, stepping back, breathing like he just ran a mile. His eyes are wild.
I can't look at him. I press my palms against the barn wall behind me, needing something solid.I can’t lose my nerve just because a sexy-as-fuck cowboy just made me whimper with a kiss. I need to keep my head straight.
"Rebecca—"
"Don't." My voice sounds wrecked. "Just... don't."
I walk past him to where the bodies are waiting. Grab the first one by its ankles and start dragging it toward the burn pile.
He doesn't follow. Doesn't try to stop me or explain or fix it.
After a minute, I hear him pick up another body and follow.
We work in silence for an hour. Disposing of the dead. Cleaning up the mess. Not talking about what just happened or what it meant or what happens next.
When we're finally done, I'm filthy and exhausted and my lips still taste like him.
"I'm going to shower," I say to the ground between us.
"Okay."
I make it three steps toward the house before I stop. I don't turn around.
"I need more time."
Silence. Then: "Okay."
It's the right answer. The only answer that doesn't make this worse.
I walk inside without looking back, but I can feel his eyes on me the whole way.
four
Joseph
Ican'tstopthinkingabout her mouth.
Three days since the zombie incident, and I'm obsessed. The way she kissed me back like she was drowning and I was air. The little sound she made when I touched her breast. How she looked when I pinned her against the barn wall—flushed and wanting and completely mine for that moment.
Right up until she pushed me away.
I need more time, she'd said.
So I'm giving it to her. Even though it's killing me.
We've been dancing around each other ever since. Polite conversation over meals. Careful distance while working. But the tension is there, humming between us like a live wire every time we're in the same room.
She's been throwing herself into ranch work with determined focus, like she's trying to outrun what happened between us. But watching her gentle a skittish calf or correctly diagnose Bertha'shoof problem makes something warm and possessive unfurl in my chest.
She belongs here. She just doesn't know it yet.
"You're staring again," Rebecca says without looking up from the fence post she's trying to set.
