Page 80 of That Moment
I roll onto my side to face him. He’s propped on one elbow, hair damp at the temples from our shower earlier, where he took me again, mouth swollen, eyes that deep, stormy blue-gray in the lamp glow.
God, he makes me wet and achy even after he’s destroyed me.
He glances down my body with a flash of hunger and reins it in, dragging his gaze back to my face like he’s reminding himself to be gentle.
“I’m… good,” I say, a little laugh slipping out. “Sore. Walking tomorrow is going to be a performance.”
“I can carry you,” he offers, totally straight.
“That’s a terrible idea.”
He grins, slow and wicked. “I have great ideas.”
Silence drifts in. Not awkward. Easy. The house is quiet in that old, lived-in way. A clock ticks somewhere down the hall. The shower door is still cracked open, steam ghosting out. My body hums with that new, dangerous contentment that makes my brain want to say reckless things.
“Hey,” he says, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. “Where’d you go?”
I swallow. My fingers find his chest, the steady thud beneath warm skin. “Thinking.”
“About?”
“You.”
His mouth tilts. “Dangerous.”
“Maybe.” I glide my palm lower, just to feel the way his ribs expand under my hand, then settle back at his sternum. Don’t chicken out. “Do you ever think about what’s next?”
He stills. Not the protective kind of still, not the shutdown I’ve seen in other men when a woman asks for the future like it’s a verdict. His gaze slides to the ceiling fan, counting the clicks.
“What kind of next?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I keep my tone light, though my pulse skips. “Different. Doing something else. Moving.” The word is out, and I can’t take it back. “Since your parents have both passed.” I smooth my thumb over his heartbeat. “Do you ever think about leaving the house? The ranch? The garage?”
He looks at me again. “The house, the ranch, the garage,” he says, simple and true. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
There’s no apology in it. No defensiveness. Just the reality that he’s a man who likes a simple life, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
“My dad used to say a man shouldn’t need much to be happy,” he adds, his voice cracking slightly. “Hard work that makes you feel good. Land that respects that you listen to it. A horse that knows your steps. We had that. We built it. When hedied, the house… stayed active with his memory for a while. I thought about changing the place, but I read once that when you move walls, you lose the echoes.” He swallows. “I don’t want to lose more of him.”
My eyes sting. I scoot closer until my knee hooks over his thigh and press my forehead to his. “You won’t,” I whisper. “He’s in you. In the way you fix everything, it deserves a second chance. In the way you stand and watch a storm roll in like you’re listening to it. In the way you honor his memory, just like he did with your mom.”
He lets out a long breath. “Yeah. They’re both buried here, so away would mean…”
“I didn’t mean leave-leave. I guess I’m just asking if you ever want… more or different?”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t run. He turns my face toward him with a knuckle under my chin so I have to meet his eyes. “Different isn’t always better.” It’s such a Scotty answer. Simple and honest.
“I’m happy here,” he says, and his shoulders loosen when he admits it. “The mountains, the same roads to the shop every morning, the old chair of my dad’s that should’ve been burned a decade ago. My mom used to hum when it rained. I still hear it if I leave the window open. It’s one of my only real memories of her. If I moved, it’d feel like leaving them again.”
I think of our family ranch, of my mom’s Sunday roast, and my dad’s grin when he finally sits down with a load groan and his glass of bourbon. The way certain corners of the house still smell like Christmas if you breathe deep enough. Like if I closed my eyes, I could still see those birthday parties my parents threw for us Slade Triplets.
“Tell me about them,” I say. “Your mom. Your dad. What did she hum?”
“Old hymns she didn’t believe in. Patsy Cline, when she was dramatic.” His mouth tips. “Dad snored like a chainsaw and pretended he hated how needy Priscilla always was, but he kept sugar cubes in his pocket for her.”
I grin, remembering him as a lanky teenager with oil under his nails, riding across that same pasture on Priscilla. “Of course he did.”
“He said a man should never pass a broken thing twice,” he adds. “Either fix it or throw it away.”
