Page 42 of Cowboy Triplets Next Door

“I was panicking! It was the first thing that came to my mind.” I rolled down the car window and leaned my head out. “We don’t have to talk about every dumb thing I say or do.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Sure we do. But we can talk about all of my dumb shit, too.”

“Eve better be home. I can’t go back to that house tonight.” I held Turtle’s collar as he stuck his head out the window, too. “I don’t know how I’m going to face them every day for another two weeks, Joanie.”

“Quit now. You can go live at my house if you need. Bear’s twin daughters might break in and scare you half to death, but your bosses wouldn’t.”

I coughed as a bug flew into my mouth. Gagging and struggling to spit it out, I ended up swallowing it and turned to Joanie with a wide-eyed look of horror. “I just ate a bug. Is that a sign? What does it mean?”

She winced. “It means we need to get drunk as fast as possible.”

CHAPTER 33

Owen

“She didn’t come home last night, either. It’s been four days since she’s slept here.” I cracked my neck and blew out a deep breath. There were knots in my neck and shoulders I didn’t think would ever go away. My body was becoming a physical manifestation of how I felt inside. “She’s like a fucking ghost on the ranch. I know she’s coming to work but I’m always one step behind her.”

Keaton shot a glare at Gray. “Not too much longer until she’s gone for good.”

Gray laced his fingers behind his head as he paced back and forth on the balcony. “She’s not leaving.”

“That’s what you keep saying. Yet…she’s gone.” Keaton had never been angry for so long at either of us. We all usually got over shit quickly if we got mad at each other in the first place. This was different, though. This was Billie.

“She’s not fucking gone, Keaton.” Pacing to the edge of the balcony, Gray stared down at the carriage house. He shuddered and I knew he was picturing Billie sitting on the porch railing with another man between her thighs. It’d looked too real.

“What were you thinking? You saw the look on her face. You hurt her on purpose.” It was the same argument Keaton had thrown at Gray for days. “What if all your misguided bullshit about being too old for her is just that? Bullshit? What then?”

Gray spun around and jabbed his finger into Keaton’s chest. “Fuck you. I did what I thought was right in the moment. She’s still young! She got attached to us because we took her virginity. You think it’s right to bind her to us because of that?”

“I didn’t take anything!” Throwing his hands up, Keaton stormed into his room and slammed the door shut.

I turned a blank stare at Gray. “You should’ve made sure it was okay with us first. You turned her down without considering what we wanted.”

“I know what you want! I know what Keaton wants and I know what I want! We all want the same fucking thing but I did the right thing!” Chest heaving, Gray sank into the chair next to me. “I did the right thing. She’s too young. She…she deserves more. Right?”

I felt sorry for him then. Gray had always taken the leadership role out of the three of us and he’d made a bad call we were all having to live with. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and even though I was angry at him, I loved him too much to let him sit in his misery for too long.

“What’s more than the three of us, Gray? She is young, but she’s smart and strong and has been devoted to this ranch her entire life. She’s not some silly child who changes her mind with the wind.” I stared at the roof of the carriage house, wishing I knew where she was. “Maybe she feels what we feel, Gray. Then, what? We’ve just been condescending assholes who talked to her like she was too stupid to know if her feelings were real.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“She’s not gone, yet.”

He scrubbed his hands down his face. “She may as well be. She hates me.”

I swallowed a lump of fear. “She can’t.”

“She should.”

I slapped his shoulder and stood up. “I’m going to go see if I can find her. This place is only so big.”

“What are you going to say?”

“What we should’ve a few nights ago. That we care about her and would be fucking gutted if she left.” I stared at him. “Comments?”

He shook his head. “Seems you know better than me.”

I gave a short, humorless laugh. “About time you realized that.”

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