Page 23 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

There was quite a bit to do because the man wasn’t settled into his house at all. There were boxes to unpack and things to organize and it was nice to lose herself in the satisfaction of a small task, easily completed in a short amount of time. Each little section—kitchen utensils, plates, cups, clothes, toiletries—was its own kind of satisfying.

It was also intimate, though, and she had to stop herself from running her fingers slowly over his T-shirts as she put them away.

Which was perverse behavior and she needed to quit.

She needed to focus on the fact that at least today, right now, there were small things she could make better.

Because Lord knew everything else felt like too big of a mess to even look at right now. So she closed the door on what she’d left behind, and what was up ahead, and she focused on folding Boone Carson’s laundry.

That should demystify him.

He was the sexiest man she’d ever seen, and when he’d looked at her last night across the kitchen island and taken a step toward her, in the space of a breath she’d gone from being in that moment, to imagining what it would be like if he took her in his arms and...

Folding his socks should make that go away.

It was all fine and good to look at a man and think he was a sex god when you weren’t handling his woolen boot socks.

Though here she was, socks in hand, still breathless.

This should be exposure therapy. She and Boone had had no choice but to try and avoid each other through the years. There were moments where she’d felt guilty for sharing a long look with him, because sometimes those looks were so sexually charged, they left her feeling more aroused than actual sex with Daniel.

It was a terrible thing to admit—or at least it had been.

And so she’d done her best to avoid ever acknowledging that sticky truth.

Part of her had wondered, though, if some of his appeal was that he was a fantasy. Daniel had always seemed affable and easy. She’d never thought of her husband as a bad boy—ironic—but Boone had seemed...edgy.

Raw.

There was something about him that called to unhealed places in her. To darkness she’d never felt like she could express with Daniel. He wanted his life to be easy. They had money and security in the grand scheme of things, so he didn’t much want to hear about the way hunger pangs sometimes gave her flashbacks to a childhood of occasionally empty pantries.

How she’d had to mend the holes in her hand-me-down clothes.

How she’d spent her summer days alone in an overheated house because her mom had to work and there was nowhere else for her to go.

How, on those long hot days, she’d gotten good at hiding when the landlord came trying to chase down rent.

Daniel didn’t like to hear about those things. They didn’t matter. They were in the past.

She’d thought—more than once—that Daniel couldn’t handle the idea that there were issues inside her that weren’t solved by being married to him. He wanted to be everything to her. To have fixed everything.

It had never really occurred to her what narcissistic nonsense that was until that very moment, with Boone’s wool socks in her hand.

She thought of Boone. The way he had looked last night. Intense and close. He was always intense. But there was usually something between them. Something other than a countertop. Her marriage. Her dedication to her vows. Her love for her husband. Because for all that she had wanted Boone from the first moment she had laid eyes on him, for all that it had felt significant and real and like something bigger than she was the first time she’d seen him, she had always loved Daniel.

She sat there, feeling the silence of the room pressing on her. Did she love Daniel?

No.

And it wasn’t the infidelity that had done it.

Suddenly, it was like the truth was raining down on her, as if invisible clouds above had opened up and let it all come down.

They had been disconnected for a long time. She loved her life. She had loved their house in Bakersfield, even though it was hot there. Even though there was a big empty field across from them.

She had loved her routine of taking the girls to school. Of bringing them home. Cooking them dinner. She loved the freedom she had, the financial security that had come from his career as a bull rider and the way she had managed it. She had loved that her daughters didn’t have empty pantries and long days at home by themselves. In that sense, she had been the happiest she’d ever been. But she didn’t think she had been the happiest she’d ever been when he was home. It wasn’t that she’d been unhappy when he was around, she just didn’t think he was the main part of that happiness.

When he was away she could do whatever she wanted. She got to binge-watch TV shows and wear ratty pajamas. She had ice cream out of the carton and she took up the middle of the bed.

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