Page 8 of Hero for the Holidays

“What?” Rory asked. She looked over quickly. “It’s Landry, right? I mean...just go bang him, Fia. My God.”

It was a frequent refrain. If she had a reaction to Landry, a reaction of any sort, then her sisters would laugh about the sexual tension between them. Joke about the fact that they needed to get it out of their systems. And Fia was great at playing that off at this point. Laughing along. Or scowling if it felt like an angry or more annoyed response would seem like the right thing to do. The truth was, no one actually knew what happened between her and Landry. If they did, they wouldn’t joke about it. That was for damn sure. Because it wasn’t funny. Not a damn thing about her relationship with Landry King was amusing. Nor was it fodder for whateverenemies to lovers tee-heeromantic fantasy her sisters had about them.

They had no idea.

They were all in love, and married. They had functional romances. They had no idea what it was like to have experienced being mired in the most intense, beautiful, sharp, toxic, painful relationship a person could ever imagine. They had no idea.

And she was going to make sure that they stayed completely in the dark.

Because God love them all, they’d escaped this. They had gone and fallen in love without being tangled in the barbed wire of a broken heart.

“Can’t,” she said, trying to sound breezy. “I decided I was going to find some bar himbo and bang it out with him this weekend. Landry is going to have to wait.”

She opted for light today. Because things were fine. Because she didn’t need to look at him and feel a jolt go through her body. Because she definitely never needed to remember what it had been like when he touched her.

Because that kind of memory led to all sorts of other memories, and she had given those up for both lent and sanity.

“Sounds fun. Bring back his panties as a souvenir so that I believe you,” said Alaina.

“I don’t have anything to prove to you,” said Fia.

It was true. She didn’t. She had Sullivan’s Point. And the successful farm store. It was all the proof she needed. Everything that she had worked so hard for was paying off.

She was finding new ways of making Sullivan profitable all the time. Thanks to Landry King, as it happened. He had been part of the primary opposition to them getting the money to open the store. Sometimes she had wanted to scream at him. Really yell at him. But they didn’t do that. She sniped at him. Sometimes she snapped. Lost her temper. But she more or less tried to keep it on lock. For his part...

Sometimes she wished that he would get angry at her. But every time she looked at him, he looked back with a kind of cool indifference. Honestly, it was the thing that made her want to lash out the most. Much more than hating him, it was a tangle. And he seemed completely unflappable in the face of her. In the face of all their memories. In the face of the ghosts from the past.

And right now, not only did he look unflappable, he looked sexy.

That was really the most annoying thing about him. After everything, she still found him hot. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a jaw so square she could cut herself on that angle point. It was usually covered with rakish, dark stubble. And he had the kind of midnight blue eyes that haunted a woman.

They were a weird thing, blue eyes. Especially on a dark-haired man. There was just something about them. It elevated his looks. It was annoying. And maybe there was something to be said for the fact that he was just her own personal brand of whiskey, or maybe he was universally problematic.

Hard to say.

She preferred to believe the latter, as the former made her feel like she was caught in a net she would never escape. She didn’t like that feeling.

So instead, she took her seat in the Sullivan portion of the barn, and did not look as the Kings took their seats in the King quadrant. Even though she knew they had. Because it was all timing. This perfectly choreographed dance of the town hall meeting.

She sneaked a peek, eventually, and frowned. Landry had his phone out of his pocket, and he was... She wasn’t mistaken the man was texting. Which was something she had never before seen him do.

Well. Good for him. Maybe he’d joined one of those dating apps. Maybe he’d found one that catered especially to obnoxious, undependable cowboys with big penises.

The thought sent a jolt straight between her thighs.

The truth was, she would join that app. That was the worst part.

She looked away and turned her focus to the front of the room, where Sawyer Garrett, their meeting chair, had taken the stage.

“This should be a pretty quick one,” he said. “Only one submitted matter of business. And mostly, I think we’re all looking forward to going out and eating. It’s a little chilly out, but we got the bonfire going and the heaters fired up. So mostly, tonight it’s just going to be a feast.”

That brought cheers up from the barn. It was full now. Of the Four Corners families and their employees. All of whom were looking forward to the monthly shindig. It was a well-deserved break. The truth was, there weren’t a lot of breaks in ranching.

The days moved on, with the land and animals needing what they needed. They didn’t care if it was sunny or rainy, Sunday or Christmas. It moved in a rhythm.

She liked that about it. She got comfort from it.

She gottiredfrom it sometimes, but mostly, it was comfort.

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