Page 41 of Rancher's Return

It had been like that from the moment she had first appeared on his doorstep. And maybe that was the real reason he had kept her close. Maybe he was full of shit. Maybe it had never been about trying to follow his gut instinct. Maybe it had always been about wanting her. Maybe atonement was just an excuse.

That made him feel guilty.

And he would be lying if he said he didn’t like the guilt. It was his comfort zone.

Right about now, he felt like Marigold’s lips were his comfort zone. Where everything was that he had ever wanted.

He wanted to kiss her again, strip her bare—

“You passed the school driveway, Buck,” Reggie said.

“Dammit,” he said.

Colton laughed.

“Well, you’re going to get your driver’s license, and then they’re going to be your responsibility,” he said.

“I never said I didn’t want my license,” Colton said. “I think you don’t want me to get it.”

Well. Colton wasn’t entirely far off. Driving was a fact of life. It wasn’t like he had a long-standing hang-up. And he had been fine yesterday when Lily was driving the boys. Alcohol had played a factor in the accident that had taken his friends’ lives. That aspect wasn’t something that could be ignored. But...

As much as Colton was responsible—and he had become responsible in these last couple of years with a little bit of guidance, and having the chance to not live in chaos—Buck knew how stupid teenage boys could be. In a pretty damned haunting way.

“I do want you to get your license. It’ll make my life easier. But there are going to be so many ground rules.”

“I know, I know.”

Buck turned around in an auto parts parking lot and headed back toward the school. He summarily booted the boys out of the truck and then headed on down the road toward Marigold’s place.

He hadn’t been to her house yet.

He thought it was strange that he was looking forward to it. To seeing what sort of life she had built for herself and Lily. He knew it would be warm. Inviting. Well ordered. Because Marigold herself was all those things.

When he pulled up to the house, this theory was proven to be true. It was small, but well ordered, with a neat garden area in the front, and a porch with a rocking chair and a wreath on the door.

When she had said that she’d set out to make an entirely complete life for herself and Lily without Lily’s father, he hadn’t entirely known what that meant. But he got it now.

She was self-contained. Entirely happy without a man.

Well. Almost.

He thought again about that kiss. It had been absolutely incendiary.

Maybe they could...

Maybe.

Because he’d never had a sexual entanglement that got emotional. And she clearly didn’t need anything emotional from him. That was the perfect arrangement as far as he was concerned. A woman who didn’t need anything from him but physical pleasure. Because he could do that. He could give that.

As part of being a marked man, a man who had to go through life atoning, he had made it his business to be the absolute best lover possible. He needed the women he had sex with to come twice before he got close to the peak of pleasure. It was part of putting more out in the world than he took away.

He wanted to make Marigold come even more times than that.

He gritted his teeth and got out of his truck, made his way toward that cute, neat front door.

School carnivals, a passel of teenagers, meeting her parents, this adorable house. All of it stood in stark contrast to the riotous, sexual thoughts making their way through his head.

It was like the deepest, darkest part of himself was rising to the surface and making waves that didn’t belong in a beautiful, placid lake.

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