Page 60 of Rancher's Return

That was such a strange sensation. Getting a blessing from their kids. And yeah, he supposed that did mean they didn’t have to hide it anymore. But that also meant they needed to come up with a different label for it. Which he had been pretty aware of for a while now. There were feelings between them, and those feelings transcended the physical. They had for a while. Last night... Last night had been transformative in a way he hadn’t been anticipating. It had changed things.

But he still didn’t know... He still didn’t know what he wanted. Or what it meant.

He just knew that he cared about Marigold, and he wasn’t ready to let go of whatever this was.

“Well,” Colton said. “Lily and I will leave you to it.”

“You will?” Buck asked.

“Yeah. We’re going to go out and get pancakes. See you later.”

Colton stood up, and Lily followed, and they walked out. Leaving Buck and Marigold alone.

“Well. I guess... We weren’t being as secretive as we thought.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“You just did,” Buck said.

“She can’t just be okay with the fact that her and Colton broke up.”

“Sure she can. They’re young. Like she said, they’re going to school.”

“I just don’t believe it.”

“How about we deal with the two of us for five seconds. What about that?”

She turned to look at him. “And what? What are we?”

“I guess we have to answer that question. Because we don’t have the excuse that we did fifteen minutes ago.”

“What excuse is that?”

“That it’s too complicated because of the kids.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to go there. Wasn’t sure he wanted to take the conversation in this direction, but he was doing it. Because he was pretty sure it wasn’t fair to be bringing this up when he didn’t think he could answer the question either.

Can’t you?

“I keep thinking about it,” Marigold said, looking at the back wall.

“What exactly?”

“Us. This.” She shook her head. “We had a good reason to keep it a secret. There were a lot of complications. You went and talked to my parents. We discovered that wasn’t really a complication. Our kids came here and talked to us, and now that’s not really a complication. So where is the complication exactly?”

“I’m not following.”

“It’s us. It’s us, or there isn’t one. I don’t know. But I realized something last night.”

He felt everything in him go tense. “What’s that?”

“I think I’m in love with you, Buck. And I say that as somebody who knows how scary life is. I say that as someone who has spent so many years protecting myself that I don’t even remember what it’s like to be...fearless. And young. My foundation, so much of me, is based on loss. And I told myself for a really long time that I was just being responsible. By not bringing men into my and Lily’s lives. That I was being respectful and careful by not talking to my parents about you or Jason. You left town. I withdrew in a different way. I made myself into a different person, and I cut a lot of myself off. And last night it was like... It was like I realized that I was feeling everything for the first time.”

His heart hammered.

Everything in him felt stuck. Sick. He didn’t want to hurt her, not in any way. But he also didn’t think he could give her what she was asking for. Because with love, came a set of responsibilities he had never once managed to live up to in his life.

He was trying. He had adopted the boys. But dammit, to throw a relationship on top of that? Another kid?

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