Page 83 of Rancher's Return

He shook his head. “I don’t really know. I mean, young. Probably sixteen, seventeen. But I don’t know. I don’t have much information about her. If any really. That’s all right. It’s not... It is what it is. I let that go a long time ago.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah? I mean, I have a family. Regardless of things being occasionally difficult between you and me. I have more than most people who come out of my situation end up with.”

She wasn’t sure which thing was more mind-blowing. That she had just had sex with Colton, or that they were now having a conversation. All in all, it was difficult to say.

“I’ve never really heard everything about your childhood.”

He chuckled. “There are things best left untalked about. At least, in my opinion.”

“Why?” She rolled over onto her side and looked at him. At his strong profile. She didn’t ask herself if there would ever be a moment in time when she didn’t think he was gorgeous. Because... It was okay if this never went away. She didn’t know why she felt that way, only that right now, it felt okay if this was how it was forever. Because he was that special. And it was that good. Because something felt deeply complete inside of her in a way that it hadn’t before.

“We should go put the groceries away,” he said.

He rolled away from her, and she grabbed his wrist. “I know that I’m the one who put a stop to things five years ago. So I feel like I have to say now... That can’t be the only time.”

“Sure. Until the road opens,” he said.

That terrified her. Because that was just... Open-ended. Open-ended and impossible to sort through. It meant that everything could be over in a few hours, or in a few days.

She dressed slowly, and he put his jeans on, and nothing else.

She looked at the muscles in his back as she walked behind him down the stairs. Gave herself permission to really stare at him. It was a luxury she didn’t usually allow herself. She kept her eyes trained on him while he put food into the fridge, into the cabinets.

“You can tell me, Colt. Everything.”

“Why?”

“Who else are you going to tell? Maybe our connection is inconvenient, and maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it has been real from the moment we first met each other. Why bother to deny it?”

“I don’t think I was ever the one that denied it.”

“Why are you so upset about it if you don’t have any feelings for me? If it doesn’t matter, why does it still bother you? We need to figure this out, otherwise everything is going to implode when everybody gets here. You realize that, right?”

“Why would it be any different now than it was before?”

“Because we...”

“You’d already seen my penis, Lily, and we somehow managed okay.”

“We hadn’t donethat. And I was... I was an idiot, okay? So we have to figure out a different way to be. And there are no inconsequential things we need to know about each other. We already know them. I know you ordered water at the diner because Buck doesn’t drink, so you don’t. And maybe it also ties to things with your mom, even though you haven’t told me that. I know you went to school for agribusiness. I know you like fruit candy, and you hate cooked fruit. I know you didn’t tell anybody you didn’t like cooked fruit for years because you were afraid of seeming ungrateful, and I also wonder if it’s a little bit because there were times in your life when you didn’t have food at all. So your preferences didn’t get to come into play. Why should we talk about small things, Colton? What’s the point of it? You were just inside of me. Let’s have a little bit of honesty.”

“If you think you want that,” he said, turning away from her.

“I know I do. Because this... These past few years sure as hell haven’t worked. So let’s... Let’s talk about something real.” She looked down. “I told you about my dad. Though... I didn’t tell you that I found him.”

“You what?” He looked at her.

She had never told her mother this. She wouldn’t.

Because she knew that it would hurt her mom’s feelings. That Lily had sought out her dad when her mother had made an effort to have there be a clean break between them. But she had been eighteen and out on her own, and she had been curious. She knew that her father lived near where she was going to school, and she did a little bit of digging and found him.

He hadn’t been horrible; that was the worst part. He had been detached. He hadn’t been cruel; that would’ve implied emotion. He just didn’t seem to feel a thing.

“I went to his house. I told him who I was. He wasn’t married or anything. He didn’t have a whole other family. He didn’t seem desperate to hide my existence. He’s an engineer. He has a decent job, a nice house. He thought it was crazy that I was already in college. But that seemed more in regards to how old that made him. He wasn’t impressed with me. He didn’t seem to have any regrets. I think I was hoping he would. I was hoping he would regret that he wasn’t part of my life, and it was clear he didn’t. Worse, it was obvious I wasn’t missing anything by not having him in my life. I was hoping I was.

“But then I felt guilty. Because Buck has been such a great father figure to me. And my mom sacrificed everything. She did the best job she possibly could, raising me without making me feel like I was missing anything. Also, it’s a terrible thing to see the ways you look like somebody, to feel the connection, to feel that they’re your flesh and blood and see that they don’t feel it back. I hurt myself with that one. After my mom spent my life trying to protect me from it.”

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