Page 18 of Claimed By my Best Friend

“It’s not my problem,” I tell myself petulantly as I climb into bed later that night. “It’s his fault for keeping secrets from me. He can freeze if he likes.” I yank the covers over my shoulder and try to turn off my thoughts, but it’s an impossible task.

The truck is too uncomfortable to sleep in all night, and Darrell is a big man. What if he hurts his back or shoulder and he can’t work? His job depends on those muscles, right?

I reach over for my phone and check the weather forecast. Oh God, it’s going to be freezing tonight. He’s out there all alonein the cold, and I bet he doesn’t even have anything to keep him warm.

“Ugh!” I groan, kicking off the covers and rolling about in the bed, hating just how much I care about that lying bastard than I do my own broken heart. I can’t bring myself to hate him, despite my father’s best efforts to plant that seed in me.

I’m hurt that I had to find out about Darrell’s past from my father, but I can’t simply make myself stop caring for my best friend of over two years. The one man I have ever and probably will only ever love.

With a resigned sigh, I climb out of bed and slide into my shoes. I tiptoe to the door and listen for a while, but there is no sound coming from the other side. I don’t know which room is my uncle’s, and I don’t want to wake the man.

The hallways is empty, so I creep out, walking slowly downstairs, and I’ve just made it to the front door when a noise stops me. I turn around to find Uncle Dane leaning against the staircase banister, and I nearly jump out of my skin. For such a big man, he sure moves quietly.

“Do you want me to tell him to leave?” he asks, nodding toward the door. “Or do you want me to come outside with you?”

I shake my head, mortified at the idea but grateful that he’s offered. “No, thanks,” I say, oddly embarrassed at being caught trying to sneak out of the house. I’m not a teenager anymore. Heck, I never even snuck out of my parents’ home when I actually was a teenager. “Darrell would never hurt me.” Not physically at least. Not even emotionally if he can help it. “He would first cut his arm off before he let anyone hurt me, including himself.”

“As a real man should,” he says, turning around to go back upstairs. “You should talk in the barn if you want some privacy. Only the horses will hear you in there.”

I nod. “Thanks, Uncle Dane.”

With a brisk nod, the man is gone just as fast as he appeared. I walk out of the house and immediately feel the chill, quickly realizing why Uncle Dane suggested the barn. It’s freezing out here. I pull my cardigan around my shoulders and run down the driveway and to the gate, letting myself out.

Darrell must spot me walking toward him because he immediately leaves the truck and meets me at the front. Under the moonlight, his handsome face looks troubled, and my first instinct is to reach out and smooth the frown lines on his face, but I stop myself before I can, hugging myself defensively. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

My brows arch at his stalker behavior. “I’m safe here with my uncle. You don’t need to wait for me. You should go home.”

“Not until we talk.”

I make an exasperated noise, shaking my head vehemently. “We can talk tomorrow or next week. I don’t care when, just not tonight.” Everything feels too raw tonight, and besides, I need to sort my feelings without him around. What he kept from me is an aspect of his life I deserved to know, if for no other reason than so my family or other Valor Springs locals wouldn’t blindside me with the information. And yet, he let that happen. I was completely taken by surprise by my father. “Please. Just go.”

Darrell takes a step forward and into my space. “You know me well enough to know I will never let a day end without fixing things with you.”

“Well, as it turns out, I don’t know you that well.”

His jaw ticks and his eyes stray, but for only a second before shifting back to mine. “Your father is a jerk,” he says disgruntledly. “I admit, I was an ass for not telling you about my past sooner, and I let you get blindsided by it all. I’m sorry, Paula.”

I can feel my resolve waver with his easy admission that what he did was wrong. It goes against everything in me to be angry with him. Maybe it would be better to talk it out now.

I shake the thought away. No, I am not going to forgive him so easily. I need to know everything before I can get to that point. Although I didn’t know my best friend when he was younger, something tells me he has never been the kind to break the law for no reason. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for him. I’ll never know for sure until he tells me himself.

“Okay, come with me,” I say, turning around to leave. “My uncle said we could talk in his barn.” I move quickly to get some distance from his dominating presence. I’m helpless around this man. Just being close to him has my sex pulsing with need. It’s only been a few hours since we made love, but it feels like an eternity. I want to lean back into his body and let him wrap his arms around me and kiss me until I forget the hell of a day I’ve had.

“Okay, show me the way.”

If I am to get past this, then I need to hear the entire truth from the man himself. Maybe we can move on from this, or maybe we can’t. That will depend on the truths he’s kept from me.

Chapter Nine

Darrell

The barn is just as I imagined it.

Paula pushes open the creaky door, and the familiar scent of hay and wood mixed with cool night air hits me, bringing back a flood of memories. Young and angry, I’d been forced to be around people who looked at me like I was scum of the earth.

“I did my community service here,” I tell Paula as I follow her into the barn, closing the door once we’re inside. “I hated my first few days here until your uncle sat me down. He wasn’t that much older, but he had an air of authority and everyone on the ranch listened to him.”

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