Page 103 of Long Time Coming

“Did you miss me?” she asks, tossing her bag in the back seat and climbing in.

“I always do.” I lean over and kiss her. “Buckle up, and let’s get out of here.”

We’re not far from the ranch when I can tell the excitement begins to wear off—she’s gone quiet, the smile that she had has smoothed to a more even line, and her attention has remained out her window since crossing the cattle guard.

I reach over to rub her shoulder, which brings her eyes back to me. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” I’m tempted to believe she is by her voice holding steady. There’s no shake or uncertainty heard. She says, “What are we doing?”’

“Staying together?”

“No, I mean with our relationship. Our love for each other shouldn’t hurt the people we care about.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Tell that to my family.” She waves her hand out in the cab. “We’re still sneaking around even though we went public. Help me understand, Tagger, because I’m starting to lose faith that this will work out and keep my family intact.”

I pull off to the side of the road. It’s not a conversation we can have in my boyhood bedroom with my son sleeping in the room below it and my parents across the hall from him. Voices travel in that house. I learned that early on.

And right there is how fucking ridiculous this situation has become.

Gripping the steering wheel, I stare out at the two-lane road ahead, not another car in sight. I don’t want to say it, but this is the line we always knew we’d have to cross one day. “You’re right.” I keep my eyes steady ahead, needing to say it, to get it out there so we can’t avoid it anymore. “We can’t keep doing this.”

Even in the dimly lit cab of the truck, I can see her staring at me in the periphery. I don’t look, not straight on. We should have already had this conversation. “What are you saying?”

“We need to make the hard decisions.”

I know damn well most of those decisions fall on my shoulders, and they’re not being made yet because I’m in limbo with my son’s mom.

With her elbow secured on the door, she rests her head on her fisted hand and stares at me. “Do you care to elaborate?”

“I made your brother a promise when I was barely a man. I guess he planned to hold me to it until the day I died.”

“It was a ridiculous promise that you guys should have never made in the first place. If he’s going to make you choose between me and him, well . . .” Her gaze flows through the windshield into the dark road ahead. She sits up and looks right at me. “You don’t have to choose for me. You don’t even have to choose me over your best friend. You need to do what’s right for you and for Beckett. I’ll understand if I’m not what’s best for your lives. I won’t like it, but one day, I’ll look back and remember how great it was to love you. Even if only for a short time in our lives.”

How did we end up talking about a life without each other when we should be planning our futures? I reach over and rub the back of her neck. Watching her eyes close and her giving in to my touch doesn’t help me decide. I already knew who I’d choose.

“Baylor can call me a traitor all he wants. I’m not willing to lose you, babe. I just need time to figure out how to do this better because seeing you once a month isn’t enough.”

Blue and red lights surround the truck and, “Pull over,” is blasted over a speaker. Pris and my eyes connect. She rolls hers right after, and I roll down my window.

I can see him in the rearview mirror, taking inventory of the truck and tags, the registration stickers and the tires. When he reaches the window, I sit up. “How are you this fine evening, Deputy McCall?”

He tilts his head to make eye contact with Pris before me. When he looks at me, he says, “We’re well past evening time, Mr. Grange.” Shining a flashlight in my eyes forces me to squint. “You broken down?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re obstructing traffic.”

I check the rearview mirror and then swing my gaze forward. “There is no traffic.”

Pris leans over. “Can we go?” I have a feeling he won’t appreciate her direct approach.

“Ms. Greene, you’ve been pulled over?—”

“We weren’t pulled over, Dirk. We were having a conversation that we thought was best, safest to have on the side of the road so we wouldn’t obstruct traffic.” She throws her arms up, and yells, “We can’t win.”

Ten minutes later, the cuffs are removed from my wrists, and he says, “All clear. You can get back in the vehicle, Mr. Grange.”

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