Page 44 of His Cowboy Heart

“What happened to Frank?” Jules gently asked.

“The vet called the police so they could search for Frank, but I knew they wouldn’t find him. The gun he’d used to shoot Titan with was gone too. My guess is that after he shot Titan, Frank stood up and just started walking until the forest had hidden him away from the rest of the world. They never found his body, so I don’t know if he shot himself or if he just kept walking until he succumbed to the elements, but I knew that day that I’d never see him again.”

“I’m sorry, Flynn,” Jules whispered.

I responded by pressing a kiss to his temple. I didn’t have the emotional energy to respond in any other way. I hadn’t expected my own reaction when I’d started telling Jules about Frank and Titan.

I clung to Jules because he was my lifeline to the present, but admittedly, I mentally disappeared for a while because it once again took hearing Jules calling out my name repeatedly to get my attention.

“The sun’s coming up, Flynn,” he said softly. I wasn’t sure how Jules had even known that he’d gotten my attention, but it didn’t matter because I was once again where I needed to be.

I quickly took in our surroundings. Curtis and Brooks had a sizeable lead on us, but I knew we weren’t at risk of losing them. I gave BJ the soft command to speed up before saying to Jules, “We made it, sweetheart. We’re at the top.”

ChapterFourteen

JULES

The ride upwhat turned out to have been a relatively small mountain was supposed to have changed everything. The things I’d told Flynn, the things he’d said to me, the way we’d held on to each other under the guise of being forced to only because of the rough terrain—it was all supposed to have changed things. Add in the fact that we’d found Xavier and witnessed his and Brooks’s emotional reunion, and I should have been able to say that things couldn’t have ended any better.

They hadn’t gotten better, at least not for me and Flynn. Three days later and we were in the same place we’d been since we’d gotten back to the ranch. As soon as we’d gotten off BJ, Flynn and his horse had gone one way and I’d gone the other. There’d been no attempts to seek each other out. Not to talk. Not to fuck. Not to do anything.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the cruel irony. We knew things about each other that no one else did and yet we couldn’t find anything to say to one another. I hadn’t been able to stop touching him on that ride but now I was terrified of what would happen if we got anywhere near each other. I knew in my heart that the connection I had with Flynn was unique. Special. It should have made me feel like I was on top of the world, but it felt like someone had tied a block of cement to my heart and with every minute that passed, that weight grew heavier. If I didn’t change the course I was on, I’d never recover from the gaping hole inside of me that grew bigger with every day that passed.

It'd been an hour since I’d slipped out of the house and made my way to the bunkhouse. I’d used up every ounce of courage I’d had to softly knock on Flynn’s door and ultimately enter his unlocked room when he hadn’t answered. After fifty-eight very long minutes, I was still sitting in the same place.

On the edge of Flynn’s bed.

The bunkhouse had been quiet from the moment I’d entered it. I’d been waiting to hear voices in the nearby kitchen that would explain why Flynn wasn’t in his room, but there’d been nothing. On my way to the bunkhouse, I’d peeked into the barn to see if BJ was still in his stall. At the time, I’d been relieved because it meant Flynn hadn’t just up and left the ranch without warning.

Unfortunately, that relief had changed to something else as each minute had ticked by, and I’d anxiously stared at the door waiting for Flynn to appear in it. Flynn might not have had a car, but he easily could have used one of the ones from the ranch to go anywhere he wanted.

What if he’d driven to some bar to find some random guy to fuck? For all I knew, he could be in one of the other rooms in the very bunkhouse I was waiting in. I hadn’t picked up on any of the other ranch hands being into guys, but I hadn’t exactly been looking, either. Especially not after how I’d initially been welcomed to the town of Eden.

Despite having put my own restless energy into cleaning, cooking, and cuddling with the only female in my life—a pretty little redhead who didn’t like sharing me with any of the other ladies in her limited but very noisy social circle—I still felt like I was going to shatter if I made even one wrong move.

Images of Flynn kissing some faceless guy began to flash through my brain like a slideshow. All the things I wanted him to do to me were being lavished on some stranger. Probably a guy he would never see again. A guy who would never know what an amazing, kind, strong, complicated man Flynn was.

God, why had I thought this was the way to go? If I hadn’t been able to get through even one conversation with my love-starved chicken without crying like a baby, what in the hell had I been thinking when I’d decided to say what I needed to say to Flynn in person?

I hadn’t been thinking.

I’d been hoping.

Quietly hoping.

I covered my eyes with my hand as I drew in one big gulp of air after another.

“Stupid,” I whispered. “So fucking stupid.”

I jumped to my feet and scanned the small room for anything to write on. Why hadn’t I been smart enough to think about all this shit while I’d still been in the house? Plenty of things to write on in there. It would have taken minutes to sneak out of the house and slip the note under Flynn’s door and be done with it.

As I hunted for even the smallest scrap of paper and a pen, I knew I was taking the coward’s way out again, but I no longer cared. Admittedly, I’d had this foolish hope that if I was in Flynn’s vicinity again, maybe something would happen. Maybe we could have talked. Cleared the air. Maybe there would have been some magical revelation that we both experienced and everything would fall into place like it was supposed to.

I searched the bathroom on the off chance that I’d find something in there, but Flynn clearly traveled light because there was only the most basic of amenities. I glanced at the mirror. I looked like shit. Dark circles made my skin look even paler than usual and the few cuts and scrapes I’d gotten during the ride up the mountain had started to scab over. It wasn’t until I saw the shimmer on my lips that I remembered the tinted lip gloss I had in my pocket. It was the only makeup I figured no one would notice, and wearing it made me feel less exposed. I took the gloss from my pocket and stared at the mirror for a moment. I only had a small amount of gloss available, and it would be hard to see, so there was no way I’d be able to say the things I’d wanted to say. I settled for writing a couple of words on the vanity’s countertop because it was solid white.

I was just stepping out of the bathroom when Flynn chose that moment to enter his room. I was standing between his nightstand and the door that led into the small bathroom, so I couldn’t have been found any guiltier of snooping if I’d tried.

“Sorry,” I began automatically before stopping. I had no speech planned. No fancy words to explain anything and everything. It was like I was expecting Flynn to understand all the things the single word meant.

---