Page 37 of His Cowboy Heart

I could have walked away then and there, but all the pain, humiliation, and confusion were too tightly wrapped around my heart to do what I did best… run away. A strange sadness swept over me as I studied Flynn. He had the rifle in his hand, but I didn’t see the blanket or his coat anywhere. There was no saddle on BJ either. The horse was just following his friend.

“It would be so easy to flip out right now,” I admitted. “But you know what, Flynn—and I can’t believe that I’m saying this aboutyou—I really feel sorry for you. I’m not claiming to be some naive kid who just stuck his dick down a guy’s throat for the first time, you know. Truth be told, I loved everything you did to me up there”—I pointed to the top of the rise—“butyou… you I can’t figure out. That first time in the motel… when that happened, I tried to convince myself it was because you were really fucking deep in the closet or in complete denial about who you really were, but I think maybe you’re just like every other piece-of-shit guy who gets off on fucking with people’s heads. You’ve just got a better act.”

I paused to rein in my runaway emotions because if I didn’t, I’d let the man in front of me get by my defenses yet again and if I did, it would all be over. I’d be his puppet for as long as he wanted to toy with me. I let out a harsh little laugh as I realized it was already too late.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining because so far the rules seem to be in my favor. Mind-blowing orgasms that I don’t have to return. No worrying about the whole ‘I’m not looking for a relationship’ speech. Just a lot of no-strings sex where you get to call all the shots, I get all the pleasure, and the only thing I have to do isnottouch you? What dotted line do I need to sign?” I said snidely.

Flynn’s only visual reaction to my words was the hardening of his jaw. Of course, that just pissed me off even more.

“The sad part of all this is that I don’t think evenyouknow what you want exactly. Based on the few times I’ve seen you with other ranch hands and, of course, this big old guy here”—I patted BJ’s neck—“I don’t think you have a cruel bone in your body. Either way, I’m going to have to say no to what you’re selling because I’ve gone the knockoff route enough times to know that no matter how much you wish it to be so, it will never be the real thing and worse, it will always end up biting you in the ass—and not in the good way. So, the new deal is that if you touch or kiss me one more time or if you so much as evenlookin my direction, I promise you, along with every ranch hand, horse, chicken, and other mammal who happens to be present at the time,willsee myflipping the fuck outside.”

With that, I shifted so I could turn and keep walking down the trail. This time there was only silence behind me. Unfortunately, I got absolutely no satisfaction from it. There was no relief. I didn’t hurt inside any less. I knew that deep down,Iwas the knockoff. I’d needed an exit strategy to protect my heart, and I hadn’t hesitated in using everything in my arsenal of lies to make it so Flynn would want nothing more to do with me.

I didn’t look behind me to confirm it, but I was certain that Flynn had retreated so he could get BJ saddled back up. I didn’t bother trying to physically outrun him because I’d ultimately need him to get back to the ranch since I had no idea where we were.

Mate for life.

What a crock of shit. The idea of two creatures being so devoted to one another that they wouldn’t or couldn’t find comfort in the presence of another was ridiculous. Maybe there were some members of the animal kingdom who managed it, but mankind would never evolve to that line of thinking.

As predicted, by the time I reached the bottom of the hill, Flynn and BJ had caught up with me. BJ gave me a horsey kiss on the back of my neck, but Flynn didn’t make a sound.

Dread filled my veins when man and horse stopped next to me rather than continuing on so I could fall into step behind them. I didn’t care if I had to stare at BJ’s ass the entire way back or that my feet hurt so bad that the insides of my shoes would probably be slick with blood when I took them off. No way in hell was I going to put myself in a situation where I’d be forced to have physical contact with the man I’d worked so hard to chase off. I’d walk all the way even if it meant having to make a pair of shoes out of twigs or rocks or some shit like that.

“Here,” Flynn said simply as he undid a canteen from his saddle and handed it to me. As much as I wanted to shove it back at him, the reality was that I was thirsty as hell. I took several sips of the icy cold water, but when I went to hand the thing back to Flynn, he ignored it and grabbed my wrist instead. Before I was able to process the fact that the man had already broken myno contact or endure the full wrath of Julesrule, Flynn had me settled on BJ’s back, my ass taking up the entire saddle.

“Wha—”

BJ began walking before I could even finish expressing my outrage. Flynn was walking next to BJ, holding the reins, leaving me with nothing but the horn of the saddle to hang on to. I opened my mouth to tell Flynn to stop so I could slide off BJ’s back, but then snapped it shut when I realized I’d just be shooting myself in the foot. Sure, I could walk if I needed to, but why shouldn’t the asshole be on foot while I took a break? It hadn’t been my idea to climb to the top of a mountain?—

“I have a congenital heart defect,” Flynn said out of nowhere. The sound of his voice made me jump because I hadn’t been expecting him to speak, so it took me a split second to register his blasé announcement.

No, no, no. It’s not possible.

Panic immediately took hold as I tried to make sense of Flynn’s words. He wasn’t looking at me. He was entirely focused on the path before him.

“Doctors found it after my first attack. I couldn’t be bothered to listen to all the lifestyle changes and medications I’d have to take. I had way too much money to make. Too many nice cars to buy, a big enough place to fit my gigantic ego, important elbows to rub. There was a career ladder that still needed to be climbed because there was no way in hell I was going back to the small piece-of-shit town that had been my entire world for too long.”

I remembered Flynn’s description of his family. Countless siblings, cousins, and uncles and aunts, all of whom seemed to be part of the drug trade his family ran. I wondered how many people got out of such a doomed place.

“Second heart attack did a lot more than open my eyes. Doctors were able to fix as much of the defect as they could so that at least the condition would be manageable, but medicine alone wasn’t going to keep my ticker going. If I wanted to keep walking this earth, I had to change my diet, avoid high-stress jobs and situations. Even then, survival wasn’t a guarantee. So I had a decision to make. I could keep raking in the dough no matter what it took and survive for another year or two at most, or I could wake the fuck up and remember that I’d spent nearly all of my lifesurviving.”

Flynn was quiet for several long seconds before adding, “When I got out of the hospital for the second time, I went back to my apartment. The plants were all dead, the few things I’d had in my fridge were covered in fur, and several layers of dust coated everything. Nothing had been touched. It was like I’d never existed.” He laughed an ugly chuckle. “There’d been no one to volunteer to water the plants or take out the garbage while I was in the hospital. No one had been at my bedside when I’d woken up with no idea where I was and unable to speak because of the tube shoved down my throat.”

This time when Flynn stopped, I wanted to encourage him to continue because the context he was providing was making it a little easier to understand him.

“We’re here,” Flynn said after several long beats.

True enough, we were in the tree line that was right behind the barn. I could see the farmhouse from where we were. With the sun slowly dropping to meet the horizon, I realized we’d been gone much longer than I’d intended. The thing was, I didn’t regret it. In fact, if anything, I wished Flynn hadn’t set such a quick pace after he’d settled me on BJ’s back. I’d finally gotten to a place where I could read between the lines of what Flynn was saying, and now that was gone.

At my insistence.

“You can ride BJ to the front of the barn without me and then get off and head to the house. I’ll be a few steps behind you. No one will see us together.”

The flat way Flynn made that declaration was a knife to the gut even though it was exactly what I’d wanted, or at least, what I’d pretended I wanted. No, what I’d really wanted had only started to happen when the man had tossed me on his horse. What if I’d stayed on that hilltop even as he’d turned his back on me? If I hadn’t been so self-centered, I might have picked up on Flynn’s distress and asked about it. I would have found a way to prove that he didn’t need to be self-conscious about his scar.

I’d been so afraid of facing my own issues that I hadn’t stopped long enough to really look, to reallyseethe man who carried so many secrets around with him.

“I can walk from here, thank you,” I somehow managed to say.

---