Page 9 of His Cowboy Heart

No, that wasn’t true. There was one particular moment after landing in Wyoming and meeting up with Brooks when something had shifted inside of me. It was when I’d watched as the hardened man who was the epitome of strength—the one Brooks had been in love with since he was a kid—had begged Brooks for one simple thing.

Not asked.

Begged.

He’dbeggedBrooks.

Xavier, the man who’d betrayed Brooks when they’d been younger and had been cruel to my friend from the moment he’d returned to his true home, had begged Brooks not to let me touch him. Not to letanyonetouch him.

That had been the moment Xavier, the hardened ex-con who’d pretended to care about no one but himself, had confirmed that he’d fallen just as hard as Brooks had. He hadn’t cared that there’d been strangers milling around other motel room doors, he hadn’t known that my relationship with Brooks was completely platonic, and he’d been absolutely clueless as to how desperately in love Brooks was with him, but none of it had mattered.

I’d literally watched a man offer up a painfully soul-wrenching admission through what appeared to have been one simple request.

As much as I’d hated the man for how cruelly he’d treated Brooks, he’d cemented a truth within me that even I hadn’t known I wanted.

For someone to want me that much. Toneedme that much. To know me for who I really was and still be willing to give a piece of himself to me.

I didn’t want it from Xavier, of course, and Idefinitelydid not want those things from Hot Cowboy who’d managed to mess with my head not once, but twice now. I wanted them from someone out there who’d see me for who I really was. I wanted to see those things in them…

My envy of Brooks’s newfound reality made me feel like a major asshole, so I turned my back to him and went to my dresser, pretending to examine my array of makeup, most of which I hadn’t worn after having the crap beaten out of me in that alley. I doubted I’d be wearing any of it anytime soon, either.

The ploy worked because I could hear the pure joy in the loud rush of air that Brooks let out before he plopped down on my mattress. I turned to see him staring at the ceiling, though I doubted it was the ceiling that was making his cheeks bright pink. He probably didn’t even realize he was running his hand over his chest.

I went to the bed and lay flat on my back next to him. “Tell me.”

“His bed,” he said in bewilderment, like he still couldn’t believe it.

“Honey, you and I never really had ‘the talk’ before, but it’s okay to think outside the box when it comes to?—”

“Shut up,” Brooks said with a light smile and a nudge of his shoulder against mine. He went silent for a moment and to my surprise, I felt his fingers link with mine farther down the bed where our arms were nearly touching. “It was the first time,” Brooks whispered.

“First time… wait, haven’t you been fucking like bunnies?—”

“Jules!” Brooks interrupted. I loved how flushed and awkward he got when it came to talking about sex, especially when it came to colorful language.

I chuckled. I felt light and free for the first time since I’d stepped off the plane in Casper. Actually, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this way.

“Okay, okay, so you did it in his bed. Tell me there were at least some toys?—”

“Would you please shut up?” Brooks barked before slapping his hand over my mouth. He ended up rolling to face me, so I did the same thing. “Uncle Curtis will hear you!”

I rolled my eyes. “Ten bucks says if I called your uncle in here right now, he’d be a whole lot less personal with his questions.”

Brooks smiled. A real smile. Another of many that I’d seen since I’d arrived in Eden and seen Xavier and Brooks starting to deal with the intricacies of their newfound relationship.

“Okay, what’s so special about his bed?” I asked. “And by the way, I know you’ve been doing it in his bed and yours since I got here. The walls aren’t that thin, my friend.”

I hated the pang of envy that gnawed at me as I watched my friend’s face light up while he continued to relive whatever he’d been doing with Xavier for the last several hours.

“Hisbed,” Brooks said, his eyes meeting mine expectantly like I was supposed to understand what he was talking about. “Before you got here, he was, um… he moved out of this house and into the foreman’s house he’d been working on.”

My friend’s joy slipped away for a moment. I knew the time he was talking about. It was the reason I’d flown to Wyoming in the first place. Brooks hadn’t given me the specifics, but I’d known Xavier had hurt him deeply.

“The little shack in the woods behind the barn?” I asked.

“It’s not a shack,” Brooks corrected. “He’s fixing it up.”

I hadn’t seen the place but since we were straying off topic, I didn’t really care what we called it. “So that’s where you and he?—”

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