Page 27 of Stay for Me

“Everyone except for Valerie and your children are pains in your ass,” I deadpanned.

He shot me a look.

“Tell me everything,” I demanded. He continued to stare at me, and if I was anyone else, I might have back down in fear. But unlike everyone else on the planet, I’d seen Denver Langston at his darkest—his lowest. Nothing about him could scare me, not after that. “Either talk or get out, Den. I have a lot of work to do. The university called and—-”

“Come sit the fuck down,” he cut me off. “You look pale.”

“You going to tell me what I want to know?” I prompted, crossing my arms and raising my brows.

He looked me up and down. “You do you know you’re not intimidating in sweats and cat socks, right?”

I looked down at my feet, wiggling my toes in my lime green socks with black cats on them. I’d gotten them at a yard sale in the city a few years back. I looked back up at him, throwing my hand out. “I’m sorry, I left my intimidating socks in my gym locker.”

“You don’t go to the gym.”

My mouth shut, my arm falling to my sides as the sudden urge to punch him surfaced. He really was like a brother. An older, grumpy, slightly judgmental brother. “Ass. Couch. Now,” he ordered.

“I’m not one of your ranch hands,” I snapped. “You can’t just order me around.” As the last word left my mouth, a wave of dizziness hit me, and reluctantly, I moved over to the couch.

A deep chuckle left him, clearly not noticing my dizzy spell. “I almost feel sorry for the man who falls in love with you, Harper. He’s going to have his hands full.”

My stomach flipped as I took my seat in my usual spot, knowing damn well the future he’d hoped for was nothing more than that.

Hope.

The ranch owner sat down and told me everything I’d missed—including the horrible things Abbie had gone through with her stalker. By the time the story was finished, my flipped stomach was in knots, and I could feel the blood draining from my face. “Oh my God,” I whispered, falling back into my couch cushions, covering my face with my hands.

Denver was sitting on my coffee table, hat back on, his hands hanging between his knees. “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I’m also sorry for brushing you off when you asked. Things have been complicated, and there were so many moving parts in all this…” He trailed off for a moment, looking at his hands. “I was scared shitless, Diana. I didn’t know if we were going come out of it.”

The lump in my throat was sharp, like shattered glass, slicing my vocal chords. Even though I wanted to say something, I physically couldn’t. When he looked back up, his gray eyes soft, I looked up, focusing on my ceiling fan as I tried to find the right words.

Nothing was said for a long time, the silence between us palpable.

My question was unsteady as it filled my living room, seeping into my walls, forever tainting my cozy little home. “How many bodies?”

“Five.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled a long breath through my nose.

“Five people were involved in something dangerous. Five people tried to hurt my family,” Denver rumbled.

I released the breath and slowly sat back up, feeling my hair shift around my shoulders. The cowboy watched me with cautious eyes, his mouth set in a firm line.

I reached out, placing my hand on his forearm. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated.

“I’m the last person on this planet to judge you,” I murmured, sitting back again.

“What did the university want?” he asked. “You said they called.”

And that was that. Denver and I would never speak of this again. The cowboy did what cowboys did: protect their own. No one could fault him, or any of the others, for that. He told me, I took it, and now, we’d move on like we’d always done.

“They wanted to know if I could teach the spring semester next year,” I told him, referring to the law school I taught at in Denver. I’d only taught three semesters so far, and my classes had been relatively small, but it fulfilled something in me. It was also a good excuse to escape the small town life when I needed to. Usually, I taught a small class during the fall semester, but the Dean called last week and asked if I would be open to teaching the spring as well.

A grunt came from him. “You going to take it?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “I haven’t decided. It depends on my case load.”

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