Page 21 of The Outlaw's Code

Vanessa had agreedto take the bed, while I slept on the couch.

She didn’t seem happy with the arrangement, but I reminded her that I didn’t fully remember us yet. Sharing a bed would’ve been unfamiliar to me, not to mention uncomfortable and awkward. We’d spent the better part of the night chatting about the sort of food I’d been eating on the ranch, how absurdly rich the Strattons were, how bored Vanessa would be if she actually lived in a place like this.

All of the conversation felt so shallow, so hollow. I wondered if this was how I’d always felt with Vanessa and had just been pretending like I didn’t. It was obvious why a part of me wanted her on my arm, especially with how beautiful she was. Vanessa was the perfect shield against any difficult conversations, any concerns about anything deeper. She simply wasn’t interested in discussing it, and if she was, it was always on her terms.

And the few times she’d tried to get more out of me, I’d pushed her away.

That night when I finally fell asleep, I had the same dream of Shane, my cowboy waiting for me at the end of a trail. I raced towards him again, desperate to talk to him. He rode away from me without looking back, the distance between us only growing wider. The trail turned into the forest, the forest turned into the desert, the desert turned into a frozen tundra. I was chasing Shane through it all, until we were back where we started, the trail ahead of us.

“Shane? Please, wait. I just want to talk to you—” But as soon as I said it, he was gone again, images of forest greenery opening up ahead. I wanted to chase him but suddenly I was too tired, everything felt like it was closing in around me.

I’m going to lose him.

I felt it in my bones.

I was going to lose Shane Stratton forever.

And it was all my fault.

9

SHANE

Vanessa.

I’d frozen in place when I’d seen her. She was perfect, flawless smile, trendy clothes. I didn’t need to see anything else to understand why Vanessa and Calder made sense together. It was too easy to imagine them walking into any bar, anywhere, and being the center of attention. It was like getting a glimpse of their life together, Vanessa always on Calder’s arm.

I’d walked away from them without even realizing it, only stopping when Calder looked back at me for a moment. It felt like there was an apology behind his eyes, something he couldn’t figure out how to say. But I didn’t need to hear an apology from Calder.

I didn’t need to hear from him ever again.

This was my fault, anyway. I knew whatever we’d had was temporary, that he couldn’t have made any promises about anything between us being real. How could he? He barely knew who he was, no matter how confident he was when we were together.

Still, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt my heart cracking to pieces in my chest, and it made me feel like acomplete idiot. How was my heart broken over something that never was? It was the equivalent of being heartbroken after waking up from a dream. Calder was never an actual possibility, just a momentary figment of an overactive imagination.

When I made it back to my cabin, I tried my best to not think about Calder. Instead, I tried to think about my future, the land that would one day be mine. I thought about the open pastures, the rolling hills, the fence posts, the barns. I thought about having my own claim, away from Stratton Ranch, building something just for me?—

But everything was tainted. Each piece of my future was fine on its own, but not as good without Calder. It was impossible to imagine it without him, his smiling face surfacing in my thoughts no matter how much I tried to forget his features. I groaned as I fell into a nearby chair, my head resting in my hands.

God.

It hurts so much.

When is it going to stop hurting?

“Shane? Shane!” Levi’s voice was on the other side of my door. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”

I groaned as I walked towards the door. When I opened it, I couldn’t hide the annoyance in my voice. “What do you want, Levi?”

“Saw the SUV.”

“Yeah?”

“Saw the girl,” Levi said as he let himself into my cabin. “Was that Calder’s…?”

“Girlfriend, it looks like. Vanessa.”

“They’re actually together?”

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