Page 10 of The Last One You Loved
ME: No, asshole. I’m just exhausted. Arrested a bunch of the West Gears and wrestled with Willy. I’m going to bed.
DIPSHIT: Wah-wah-wah. I worked all day, gutting the cabins. Do you see me whining?
ME: Did you have a gun pulled on you and fight off a knife attack? Come talk to me when it was your life on the line, and I’ll show you a whine.
GEM MINE: Maddox! You did not almost get shot and stabbed, did you? Mama’s going to shit a brick.
ME: Don’t tell her, Gems. You know she’ll just worry. I shouldn’t have said anything to any of you, but Dipshit pissed me off, as usual.
SASSY PANTS: This is double the proof you need to get laid, Maddox. Life is too short. You could be gone tomorrow. You want to hand your V card over at some point.
I choked on the beer as I read it.
ME: Jesus, Sadie. I’m not a fucking virgin.
SASSY PANTS: Years ago, one time, with one person, doesn’t exactly mean you’ve lost it, monk.
ME: I’m not talking about my sex life with any of you. I’ll just say that I’m completely happy and satisfied, sexually and otherwise.
GEM MINE: This conversation is making me uncomfortable. BTW, I’m leaving Ryder at the bar with a redhead who can’t take her eyes off him. I don’t know her. I think she’s new in town.
My protective instinct jerked back to life.
ME: What’s her name?
DIPSHIT: Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t need you running my sexual partners through the system.
ME: But you’re okay with me running Gemma’s and Sadie’s?
DIPSHIT: Absolutely.
SASSY PANTS: You’re both male chauvinist pigs. Gems, we need a nefarious and irreversible plan to get even with them.
When there was no response from Gemma in five minutes, I assumed she’d left the bar and was driving herself back to our parents’ house where she still lived after finishing her degree online. Her life goals were all tied up around a screenplay she never let anyone read while passing the days working at the jewelry store in town.
I put my home phone on vibrate, threw the empty beer bottle away, cleaned the kitchen, and headed to bed. I placed my work phone on the nightstand, with the volume up to make sure it woke me if the dispatcher called, and stripped down to my briefs before climbing into the king-size bed—a bed I’d never had a woman in, regardless of the texts with my siblings.
I’d had sex beyond McKenna, beyond the fumbling but emotional moments we’d shared before she’d left for good or the heat-seared weekend we’d shared in her dorm room. But since Mila had come into my life, I hadn’t brought anyone into the house. Instead, I’d gone to their place. In truth, I’d kept the dates and women down to a minimum, not only because of my daughter but because of my career. Running for sheriff so young meant I’d needed a squeaky-clean reputation.
What I barely admitted to myself—and would never admit to my nosey siblings—was that the time I’d spent with other women had been forgettable. Interchangeable events that had given pleasure and release but had never carved a spot on my soul. Probably because I’d lost the piece of my heart that could love a woman. It had been cut out the day McKenna had told me to stop calling, fading away just like the five-percent chance I’d ridiculously held on to of her coming back to me.
I closed my eyes, pushed beyond the tortured phone call she’d placed on her birthday five years ago, and gave in to the sweet memories that laid beyond it.
The moonlighton the water shifted, breaking apart and then reassembling itself as the wind kicked up and sent waves across the lake. The sound of the trees rustled outside the Bronco. Spring had finally kicked in, sending away the long days of snow we’d had that year and filling the air with the scent of new growth.
McKenna lay below me in a white summer dress with gold strands woven through it.
The taste of her skin was on my tongue. Like RC Cola and MoonPies.
My fingers found their way over her curves and valleys.
The feel of her peaked nipples on the pad of my finger.
My aching hard-on pressed into her cotton underwear.
Her breathy gasps.
Her palm as it skimmed my tip.
