Page 1 of The Last One You Loved
PROLOGUE
MADDOX
AIN’T ALWAYS THE COWBOY
“That restless runnin’
Searchin’ for somethin’
Leavin’ love in the dust of a midnight Chevrolet.”
Performed by Jon Pardi
Written by Kinney / Thompson
The lake shimmeredin the moonlight. The warm breeze stirred up tiny waves, sending white sprinkles shifting across the surface as it drifted toward the shore where we were parked.
We were on the tailgate of my beat-up Bronco with our hands and limbs joined. McKenna’s jean-clad legs were flung over my lap, and her head rested on my shoulder. Her cowboy boots were off, lost somewhere behind me in the chaos of blankets and food wrappers. I ran the fingers of my free hand over the gentle arch of her foot, and she jerked it away, laughing.
“Don’t you dare tickle me unless you want to end up with a busted nose,” she teased, her soft voice washing over me.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t known she’d pull away. Ten years of knowing her meant I knew just how ticklish her feet were, but I'd done it anyway in an attempt to lighten the mood. But the sound and scent and feel of her made it almost impossible to feel anything but sorrow. It might be the last time I would hold her like this, and my heart screamed as if it could change what was happening by merely twisting inside my chest.
“Wanna go for a swim?” I asked.
It was still humid outside, even though the sun had set hours ago. Long enough that the twilight sounds of the bugs and wild animals had almost disappeared. Instead, a quiet had taken over the space, a preview of what would happen once she drove down the road tomorrow and my life was forever changed.
In answer to my question, she slid off of me and started discarding clothes. She was wearing a string bikini under her jeans and floaty blouse, as if she’d known I’d ask for this?us in the water. I swallowed hard at the gentle curves I’d spent years getting to know as well as my own. I glanced down at my sinewy body toughened from years of working on the ranch. She’d always said my muscles were the very best kind—built from hard work. Would anyone else ever care about them the way she had?
I hadn’t been as prepared as she’d been for a swim, so my boxer briefs were going to have to do. Once I’d stripped down, I recaptured her hand, determined to touch her for as long as possible, and led us toward the water, picking our way through the twigs and rocks as we went.
As soon as we hit the cool water, I shivered. It was a soothing relief to the heat and heaviness of the day. If only it could lift the weight inside me as easily as it chilled my skin.
We swam toward the makeshift dock someone had fastened to the middle of the lake decades ago. We didn’t pull ourselves up on top. Instead, we hid in the shadows. She wrapped her long limbs around my waist, and I looped an arm through one of the ropes hanging off the wooden slats to hold us steady while my hands continued to touch her.
She kissed me. Wet and wild. Slow and torturous. Love and goodbyes blended into the movements as we rejoined our bodies in the way we’d been doing over the last couple of months. Like a flame on the wick of a firecracker, burning, burning, burning until it finally ignited into a shower of light and sound.
Until it became nothing but us.
She moaned into my mouth when my fingers slid under her bikini, touching pieces of her that were aching for me. I wanted to cry out as well, but with a different ache. I wanted to let my tears wash into the lake.
But it would be selfish because I wouldn’t be crying for her. I’d only be crying for me, and that didn’t seem fair. McKenna deserved the future she was heading toward?her dream of becoming a doctor finally starting. But her desire to escape this town and her mother hurt because it meant she was escaping me and my family as well—the people who’d loved and sheltered her.
Knowing it was coming hadn’t eased the pain of its arrival. As much as I wanted to follow her, I couldn’t. My life was here with my family, and the ranch, and my own dreams of serving my community. Even if everything at home had been perfectly fine, I wasn’t sure I’d want to leave our small town for a place where you couldn’t see the stars. Here, they were so bright it seemed like you could grab them, put them in your pocket, and take them with you. If I was forced to live in a city, I’d burn out just like those faraway suns. If you forced her to stay, she’d wither like the roses I’d given her last week. Dust into dust.
We loved each other more than I’d ever thought was possible, especially considering we were just two kids, barely legal. I knew her smiles and looks and moods better than she knew them herself, and vice versa. But this was where the road we were on finally divided after a decade of running side by side. A bitter taste rose inside me because I wasn’t sure our roads would ever cross again.
“I’ll come visit,” I told her, breaking my mouth from hers. “Thanksgiving or spring break. Whichever works.”
Could I get through to spring without seeing her? Touching her? Loving her? How would I even come up with the money for the trip?
She rested her forehead on my shoulder, placed a gentle kiss there, and then looked up at me with sad, tormented eyes.
“Maddox…between college, medical school, and a residency, it’ll be at least eleven years before I’m done. I’ll always be your friend. I’ll always love you…but…I just…” A choked sob broke free from her, and my throat bobbed, eyes watering.
“You want to break up. You don’t even want to try?” I asked, that bitterness coating my tongue and my mouth growing. She had choices. She could have applied to Tennessee State. She could have kept us closer, but even as I said it, I knew she couldn’t. McKenna needed to put her childhood behind her…even if that meant giving me up along with it.
She put her hands on my cheeks, cupping them and kissing my lips sweetly.
