Page 16 of My Cowboy Date
His eyes widen in delight. “You are?”
“I’m so ferociously, deeply, wildly in love that it scares me.”
“Why?”
“I guess because I’m afraid of something bad dropping into my life again. I know you’d never break my heart but if something happens to us…”
He pulls me into his arms. “Because I know my own heart, I can promise you that I’ll love you forever and if you’re scared and later end up wanting to run, I promise I won’t let us go down without a fight.”
He hugs me tightly, then guides us to the sofa where he sits close beside me, his leg pressing against mine.
I’m hit with a wave of longing to know everything about him. Which side of the bed he likes to sleep on. How he likes his breakfast. What his favorite drink is. What his favorite song is. His hobbies. His dreams…
“Tell me three things about you currently,” I say.
He puts his arm on the back of the sofa and rests his hand on the side of my arm. “I’m hardworking, faithful and the handsomest cowboy in Texas.”
I laugh. “True. Now tell me three things about you before I met you.”
His easy grin fades and his eyes darken. “I spent years in a place called The Gentle Children’s Home. It was a place with little oversight, and I experienced a lot of dark times there. Because of that, I can’t stand bullies and after leaving there, the times I’ve encountered situations like that, I’ve lost my shit and gotten into fights.”
My heart squeezes at the thought of what he’s not saying, how he’s glossing over what’s clearly painful for him. “That’s not your fault.”
“I know. That place…I was often told I wasn’t worth loving and sometimes I’d get locked up in a windowless room or closetand left for I don’t know how long. Then someone on staff would come by to let me out and laugh and say I’d been forgotten. Happened with food too.”
As he speaks, tears fill my eyes and roll down my face.
“Because of that, I started to hate being alone. I’d chase after my brothers yelling for them not to forget about me.”
I get to my feet, not wanting him to talk any more about the hell he went through because I can see how it affects him. “Where’d you put the keys to your truck? I’m going to find that place and I’m going to make them pay for what they did to you. I’ll kick every ass there to get to the ones that hurt you.”
He stands and takes my clenched fists into his hands, rubbing my hands until I relax them. “It’s okay, honey. The place closed down.”
“I can’t erase what you went through.” I take his face in my hands, look hard into his eyes and say firmly, “I willneverforget about you.”
Wilder
She said she’d never forget about me. That pulls at bonds that have kept me prisoner and breaks them, casting them aside and I’m falling. Falling so much deeper in love with her. This woman who’s my heart, and who’s part of my soul now.
I get a lump in my throat and I’m standing here thankful that I met her, thankful that she loves me, thankful for the future I’m going to have with this woman.
As if she can sense I’m struggling with the weight of my emotions, she starts talking about things she appreciates in life.Then she says, “After my parents’ car accident, I raised Arizona alone.”
I rub her back while she speaks. I’ve heard some of this because of her sister, Arizona, posing as her for a while to work as ranch manager, but I haven’t heard all of it.
“When we ended up losing the family home and having to move out of it, that was so hard. For years there was never enough money to do anything other than survive. I was eighteen suddenly raising a teenager.”
My heart breaks for the grief I hear in her voice.
“I dealt with a handsy boss and a sleazy landlord…”
“If you give me names, I can give them both an attitude adjustment.”
She shakes her head. “I dealt with it when it happened, and we both made it through that and now I stand here in front of you a little bit scarred, a lot wiser and so sexy it surprises me.”
I laugh and swing her around. “Sooo sexy…”
She pushes at me when I start to kiss her. “Wait a minute.” Crossing the room, she chooses an album from a stack and loads it onto an old record player. “I love old music,” she says as she makes her way back to my arms.
