Page 8 of Knot Her Cowboys
“Was it the one Morgan made?”
Riley paused, looking up from the parsley she was chopping. “Could be. I didn’t notice her name on it, but I wasn’t looking for it either. Didn’t really skim past the travel info to find the author.”
“She’s been trying to highlight a lot more options in the state for tourists, but obviously we get dibs on the good spots since she knows us and we’re awesome.”
Riley laughed. “You’re definitely that.”
She was unfairly pretty, always had been, but it wasn’t remotely the most alluring thing about her. Riley had a spine of steel and she was smart as a fucking whip. She could talkcircles around anyone in town—and often had—just for the fun of watching them struggle to keep up with the debates.
Back then she’d been Cooper’s girl, but if I was honest with myself I’d always hoped she’d beourgirl one day. Too bad all the fuckers in her life had driven her out the hot second she turned eighteen. I’d had another year of high school to finish or I’d have probably followed her. Cooper kicked himself every day for not doing that, even though he’d had a damn good reason to stay.
If she hadn’t gone no contact witheveryoneto stay off the radar, maybe things would’ve been different. Long distance wasn’t so terrible when it was all you had.
Hearing her voice again scratched an itch I hadn’t realized was still bothering me. For a long time after she left, everything had just felt weird and wrong, like she had lopped off one of my arms and sprinted away with it. We’d learned to function without her, but it was never the same.
“Keep talking.”
“About what?” She laughed again.
“Anything. You’ve been gone a long time. Surely there’s some things to update me on.”
She chatted while she whipped up a batter for dessert, telling me about her first year in New York, the thousands of culture shocks she’d navigated, the classes she remembered being her favorites, and how she had cried herself to sleep more than once after leaving. “Fucked me up for a long time to be so happy for my freedom and miserable missing you guys all at once. The campus had decent therapists and I’m sure they got sick of me by the time I graduated, but I figured I might as well go all in on healing from the bullshit I went through.”
“That’s awfully healthy of you.”
“I know, right? It helped a lot getting that professional outsider perspective. Gave me coping tools so I didn’t self-destruct.”
Goddamn. I needed to touch her right the fuck now. I wrapped my arms around her, resting my chin on top of her head, and her whole body stiffened.
She squeaked. “Cash?”
I stepped back quickly. “Sorry. Just got overwhelmed by how much I missed you. Got twelve years of hugs to catch up on.”
“It’s okay.” The short distance between us disappeared and she leaned heavily against my chest, lacing her fingers together behind my back. “Guess I’d better get you started on the catch up then.”
She fit so perfectly in my arms. Fate was an absolute bitch to have brought her home engaged, and not even to people I could contemplate inviting into our pack so she might stay. I didn’t make a peep about that part. Cooper and I had formed one with Dakota and Levi—our equine vet and equine therapist—a few years ago. I loved my pack, but I knew we were missingsomething. Now that Riley was back in Montana, I knew exactly what it was.
We were missingher.
I wanted to tell Riley, but I didn’t want her to pull back. If she was weird about Cooper, then being in a pack with him might make her weird about me too, and I couldn’t handle that right now.
She’d be gone in a couple of days and it wouldn’t matter anyway.
Maybe it was a massively dick move to hide her and Cooper from each other, but she had explicitly said she couldn’t face him, and it would be just as dickish to force him in front of her.
“What omega scent did you get?” I asked. “You’re hiding it. Rude.”
Riley giggled, the cutest fucking sound. “Lupines.”
“The best flower. And not just because they smell weirdly like grape soda.”
“Funnily enough, I got a tattoo of lupines before my scent came in.”
Every inch of me tightened at the thought of a tattoo on her skin. It wasn’t anywhere visible or I’d have seen it, and she wasn’t wearing that much for clothing.
“Where?”
“Someplace I have no business showing off in the middle of the kitchen.”
