Page 90 of Spur of the Moment
“I don’t know her, but she came up to our booth at the Art & Wine festival. She was really nice. And cute.”
I glanced at Lettie to see her smiling. “I’m sure that will be a plus for Lennon,” I remarked.
She let out a small laugh. “My mom seems to think so, too. She’s apparently a part-time matchmaker now.”
“Is that so?” I grinned. Leave it to Charlotte Bronson to try to play matchmaker with her grown kids.
After about five miles on the trail, we came to a stop at the top of the highest point, a lush green, wide open field before us. You could see for miles, mountains peaking up in the distance. Rouge plopped down in the cool grass, panting from keeping pace with us.
“Bailey... This is beautiful,” Lettie whispered.
I glanced over to her, my arms crossed over the horn of my saddle. She was looking out at the land, a slight glimmer in her baby blues, but my eyes were glued on the only view that caught my attention day in and day out.
The breathtaking landscape didn’t hold a candle to Lettie Bronson.
“I found this little spot when I took Red out for you. Kept him in shape while I cleared my head. After I found it, we eventually just kept coming back. I’d let him take me in anydirection, and he always chose here. It was like if we looked hard enough, we might be able to see you all those miles away.”
She looked over at me, a softness to her features I’d never seen before.
I spun Nova around and brought him so his face was by Red’s back end. Lettie was right beside me, watching me. Keeping one hand on the reins, I reached over to set my hand on her cheek, pulling her closer to me.
“Even when you were gone, Lettie, we still felt you. You belong in Bell Buckle.”
“I know. I wish I’d never left,” she admitted, her voice small.
My thumb brushed her skin as I asked the one thing I’d been wanting to know ever since she arrived back in town. “Then why’d you leave? Why waste so many years running from what you knew in your heart you wanted?”
She was quiet for a few moments, her eyes darting back and forth between mine.
“I was scared, Bailey.”
“Scared of what?” I asked, dropping my hand from her cheek.
“Of you. Of the possibility of us,” she confessed.
My brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”
She took a deep breath. “I was terrified of falling for you and one of us fucking it up. I didn’t know if I could handle losing you in my life like that, Bailey. So, I prevented it from happening altogether, and I regret it.”
I blinked, shaking my head. “That can’t be all of it.”
“It is.”
“No, Lettie. It has to be something else, too. You can’t say it was all me. What is it?”
She pulled on Red’s reins, backing him up a few inches and turning him so she was angled slightly away from me.
“What else were you scared of, Lettie?” I asked when she didn’t reply.
Her eyes met mine, regret shining in them. “Everything, okay? My brothers, my parents, but especially you. At least with them, their care was stifling, drowning me at times. But you? You were so damn sweet to me all the time, Bailey. I was so used to it. If we had crossed that line back then, who knows if you wouldn’t have begun suffocating me, too? Caring for someone can be the worst kind of addiction. You can obsess, worry yourself to death. I didn’t want that for you.”
My hands tightened on the reins. “I’ll always worry about you, Lettie. It’s in my blood. But I will never close in on you, control you. I see what it does to you when your brothers do it.”
“Those are just words.”
“Words are all I have! You never gave me the chance to prove it to you. You just ran away instead of facing your fears.” And I couldn’t believe I was one of them. My feelings for her scared her, and that fucking hurt.
I shook my head again. “I don’t want to hear that you were scared when you should’ve been here, safe in my arms. Five years of worrying about you tore me apart, but it didn’t for onesecond shake the feelings I have for you, and that has to mean something.”
