Page 48 of Rogue Cowboy
“Okay.”
He’d rather have her tell him to kill someone for her as he was pretty useless with words and feelings, but he was a civilian now, and another word with the same prefix was civilized.
“Open,” Riley whispered.
Cole opened his mouth and Riley placed something slightly warm on his tongue, a piece of chocolate, midnight dark, rich, earthy, and as he waited the chocolate began to melt, coat his tongue, and he remembered something that Riley had called a Balboa bar.
He smiled.“Dark chocolate.Rich cocoa.Roasted locally.”He remembered the spiel he’d heard the owner, Sage Carrigan, tell a curious shopper.“Handmade, secret recipe.Feels like the chocolate boots,” he said triumphantly, pleased he could find words when he so desperately needed them.“It should remind me of the jungle.”
He’d hidden in plenty of them, sweating out liters of liquid over his career.
“Instead I’m thinking of that island that was south of LA, not really an island but we took a little ferry and sat on a dock and looked at some yachts and shared a Balboa bar, and I thought your eyes looked like pansies—so vibrant and vivid and full of life and I thought—”
He broke off the thought.
“You thought what?”Riley asked, her voice a little choked.
“I could see forever.”
Riley didn’t say anything.But he didn’t hear anything either so she probably hadn’t hopped out of the trailer and run.
“Is it my turn?”
“No.”
He liked her bossy tone.
“Next memory.”
“You didn’t share, yet.”
“I’m making the rules.”
“Intimacy takes two.”He didn’t know much about relationships, but he could figure that.
“You can play a game with me tomorrow night after our second date at the steak dinner.”
And his mind short-circuited just as his cock nearly shredded itself against his zipper.Damn he was out of practice.
She leaned into him again.“Open.”
He did, keeping his hands tucked behind him, even though she’d tied the bandana so loosely, he could easily shrug out of it.But he wanted her to feel safe, even if he felt like he was going to explode.
This one was milk chocolate, but there was something else, caramel, and suddenly he was back at Char-Pie’s in Last Stand, but he was little—in some kind of a booster seat and his family was also at the table.His sister—her long, dark hair in pigtails—held a spoon above him.He had his mouth wide open, and he stared at the oozing dessert and made baby bird sounds while the chocolate and caramel and ice cream dripped into his mouth, and Carli laughed.
Cole leapt up and jumped out of the trailer, ripping both bandanas off.He gulped in air and scrubbed his face.Where had that come from?Was it real?He had so few memories of his family—mostly they were people in the pictures his paw-paw and maw-maw kept lining the hallway and great room at the main house.He tried never to think about any of them.As a kid he’d run off when his paw-paw had talked about the son he’d lost—the grandchildren.
Bile rose, scorching him inside and he choked it back down.
“Cole?”Riley wrapped herself around his broad frame, holding on like he was going to break apart.“I got you,” she whispered while he struggled for control.He still felt like the image scarred his corneas and he mentally clawed at it.“I’m sorry.I’m so sorry.”
His heart still pounded out of his chest.Where was his damn calm now?His annoying mantra of square breathing he’d laid on her more than once like he had the answer for everything.
“I got you.”She laid her face against his heart and just held on while he fell apart and put himself together again.She turned into him, and he thought she pressed a kiss against his chest.
“What happened?”she asked after what felt like a long time.
Her eyes were dark and wide with worry, and she looked up at him with sweet empathy he didn’t deserve because he had done his best to forget his sister.His mother.His brother.His father.His paw-paw and maw-maw had lost as much as he had, and he, a shut-down, selfish, shit of a kid, and then a man, hadn’t once thought of their loss.His uncles’ losses.
