Page 76 of Rogue Cowboy
Love had been there for so long—maybe since that first weekend, but it hadn’t been given a chance to grow because it had been damaged and shadowed.But now—if she had another chance with Cole, she was going to prove herself.
She waited for his condemnation.Or her folks’.It shocked her to hear the words come out so easily.Like she was reciting facts to someone else’s life story.
The baby that never had a chance to be.The baby that had terrified her and that she hadn’t loved the short time she’d had it.The baby who was blameless and no more and hadn’t been cleanly grieved because she’d been relieved as well.But even now she had to admit to herself that she’d mourned the loss of Cole because he would no longer feel obligated to stay with her.
“He wanted to do the right thing always, and I was stubborn and scared.”She wasn’t shirking that.Her parents should be mad at her, not Cole, though last night they’d only cried with her and held her.“Cole is noble.”
But why was he here now?To break up with her finally or to give her yet one more chance?
“I’m not that noble,” Cole said, his gaze on hers.“I fell crazy in love with you from the moment we met,” he said, and Riley felt a fireball of shock race through her to hear him admit that out loud.“I would have done anything…will do anything to keep you.”
“And this is the most deliciously awkward coffee run ever,” Boone said humorously entering, Rohan on his heels, from the mudroom.
“Don’t let us interrupt.Keep declaring your undying love, I’ll just fill up my thermos and grab my nosy brother who’s known to try to punch out men courting his sister and go.”
“Hurry,” Riley said, not looking at her clownish brothers.“You love me.Love me still?”she asked.
Boone, for all his amusement, hunched his shoulders a little and whispered to Cole, “Sorry for the bad timing, brother,” before filling his thermos and crashing into Rohan to steer him back out of the house.
“I want coffee too,” Rohan objected.
“I’ll share.Mom.Dad.Exit stage left.”
And then they were alone as both Sarah and Taryn quickly grabbed more coffee and scuttled away into the mudroom and out the side door.
Riley heard the grandfather clock clicking out the seconds, and she wanted to say something epic.
“For a woman who used to write sappy lyrics about love and longing, I don’t know what to say.”She faced him, still in the great room with the kitchen island between them.“Except I love you too.I crushed on you so hard that first weekend.You were so sweet and gorgeous and kind and masculine.I wasn’t sure what to do with you.I’d been in LA nearly a year and everything seemed to be going wrong and I could do nothing right, but then you arrived and none of that mattered.Just you.You and me together.”
“I felt the same.Feel the same.Your songs weren’t sappy,” Cole said.“I still play them on my phone when I want to torture myself a little more.”
She struggled to swallow right.
“I wish you’d write some new ones.”
She nodded.“Maybe.If I had some inspiration.”
“What would that look like?”
“Tall, strong, dark, messy hair that I hope you grow out a little because the cowlick is weirdly sexy.Serious expression.Beautiful eyes that look like a dark lake with a question simmering just below the surface.Here with me.”
She took a step toward him.And he matched with a step toward her.
“Or with me in Texas,” she whispered.
“I don’t know where home is anymore,” he said softly, and that hurt her heart.He shouldn’t feel lost.Adrift.And that was partially on her because she too had been drowning.
And last night she’d taken her first deep breath as she’d started to swim to her metaphorical shore.
She took another step and then another and then she ran the rest of the way and threw herself against him.
“Home is with me,” Riley said, her words resonating deeply within her.“Home is with you.Wherever we are, we’re home.”
*
Cole still feltstunned by the turn of events.He loaded in Riley’s green and light blue leather weekender backpack and another leather tote in the back seat of his truck.
“Think of it as a delayed honeymoon,” Sarah Telford had said, as she handed him a handmade quilt that her mother had made for Riley’s ‘marriage bed.’Sarah had laughed and cried a little at what she called an ‘old-fashioned word.’
