Page 120 of The Troublemaker

Because he had sacrificed to raise her, she had felt like she owed him something. So she had always acted with a certain amount of caution.

She didn’t want to be cautious. Not anymore. This whole thing with Lachlan had been a process of stripping away, finding her boldness. Finding who she was. Absolutely and completely. She had to keep going. No matter what that looked like. No matter what that meant.

LACHLANDIDN’TTALKto his brothers about the state of things. He told them everything was great and drank three extra beers, and when he and Charity went home, he made sure to fall asleep immediately.

He wasn’t actually asleep. He could hear her tossing and turning next to him; could tell that she was upset that they hadn’t had sex, because it was really the first time since they’d started cohabitating together that they’d skipped a night.

Of course, they were married, so skipping nights would eventually become normal...he assumed. He never had a relationship before. So there was really nothing to compare it to. He imagined stretches like this were normal enough, also. Times when you were just kind of mad at each other.

He realized he didn’t actually have the right to be mad at her.

He wasn’t even sure she was mad at him. She was hurt. And he was the one being kind of petulant.

But oh, well.

His sleep was bad, and he avoided Charity the next morning by getting up at 5:30 and heading out to work as soon as possible.

He was out on the range, repairing fences with Gus and Brody, when he got the text.

I need you.

Where are you at?

The woods.

A twinge of fear spiked in his chest. Why was she in the woods, and why did she need help?

Where are you?

I told you. You know where I am. Our spot.

The light was pale, but a little bit more effective than it had been. They were advancing through May now, and it was beginning to warm up, if slowly. Some years May was hot as summer, others winter hung out. You got a lot of sunny days, and then the sun would disappear for a while. Or you’d get a bright, clear day that was still so damned cold it seemed like an unfair tease.

Yeah. He was accustomed enough to that.

But today was actually beautiful, and he looked across the green field, illuminated by the sun, the purple flowers starting to bloom. And some of the fog of last night’s memories faded a bit.

“Charity needs something,” he said.

“Heh,” Brody said.

“Kiss my ass,” Lachlan said.

Especially after the other night, he was certain that Charity didn’t want toHeh.

But he was headed over to find her regardless.

He decided to walk, because his truck wasn’t around, and he knew exactly where she meant. She meant their spot.

Their spot.

He walked into the woods and followed the path that led from McCloud’s Landing down to Charity’s old place. No one was renting it still, so there was no one around in the area. It was isolated.

You okay?He posed the question quickly and texted, because he was beginning to get a little bit worried.

Just fine.

He kept on walking, looking around, the sunlight through the trees reminding him of the fairyland, which was an odd thing, because he walked through this place all the time, so getting weirdly sentimental about it was kind of an odd thing to do.

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