He shook his head. “I told her to go. And if my brothers find out...”
“Nothing. You were an eleven-year-old boy doing your best. You were trying to be the man because your father wasn’t one. All of you. It isn’t your fault.”
Something tugged at his lips that he would’ve called a smile if his chest hadn’t felt like it was full of glass.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re not the only one who knows stuff.”
He chuckled. “I guess not.”
But he knew that. Because Elsie was wise, since she had to be. Because like him she had been dropped into a life with a whole bunch of adults who hadn’t cared all that much. And had had to make her own way.
But he’d been there for her. And he would always be there. He knew that then as certainly as he ever had.
He cared about Wolf and Sawyer and he always would. But this had changed things. Now Elsie was something to him that they could never be. And not just because he wasn’t attracted to them. Because he and Elsie had shared this moment. Because he’d told her this secret.
“It hasn’t been such a bad life,” she said softly. “I love Four Corners. I love my life there. You asked me why I wasn’t fixing to leave... And it’s because I can’t imagine anything else. And maybe it’s because sometimes I think about it. What it would’ve been like if she had taken me with her. And it makes me feel scared. Terrified. My dad was no prize, and he died when I was young. But I can’t imagine my world without Sawyer and Wolf. Without the Sullivans. Without you. Without the experience that I’ve had with horses and with working the land. With living in that place that holds the memory of my family name... Even if my family hasn’t always been great, we have a legacy in Garrett’s Watch. And it matters.”
“I understand that. That feeling. If we hadn’t enough stake of McCloud’s Landing, my father would have been the one to let it die. He would’ve been the one in control of that. And he doesn’t deserve that legacy. It’s ours. He can’t have it. And for that reason I’m glad we didn’t go. Because the land is ours.”
“Just make sure of that.”
“I know he did something terrible to Gus, but Gus won’t talk about it. He burned him.”
Elsie’s face nearly crumpled with horror. “He what?”
“I think he... I don’t know exactly what happened I just... I know he did it to Gus. And I wonder if Dad would have killed him. If he could have.”
“Hunter I—I don’t know what to say. I was afraid it was your dad, but I never... I don’t know I never really thought about it. I remember Gus before. Just barely.”
“Yeah,” Hunter said. “He’s never been the same.”
The scars weren’t only on his face.
“He never told you exactly what happened?”
“We don’t talk about things like that. We talk about food and sex and horses. About the ranch.”
Elsie’s nose wrinkled. “Gus talks about sex?”
“In fairness, that’s mostly Lachlan and Brody. Formerly Tag, but now that he’s married, he plays his cards a little closer to the vest.”
“I’m glad that you told me.” She put her hand on his chest. “All of it. Since you can’t talk about those things with your brothers.”
“Yes. I’m glad that I told you to.”
When she finished her dinner, he moved to feeding her cake, and then he started to hold bites hostage for kisses, and soon after that, the cake wasn’t the only thing on the dessert menu.
And he couldn’t help but feel this was an isolated moment that was now slipping through his fingers. And he hated it. With everything that he was.
So he chose to push that thought out of his mind. And focus on Elsie. Because that was about the only thing that made sense in the whole world.
And it wasn’t until this moment he’d realized that nothing had ever made sense to him before.
And for the first time in his life, when he fell asleep, it was with a woman in his arms.
And when he woke up in the morning, she was still there.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ELSIE WAS TENDER, and more than a little bit emotional when she woke up the next morning. She hid in the bathroom for longer than necessary, taking another shower, even though she’d just had one last night. She let the water roll over her skin, and if there were tears sliding down her face, she didn’t know. And that was exactly how she wanted it.
She didn’t need to know just how deeply all of this had affected her. She didn’t need to know.
Flashes of last night went through her mind as her hand skimmed over her bare curves. The way that Hunter had kissed her. The way that he had touched her. It aroused her even now. She felt irrevocably changed by that. By his touch. By everything. She felt...new, but not in a strong way, but the way a butterfly was when it came out of its cocoon, wet wings and shaky legs.
This wasn’t what she’d expected. All these feelings. Closeness and pleasure that made her feel weaker and stronger all at once. A giddy sort of happiness that terrified her and made her feel shy and exposed. She had signed on to see a penis. She had signed on for an orgasm.
She’d had much more than one orgasm, and she realized now that innocence had nothing to do with whether or not you had seen a penis.
It had something to do with the way your emotion shifted. It had something to do with the way having a person inside you made your soul feel changed. Touched.
The way they had the power to rearrange things in your own body whether you told them they could or not.
She emerged fully dressed, and was thankful that Hunter was dressed too.
“Time to head over,” he said. “Checkout time is soon anyway.”
Which meant it was near eleven, which blew her mind. She hadn’t realized how late they’d woken up. As if he was reading her mind, he spoke. “It was a long night.”
“Yeah,” she said.
She studied his face, so familiar and so new all at the same time. And she looked for that little boy. The one who had stood there and told his mother he would be all right if she was gone. That he didn’t need her. That self-sacrifice that he’d offered up then and there, and she had taken it.
It killed Elsie. To know how brave he’d been. How misguided. And how his mother had taken the promises of an eleven-year-old and used them as license to leave her boys with a monster.
It made her feel cut up. Devastated. She didn’t feel her own maternal abandonment that deeply; it shocked her to feel it so heavily for him.