“I think of you every day.”
The answer to my question has me fighting back another wave of tears. “That’s good to know.” My voice is barely audible and loaded with caution.
“Tate, honey . . . I’m at a loss for words.”
“I am too, Mom. Like I said, I just needed you to know I’m okay.”
A pause follows as we both struggle with the discomfort brought on by years of the unresolved. “How do we fix this, Tate? How do we . . .”
“I don’t know.” My hands tremble, my heart doesn’t know how to feel, and my lips don’t know what else to say. “This is a start.” And it is. “At least now you have my phone number.”
“Maybe we can talk again?” she asks timidly.
“Of course.” I swallow, my mouth dry, my tongue heavy. “I have to go now. Goodbye, Mom.”
I end the call and stand in my backyard with trees around me and Gracie at my heels and wonder if, in time, I can learn to forgive her and my father.
I can’t wrap my head around that just yet. I can’t open myself back up to the only other people in my life besides Fletcher who devastated me.
But I needed to know that I could.
I needed to hear her voice. So many things in my life are looking up, so many unresolved things are now being resolved . . . maybe I needed to know the last thing left out there—my relationship with my parents—might be able to be too.
Maybe I needed to know this so in my mind, I could move forward on a clean slate.
And now I know I can.
When I catch sight of Jack walking to the edge of the verandah, his head angled to the side, his expression curious as he studies me, I know that I can, in fact, open myself back up again.
Look at what happened when I did with him. My life changed for the better.
“Everything okay?” he asks as he holds out a glass of wine to me.
I nod with my phone clenched tightly in my hand, another piece of hope taken back that I feared I had lost forever, and smile.
50
TATE
“Jack?”
My heart pounds in my ears as I walk through the empty house.
“Jack?”
When I see the light on out in the stables, the panic hits. That sudden surge of adrenalin—of instinct—that tells me something is wrong.
With the horses? With the ranch? With Jack?
I can’t shake the feeling as I look for my robe. But I don’t have the patience to find it. Something is wrong. I know it. In my cami and shorts and work boots slipped on over bare feet, I run through the warm night air at top speed toward the stables as an impending sense of doom fills me.
Things have been going too well.
We spend our nights making love with words unspoken but with emotions shown in touches and whispers of sweet nothings.
The other shoe has to drop.
The contract, the signing bonus, the guarantee . . . everything with Steely, all done with the complete absence of drama from the citizens of Lone Star.
“Jack!” My voice is a broken, breathy cry as I clear the entrance of the stables, expecting the worst, and skid to a stop.
Because what I see is something I’ll never forget.
Fergi, one of our mares, has just delivered her foal. The baby is covered in blood and the fetal membrane still clings around his hind legs as he tries to stand and then slips back to the floor.
He emits the sweetest, most beautiful sound as he tries again, desperate to get to his mom, who’s standing behind him, exhausted.
The dance goes on a couple more times before the baby finally stands and nuzzles against his mom.
I’m afraid to look away and miss a second of his first seconds of life. This is Mother Nature in her most perfect of moments.
Only, I glance away, and when I do, I find Jack watching me. Where my tears have spilled over my cheeks, his are still welled in his eyes.
His smile is soft, and his expression is inexplicable as he stares at me in a way that will be etched in my mind. Full of love, heavy with hope, and tainted with just a hint of sorrow.
Jack is cautious when he skirts the outside of the stall so as not to disturb the two. When he closes the gate, it’s almost soundlessly.
There are no words spoken as he reaches out and frames my face before kissing each tear track in tiny motions.
When his mouth finds mine, it is nothing more than a brush of lips, but it’s so painstakingly slow, so unabashedly tender, that I know I’ve never been kissed like this before.
I fear I never will be again.
His fingers link with mine as he leads me out of the stable and up to the house. We slip out of our clothes like a couple who’s done this too many times before. As a couple who knows the other’s body and doesn’t want to waste time staring because they would rather take the time giving pleasure.
He lays me down upon the sheets, which have turned cold in my absence, and crawls over me, eyes never leaving mine. His body touching me at all times in some way or another.
It’s almost as if he’s afraid to lose this connection if his skin leaves mine or that if he speaks, words will ruin the moment.
Jack runs his fingertips down my left cheek, a featherlight touch that sends shockwaves through my body. His cock is already hard and pressing against my thigh, but there’s no rush or urgency to this moment. It’s this tenderness that threatens to undo me. It’s the promise of more that begs me to let him.
My breath is a gasp with each touch, and I turn my face to press a kiss into the palm of his hand. I close my eyes and take a snapshot of the moment for my memory bank.
His forehead rests against mine as the heat of his breath fans over my lips. And we just lay like this—with his knees spreading my thighs apart, with his cock positioned at my entrance, and with my trust and heart in his hands.
There’s a raw emotion between us, an acknowledgment that we just shared something special that had nothing to do with us and everything to do with us at the same time.
“Tate.” My name is an exhaled sigh as he pushes into me slowly.
The pleasurable stretch of him burns through me but not as bright as the emotion.
Nothing can rival that.
“Look at me, Tate.” A command. A demand. A plea. An apology.
My lashes flutter open, and our gazes hold as we become one. Hearts and bodies.
“It doesn’t fix it,” he murmurs as he dips down to take a sip of my lips. “It doesn’t change things.” Another soft kiss that lingers as if he’s fighting against pulling away. “But I can’t not tell you anymore. I’m in love with you, Tate.”
A push in. My gasp. A grind of his hips. A pull back out. My heart breaks.
“We were doomed from the beginning you and I . . .”
Another rush of sensation as his cock drags over the rough patch of nerves within.
“I fought it with everything I have, but I fucking fell for you.”
His tongue dances against mine in a slow, sweet seduction that rivals his revelation.
“We’ll figure this out somehow.” Another push in. “We have to.” Another grind of his hips. “Because I’m not ready to let you go.” Another pull back out.
My orgasm is a slow build of pleasure.
“Six months isn’t long enough with you,” he murmurs against my lips.