“Grady,” she murmured. Without intending to, she laid her head back onto his chest, her eyes falling shut.
He rested his chin in her hair. His arms tugged her tighter, pulling her deeper into his firm, muscled body.
To be held in his arms like this—to feel so safe and secure—this was home.
Grady was her home.
The storm could continue its torrent around them, but shelter was found within Grady’s arms.
Rotating slowly in his embrace, Maren angled to look up at him. “I wish we could go back to the way things used to be,” she spoke against the fabric of his shirt, scolding the unbidden tear that tumbled down her cheek. “Back to when you were mine.”
“I’ll always be yours, Mare.” He dipped his head and muttered softly against her cheek. “Always have been; always will be.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” she admitted, pulling back, searching his gaze. “It feels like you’ve created a whole new life without me.”
“Isn’t that what you sorta did all those years ago when you moved away? Isn’t that what you always wanted to do? Create a new life?”
She shook her head and sniffed. “I’ve never been able to start over, Grady. I’ve always been stuck.” A distressed expression pulled at her brow when she finally confessed, “I’ve always been stuck on you.”
She could see his throat work to swallow. Then emotion flashed across his face, like a surge of lightning across a starless sky. His jaw ticked and in a rush his lips crushed hers, and whatever breath she had left, Grady stole with a desperate, pained kiss.
Maren’s heart gave the tears permission to spill. They cascaded down the slope of her cheeks in wet streaks of unabashed emotion. Cupping her face in his hands, Grady thumbed them away as his full lips pressed deeply to hers, moving and melding in unison. The intense ache in her body and in her heart grew with every touch.
“Mare,” he uttered against her mouth, pausing only to catch his breath. “Mare, I love you.”
Those three words uttered into the night crashed into her heart like the very thunder that pulsed outside the barn, rattling the rafters, shaking the trees, knocking everything off balance.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, Grady.”
“Maren, I have loved you my entire life. From that first day you rode your pony over to introduce yourself after you had just moved in. Don’t you remember that day?”
She couldn’t keep the small smile from forming, despite the tears that continued their freefall. “Of course, I do. I told you there was a new sheriff in town and you looked at me like I’d fallen out of a tree.” She failed to contain her laugh.
“No, I didn’t, Mare. I looked at you like a boy who had just fallen in love.”
“We can’t.” She pushed back forcefully, out from within his arms. “None of this is fair to Kiley. We just can’t.” Her head shook like a rapid twitch.
Grady took a step toward her, but she recoiled. He dropped his shoulders, shaking his head as he stared at the ceiling of the loft. “Fair? Really? You have no idea, Maren.”
She frowned, not understanding.
Slamming a palm to his forehead in frustration, Grady let out a garbled laugh. It startled Maren, the burst of sound unfit for their somber conversation. “You seriously have no idea.”
“Then tell me!” She hadn’t meant for it to come out as a shout but Maren had no control over the volume. “Tell me, Grady!”
“It’s not all my story to tell, Mare, otherwise, you’d know every page of it. I’ve always shared everything with you. You have to know that.”
“But the one thing I want you to share—your life—you’ve already given to someone else!”
Like her words were a slap, Grady flinched. “That’s not how it is, Mare. You have to believe me. I’m actually doing all of this for you.”
“How could falling in love with another woman be for me?”
“You think I’m in love with Kiley?” His brow buckled.
“It would be pretty awful if you weren’t in love with her. For her sake, at least.” Maren threw her hands into the air in exasperation. “I shouldn’t even be here.” She started to lift her borrowed sweatshirt by the hem to return it.
He jutted out a hand. “Please don’t go. I need you.”
“You need me?” She huffed an incredulous laugh. “I think Kiley needs you. And I’m not going to get in the way of that.”
“Seriously, Maren. Did you ever stop to think that I can’t always be the strong one here? That I might need some support?”
“No matter how badly I want to, it’s not my place to be your support system, Grady. You have a family now.”
“Kiley’s not my family.”
“Maybe not yet, but once that baby is born, it’ll make you one. Whether it’s official on paper or not.”
Grady’s mouth gaped. “You think Kiley is pregnant with my child?”
Hearing those words uttered out loud crushed Maren’s heart. Her rounded, stunned eyes offered her only reply.
“That’s not even possible,” he gritted out.
“Anything’s possible,” Maren retorted, her heart pounding with the force of a sledgehammer.
“Not when I’ve never even been with a woman, it’s not.”
Maren’s face blanched. Grady stared openly at her with unchecked vulnerability. His voice turned tender when he said, “Mare, you have to know that you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted. In any and every way. It’s always been you and only you.”
It was too much. Maren couldn’t handle this confession, couldn’t handle the truth deep in his words. It was all she’d ever hoped for. But in that moment, it was more than she could process.
“I need to go,” she spoke, finally.
“Please say something, Mare. Please.”
“This is a lot, Grady. I don’t know what to say,” she said. “And it’s late. We’re not thinking straight. We can talk tomorrow.”
Grady blew out a loud breath. “I’m working the Reno Rough Rider Rodeo tomorrow with Riggs Montgomery. I won’t be back until late.”
Maren nodded. She waited a brief moment and then asked, “Can I come with you?”
“Of course. Of course, you can.” He couldn’t mask the surprise that was so clear in his tone and on his face.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” She lifted up onto her tiptoes and placed a quick, light kiss on his cheek and said, “And I do love you, too, Grady. Even when I try not to, I can’t help but love you.”
18
Grady
It was still dark when Grady loaded his horses into Riggs’ gooseneck trailer. The moon shimmered brilliantly now in the absence of yesterday’s furious, black thunderclouds. It was like the fragile quiet after a heated argument, this calm after the storm.
Grady hadn’t slept a wink. Maren’s words, her expression, her touch—it all replayed in his head. She’d always been passionate, but this was different. She wasn’t shouting over a spider on the ceiling that she needed killed. She wasn’t riled up over a pulled shoe on her horse.