“With my best friend.”
“Ah, hell. I’m real sorry to hear that.”
She cants her head to the side and studies my expression. “Are you?”
“Just said I was, didn’t I?”
“Sorry. These days I’m having a hard time separating what’s true and what’s not. I know you’ve never had a malicious bone in your body.”
“Well, you’ve been gone a long time and I’m a different man now, but I still never want to see you hurtin’.”
She smiles at me, the barest hint of her lips turning up in the corners, and with that one look she drives a dagger right through my heart. As angry as I am that she left, that she didn’t give us a chance, what I just told her is true. It killed me to see Lemon broken all those years ago, and the idea of being the one to hurt her now, cuts me right to the core.
We ride back to the stables. The others are all there, sitting on lawn chairs, drinking beer, having finished their work early. Lemon gasps as she climbs off her horse and slowly leads Teraway into the barn and then her stall respectively. She whimpers, and I turn to glance at her over the stable wall. “You okay?”
“Mm-hmm. Just fine.”
I study her face and slide my gaze over her body, or as much of it as I can see. She’s moving so tentatively she must have pulled a muscle on her dismount. And then it hits me—for the last twelve years, Lemon’s been living in the city, riding the subway or cabs, or driving her fancy car to work. I bet she hasn’t so much as even seen a horse, much less been on one since she left this ranch. I don’t know what it’s like to not ride for twelve years straight, but I’m betting she’s feeling every inch of the ground she covered on that horse today.
“You know I can do that for you, if you wanna head on up to the house?” I offer.
She turns and glares at me with her brow arched. Oh, shit. That’s not a happy face. “I’m just fine where I am.”
“Still as goddamn stubborn as ever, huh?” I say and finish currying Knievel. I send him into his stable with a light smack on the ass that I wish I could deliver to Lemon instead.
She practically snarls at me and I throw my hands up in the air and walk away before I can say something I’ll regret.
Outside, West offers me a cold beer. And I accept gratefully and take the fourth armchair beside Cash, falling into it harder than a two-hundred-pound cowboy probably should.
“Rough day?” West asks, raising his beer to me.
“No thanks to you, yeah.”
“I gotta say, I’m amazed she didn’t quit.”
“Well, if there’s anything I know about Lemon Winchester, it’s that she’s twice as stubborn as the number of brothers she has.”
West nods and takes another pull from his beer. “She make you do everything? Maybe we should be paying you for two days’ work?”
“I wouldn’t say no to the extra cash, but I meant it when I said she hasn’t gotten any less Winchester in the time she’s been gone. She wouldn’t let me do anything alone.”
“Not even jack it?”
“Don’t be an ass,” I snap at Wade, and Lemon uses that opportunity to exit the barn. She takes one look at the beer in my hand, walks over to me—though I can see the pain in her face with every step she takes—and she snatches the bottle from me.
“Hey,” I protest, but she just downs the rest of the beer in one go, and passes back an empty bottle.
“Thanks, I needed that.”
The boys laugh.
“Winchester wild,” Wyatt crows.
“Yeehaw!” Whoops and whistles go up as Wade dances about and pretends to spank an imaginary pony.
Lemon shakes her head and turns toward the house.
“Come on, sis?” Wyatt calls. “You don’t wanna stay for a beer?”
“Nope. I’m good.”
West chuckles. “I’m surprised you lasted so long.”
“Anything you can do.” She throws over her shoulder, and ambles away. All six of us burst out laughing because Lemon is walking bowlegged all the way to the ranch house.
“Jesus.” Cash tilts his beer in her direction. “Are we sure she’s not walking funny because she was riding more than a horse out in that field?”
All eyes turn to me, glaring, suspicious, and accusatory. I roll my eyes and sigh heavily. Leaning back in my seat, I place my hat over my face and close my eyes. “Not even if she begged me.”
“Right,” West says gruffly, and the others offer up their opinions that I don’t even have the energy to debate.
I may not like spending time with her, I may not trust the woman anymore, and I may even just hate her a little because seeing her after all these years lets me know I’m never getting over her. But I know one thing for certain—I’m never betting against Lemon Emersyn Winchester again either. Because she never loses. Not when she’s backed in a corner, not when it comes to a battle of wills, and not when it comes to my heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lemon
The bell above the door jingles as I enter and every set of eyes in the Buttermilk Café turn toward me.
“Well hell, as I live and breathe if it ain’t Lemon Winchester.” A woman in a waitress uniform stands behind the counter, hip popped, coffee pot in hand, and I take off my glasses and do a double take.
“Zadie?”
“In the flesh. Girl, where you been?”
I take in her gorgeous mocha skin and deep brown eyes. Her hair is no longer natural but instead worn in brightly colored box braids. She’s every bit as stunning as she was in high school, and I am still just as jealous of her beauty as I always was. Zadie never had to bother with a ton of makeup and perfectly set hair like me. She could have been a damn model if she’d had any inclination to get out of this one-horse town.
I take a seat at the counter in front of her and set my purse on the stool beside me. “I’ve been in New York. I have a gallery there.”
“Yeah, I think I heard that from your brothers, actually. They’re real proud of you.”
I laugh, because I’m not sure we’re talking about the Winchester boys. With the exception of Wyatt, I doubt they’ve missed me all that much, and I guarantee they have no idea what I actually do in New York City. “You mean Wyatt’s been singing my praises, right?”
She purses her full lips. “Nope, West and Wade too.”
I frown, not entirely sure what to make of that information.
“You know I was real sorry to hear about your daddy. I would have been at the funeral, but I had this place to run.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I …” I’m not really sure what to say. I didn’t just run out on Colt and my family twelve years ago. I left my best friend without a word too. “It’s been a long time, Zadie. I’m real sorry I never returned your calls. I just … I needed a clean break.”
She gives me a wistful smile. “Broke a lot of hearts when you left, Lemon Winchester.”
I glance at the diner patrons still eyeing me warily as they pretend not to listen in our conversation. “I’m startin’ to see that.”