In deep, deep shit. She didn’t need to say that out loud, though, because manners. “It will make our work relationship complicated.”
“I will make your entire life complicated. Out.” He strode for the door and opened it, eyes on the wall across from him.
“Right. Rejection. It’s been a while.”
“It ain’t a rejection, and you know it. Deep down, you know it. If I didn’t care, I would ruin you.”
Huh. So that meant…he did care for her?
She swallowed hard. She wouldn’t cry. There was no use crying. Her emotions were just high. So she walked straight past him and out into the hallway.
“Cheyenne?”
“Yes?” she asked, turning back to him.
He searched her eyes again as he asked, “Was that your first kiss since Tarik?”
Her lips trembled, and she was afraid her voice would shake if she answered so, instead, she just nodded.
“It was big, wasn’t it?” he asked.
Another nod from her.
He pointed to the wall in the hallway by his door. “Sit down, woman.”
She glanced down at the blue carpet then back to him, confused.
“I’m not ready for you to go. I just can’t have you that close to a bed.”
Cheyenne pursed her lips against a shy smile. Oh, my God—oh, my God, he wants me, too. That kiss was awesome. Whoo, that boy knows how to kiss. He kissed me. I kissed someone. Oh, my God.
“I can hear your heartbeat speeding up,” he said, propping the swinging door to his room open with a boot. He took a seat across the hallway. Still no shirt. Still the most gorgeous man in the world.
Holy hell, he really kissed me, and I kissed him back.
“You blush really easily,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, I can’t decide if the worst part about pasty skin is the sunburns or the blushing.”
“I like the blushing.”
Charmer. He was such a charmer and he’d kissed her and she’d liked it. She’d liked it! Eeeeeek!
“Um, what do you want to talk about?” she asked.
“The stain on your sweats and the easy access hole.”
“Easy access hole?”
He pointed to the rip in her sweats near her hoo-hah. “Oh, gosh.” She crossed her legs and hid the hole. “That I did with a box cutter on accident when I was cutting up a shirt to make into a crop top. The stain is from a full order of buffalo wings I stress-ate at two in the morning when I came out of retirement a few days ago.”
“You were nervous?”
“Terrified.” She sighed and relaxed against the wall. “I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is I have this urge to help. To be an agent again, but on my own terms. Do it better than I did when I was in this industry before.”
“Where have you been? After Tarik died, you disappeared off the face of the planet.”
“You noticed.”
“I looked for you,” he rumbled low. “I always did. Every rodeo, but you didn’t go to a single one after he passed. I figured I ruined rodeos for you. Took away something else you loved.”
She scrunched up her nose. “It wasn’t like how everyone thought.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Me and rodeo. Me and Tarik.”
He rested his head against the wall, too, looked down his nose at her with a frown. “How so?”
“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this now.” She hesitated. This had been a big secret to keep. “I wasn’t the only girl cryin’ at Tarik’s funeral.”
Two Shot’s eyebrows arched up. “Tarik had another lady?”
Cheyenne nodded. “I really should just let his ghost rest. Bringing this stuff up doesn’t fix anything.”
Two Shots cast a dark look down the hallway, but nothing was there. “His ghost won’t rest either way. Might as well get the weight off your shoulders. My mom always told me to share heavy stuff with one person you trust. Share it, and it won’t be so heavy anymore because you aren’t the only one carrying it.”
“Your mother sounds wise.”
“My mother’s a cow.”
She gasped, but he grinned.
“That was a cow shifter joke.”
She giggled and rolled her eyes. “Okay, the other woman’s name was Heather. She wasn’t in rodeo, so he kept his world with me and his world with her separate. Mostly.”
Two Shots looked sick. “That ain’t right. Did you know about her before he died?”
Her voice broke on the answer. “Yes. We were in the middle of figuring it all out. He was deciding if he wanted to be with her or stay with me. Sounds stupid, but they had this emotional connection that I couldn’t really compete with. It was really hard to feel like I was enough. He would stop talking in the middle of our conversations to text her, and I would have to watch him smile as he responded to her. I wondered why I couldn’t be good enough for him.”
“You shouldn’t have even been put in the position where you had to compete. It should’ve never been a competition. It’s bullshit. Tarik was a fuckin’ asshole for making you feel like you had to compete. You’re in a league of your own, Cheyenne. And you were his wife. Until death do you part and all. A real man holds up his end of a vow. I know what cheating does to a woman. I watched my dad choose other women. They always started innocent, right? He would say ‘hi’ to a lady at a restaurant or a gas station, but then we would start going to that restaurant or gas station more. He would start out polite, talk and chat. I was little so I couldn’t tell him to shut the hell up and take me home.
“Eventually, he would leave me sitting in the car while he would visit those women. I figured out when I got older that he was screwin’ them in the bathroom while my mom was at home thinking everything was okay. But I didn’t know how to process what was going on or how to tell her. I would watch him come home to my mom and treat her real nice. Nicer than usual. But you know what? Her eyes didn’t light up over the presents and extra hugs, the extra compliments. I watched them darken. Turn sad. I think she always knew when he had a new lady. I heard her cryin’. I watched the tears roll down her face. I was there when she would curl in on herself and question her value, but she was everything. Beautiful, funny, full of life.
“I watched him drain her. And then he would reel her back in with his toxic bullshit, swear to change, tell her they needed to stay together for me. She tried to leave him so many times, and he got more desperate every time to drag her back into his mess. Sometimes I think the emotional attachments are even worse than just fuckin’ a random girl. If you have a woman at home? You take care of her and you watch her bloom, and you hope to God you’re part of the reason for her happiness. You never make her question her crown. That’s what a real man does, Cheyenne. You were in for a long road of questioning your value if he’d survived me. At least until you had enough and left, like my mom did.”
She drew her knees up and rested her forearms over them. “I found out about Heather just a few months before he passed. It was a new relationship. At least, that’s what he told me, but she was crying a helluva lot at his funeral for someone who only knew him a few months. I was embarrassed when I found out. We were this dream couple on the circuit, right? I’d even bought into our hype. I felt like the luckiest girl alive because I had Tarik’s arm around me. But when I asked him to stop talking to her, he said he couldn’t because he cared about her too much already. More than me, I guess. You know, you can look at these dream couples and think they have it all together, but you never really know what’s happening behind closed doors. A couple weeks before he died, he promised me he’d stop talking to her and said he wanted to start over with me, try for a baby, be a better man for me, and it was like we hit this honeymoon phase all over. He did what your dad did. Drew me in. Complimented me more, was there for me emotionally, bought me presents. He was starting to build me up again, and I was so tired of being hurt by him that I was relieved and, in a way, happy during that time. We’d been through a hard time and we’d made it, you know? But after I watched her sobbing on the other side of the front row at his funeral, I had to know. So I looked at our phone bill, and he’d never even slowed down on calling her and texting her. He’d called her right before his ride on you that night. So, there it is. The shame.”