I didn’t belong in this world of cowboy hats, barns that had that distinct stench only barns could, and a small town community where everyone knew everyone’s business.
So why in the hell had I volunteered to stay herelonger? It was the question I’d been asking myself every single day sinceClaire decided to merge with Circle M because she had gone and fallen in love like an idiot.
They were sickening to watch, my sister and Beau McLeod. Sickening in that ‘I had that once in a lifetime love but not anymore’ kind of way.
But after Claire had given up her dream so we could all pursue ours, I couldn’t not offer when she needed help. And it was the easiest out I could think of to get away from Dallas, away from the shitstorm my life had turned into there.
I just wish it hadn’t meant facinghimagain.
Everywhere I looked, there he was. Not him physically, but memories. Memories that I needed to stay dead and buried for my own sanity. But the past always came to haunt you when you needed it the least.
He had yet to show his face since I’d been home this last month—not even for my mother’s funeral—but there was no avoiding him now. We were all going to the rodeo, and considering he was the poster boy bull rider of America, there was no way I could get around it. People would’ve asked questions if I hadn’t come, and I wouldn’t have had answers.
Only because I had vowed to myself since I was sixteen that no one could ever know I had once loved Weston Tate, and he had once loved me. Or that it was the kind of love that tilted the world off its axis when it came crashing down, which it did. Spectacularly. Catastrophically.
Or that it had been my fault.
The parking lot of the arena was packed. People were slowly filing in, dressed in the typical rodeo-goer uniform that I had on myself: boots, jeans, a gaudy belt, and a tucked-in button-down. The only thing I was missing was a hat.
I felt stupid. I felt like I was impersonating my teenage self, andnothingabout it was comfortable.
Actually, everything about tonight was distinctly uncomfortable. From the urge to scan the perimeter every five seconds for a certain blonde cowboy down to the way my shirt tag itched.
Claire clung to Beau’s arm like he was the center of gravity while I continued on my death march with Delilah, Tess, and Anna. Seeing my headstrong, powerful, self-sufficient sister melt over amanwas honestly disturbing; I never thought it’d happen. But I had to admit that it was really nice to see her so happy, even if it was with a McLeod. But Beau had been there for Claire, for all of us, really, when Mom died, and that earned him a gold star in my book.
“They’re so cute,” Anna said, smiling fondly at the couple. “I wonder when they’ll get married.”
Being around Anna again after all this time was both weird and comfortable, but just like when we were kids, our groups had merged together seamlessly. The McLeod clan was here tonight, along with the rest of my siblings. One big happy family again, as if the last two decades of contempt had never happened.
“Hopefully, they have enough sense to wait,” I murmured.
“I agree,” Tess added. I glanced over at my sister, who was watching Claire with a knowing look. She still hadn’t said anything about her life in Corpus Christi in the two weeks she’d been home, but judging by the way she walked on eggshells around everyone, I knew it wasn’t good.
“Y’all are just jealous,” Delilah said, linking her arm with mine. “Everyone wants to get dicked down by a man who worships the ground they walk on.” Not wrong.
I arched a brow at her. “Oh yeah? And where’s your worshipper?”
My best friend shot me her signature smirk. “Try worshipers,” she said, emphasizing the s. “I got a whole roster of men waiting on their knees for a piece of this.”
“Oh my God,” Tess squeaked, her cheeks pink. Sometimes I forgot she had always been three years younger than us, so we never talked to her about boys or sex. Guess that ship sailed, though, since she had a kid now, a kid she didn’t tell anyone about, which I still hadn’t entirely forgiven her for.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and when I saw Stewart’s name on the screen, I grimaced and put my phone on do not disturb.
There was something inexplicably stupid about that man for him to have not realized “I’m going home to be with my family, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” was code for stop blowing up my fucking phone because I need space.
I guess fiancés did that, though.
I hadn’t told my family I was engaged. There wasn’t really a good time between my mother dying, Tess coming home after being MIA for eight years, Mom’s funeral, and Claire merging the ranches to announce it.
And because I hadn’t really given Stewart an answer either. I hadn’t said yes, but I hadn’t said no either. So I guess that made him my would-be fiancé if we got real technical.
He had proposed with this horrid grand gesture of giant, illuminated block letters spelling out “marry me” and a trail of rose petals in his penthouse. Naturally, the ring was a small boulder given his partner's salary, too.
Any sane woman would’ve passed out in love-addled bliss. But not me.
When I stared down at him on one knee, looking up at me with hopeful eyes, my mind instantly went to the one place I had forbidden it to go for the last eleven years. That alone had scaredme so much that I ran out of the penthouse, went home to throw shit in a bag, and drove straight to Wild Creek.
Stewart was a good man. He was brilliant in the courtroom, well-respected at our firm, and dedicated to his clients, but in the two years we had been together, I never really feltit. The it Claire so clearly felt for Beau, that Anna felt for Joseph, that Colt seemed to feel for Brittany.
