by Skylar Hill
She was so beautiful, so fucking incandescent, that he came just from watching her own orgasm ripple through her, the tight grip of her pussy too much, and as they came down together, clutching each other close, his eyes drifted shut, and he knew.
This had to be forever.
Thirty
Nat
It was goodbye.
That was all she could think of when she woke up the next morning, Rhett holding her tight, his breath hot against the back of her neck, his cock hot against the small of her back.
Last night, it had been goodbye. It had to be.
He was still miraculously asleep as she climbed out of bed and crept out of the barn. As she hurried to her car, which was parked in the lodge parking lot, she was surprised to see her father leaning against it, a to-go cup of coffee in his hand.
Or maybe she wasn’t too surprised. He’d raised her. He knew her.
He knew she would run.
She felt a guilty flush come over her as she took the coffee from him.
“We hitting the road, darlin’?” Big Stan asked.
She nodded.
“He know you’re gone?”
She shook her head.
Her father sighed, and she wondered if he was disappointed in her. If he thought she was a coward.
Hell, she thought she was a coward.
“Why don’t you drive me into the city?” her father asked. “I’ve got some business to take care of, and your mother booked me a suite at the Portland Hotel.”
“Okay,” Nat said, feeling like she was sixteen again as they got into the car and, with so much dread in her stomach and so much fear in her heart, drove away from River Run. With each mile she put between them and that place, between Rhett and her, that dread and fear grew.
“So I didn’t tell your mother about the whole ‘Our daughter busted an opium grower’ tale yet,” Big Stan said as they made it to the highway. “I figured you’d want to tell her yourself. Or maybe not. I’m not quite sure how she’s going to react.”
“Probably by telling me I am all you and my daredevil spirit is gonna get me killed one of these days, just I wait,” Nat said, because she’d heard it enough times.
Big Stan smiled out of the corner of her eye. “Your mother would’ve totally busted an opium grower, given the chance,” he said. “This is all her.”
Nat shook her head, familiar with their favorite argument of which of her qualities she got from each of them. “I’ll talk to her once I get back the city and my life gets back to normal. I’ve been neglecting work since this whole thing started. But now it’s over, so I don’t have to worry anymore.”
There was a pointed silence, and then a sigh.
“What?” she asked, focusing on the road because she didn’t want to focus on him.
“Okay, darlin’,” Big Stan said. “Time to have an honest, come-to-Jesus talk.”
“Dad,” she protested, feeling herself flush. “Look, it wasn’t real. It was me giving an old friend an out because that asshole was messing with his livelihood and the livelihood of all these fine people who work for him, not to mention all those poor animals he saves.”
“Watch your tongue,” he said, and she sighed, feeling like she was sixteen again. “You’re trying to manage things. But honey, you can’t manage love.”
“I don’t love him,” Nat said immediately.
“Darlin’, that’s bullshit,” he drawled. “And I should know, I’ve shoveled enough of it.”
She rolled her eyes. That was one of his favorite sayings. He was full of them.
“Now who needs to watch his tongue,” she shot back.
“I’m a sixty-year-old man, I can say whatever the hell I want. But when you up and leave the good, fine man I’m pretty sure you’re head over heels in love with, a man thinks the world should worship at your feet, him included, I think I’m a entitled to a little profanity. Because you’re being foolish.”
“Rhett doesn’t worship me,” she scoffed, and it sounded so weak even to her own ears. She was just being contrary at this point because she felt like a cornered animal here in the car, unable to confront the knowing look in her father’s eye.
“Natalie,” Big Stan went on, sobering. “Talk to me, sweetie. You went through something traumatic yesterday. You obviously have feelings for this man. What is going on in that head of yours?”
She couldn’t answer the question. If she did, all was truly lost. Instead, she answered the one he hadn’t asked. “It couldn’t work,” she said. “Him and me… I have my job and the city, and he has River Run and the mountains.”
“There’s compromise in every relationship,” Big Stan pointed out.
“Daddy, I love you, but maybe you haven’t noticed, women tend to be the ones who compromise in a relationship.”
He opened his mouth to protest and then frowned, clicking it shut.
“I love how I grew up,” Nat continued. “Growing up on the ranch with you and Momma there all the time was the kind of childhood some people only dream of. And Momma was an amazing mother and wife and rancher. But you and I both know that she gave up other dreams for that.”
“I think your mother would say that she created new dreams for herself,” her father said, and it wasn’t defensive, which is what she had been scared of. She was grateful to him, that he was sitting there and staying open, listening to her express herself, trying to explain the conundrum she found herself in. That was the beauty of her father: He was a simple man in many ways, a direct man, but he always tried to understand, he was always open to seeing the other side.
“I don’t want to create new dreams,” Nat confessed softly. “Being CEO, being on top like I am? I have the thing that I’ve always wanted. That I earned. And I have an extraordinary chance to open the door for other young women like me who want to climb in the business world. I can’t give that up, Dad. I won’t give that up. I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”
“Well, it seems the solution is easy then,” he said, making her eyebrows draw together. “Your man’s going to have to be the one to do the sacrificing. He seems a modern enough guy. Just talk to him.”
And there was the simple, direct man her father was again. She wished it was as easy as that. But she could never, ever ask Rhett to change his life for her. Just like he would never ask her to step down or take a different job for him.
He belonged to the mountains, to River Run.
“Rhett and I… it’s not going to work. We’re better off as friends.”
“Come now, don’t lie to yourself or your dear old dad,” Big Stan admonished, and she sighed.
“Just…let me have this, okay?” she asked as she merged lanes, heading towards their exit. “All I really want right now is for you to tell me everything’s gonna be okay.”
“Oh, darlin’, “ he said, his eyes sympathetic. “The tragedy of my life is I can’t protect you from all things,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “And unfortunately, love is tricky. Sometimes, it sneaks up on you.”
Tell me about it.
Thirty-One
Nat
She didn’t go into work. She didn’t even call in.
Instead, after she dropped her father off at his hotel—promising to call him tomorrow to plan dinner—she went home. She locked her doors and turned off all her lights and curled up on the couch with Peaches, hugging him tight.
She felt like crying, but also like she was too emotionally numb to squeeze out the single tear. Every part of her body felt drained, and it ached with the loss of Rhett’s warmth, with the realization she’d never feel it beside her again.
She was going to need to take a long, long break from their friendship. She couldn’t be near him, now. Not without…
His pull was too strong. They’d just keep falling into bed, now that they knew what it was like.
What they were like.
She closed her eyes, the memory of his hands an almost physical thing against her skin, her thighs
clenching in response.
Stop it! She felt like pinching herself or something. She needed to stop torturing herself like this. It was over.
She looked down at her hand, realizing that the ring was still on her finger. She traced the etched gold, the little flower carvings so delicate and lovely. On the inside of the band it said To Ada, with love.
His history, on her hand. She needed to give it back.
She never wanted to ever take it off. Her eyes burned, but still, she didn’t seem to be able to cry. She wondered if she was in some state of shock.
There was a knock at her door. She frowned, getting up and peeking in the peephole.
Oh, God.
She ran a hand through her hair, worried that she looked like a giant mess, before she opened the door, her throat dry.
Maddy Daniels was standing in her hallway, her arms crossed and her foot tapping.
“You have some explaining to do, best friend,” she said.
“What did you do?”
A spike of dread filled Nat as Maddy breezed into her apartment, her nose wrinkling when she saw the container of ice cream and Peaches currently licking the rim. Nat’s best friend was five ten without her heels, and with them, she towered impressively. She was blonde and feminine in that powerful, Wonder Woman sort of way, and as she sat down in the chair across from Nat, a smile tugged on her lips.
Maddy had been Nat’s best friend for a long time. She was the sister Nat had never had, the girl she’d gotten drunk with for the first time, and absolutely one hundred percent the person she’d call if she needed to, like, get rid of a body. Her point being: Maddy knew her. Which is why it was so hard to close the door behind her and meet her gaze.
“Carter must have talked to Rhett,” she said.
“I leave for two weeks and when I come back I find that you’ve married Rhett Oakes— aka the man you’ve been secretly lusting over for like, what, ten years!”
“It has not been ten years,” Nat scoffed.
“Whatever,” Maddy said. “Numbers aren’t my strong suit. Anyway, not only have you gotten married, but you’ve gotten kidnapped! By drug dealers!”
“Technically they were drug growers and dealers,” Nat said. “And it was only. like, for an hour.”
“And then, to top it off, you leave Rhett with divorce papers, no explanation, nothing! The guy was bewildered when he called Carter.”
Nat winced. Jace had faxed them over the day before. She had thought if she’d left them there, it would be easier, re-establishing that line they’d danced so merrily across. But obviously, she’d miscalculated. Was he okay? She was just trying to make it simpler. It had to go back to simple sometime… right?
“Honey, start explaining,” Maddy said. “Because you can talk about how you married Rhett because of the water or whatever, but this lady ain’t buying it.”
Nat took a deep breath, trying to find the words to explain, and found she had none. To her horror, a tear trickled down her cheek, then another. And then she was just flat out sobbing.
“Oh, sweetie,” Maddy said, getting up and hurrying over, hugging her tight.
“I’m sorry,” Nat blubbered, finally in the safe space that only a best friend provided. “I just… I just…” More tears. God, her mascara was going to be wrecked. “I just wanted to help him,” she said in a rush. “Really, that’s how it started. Or maybe that’s what I just told myself. He made a crack about marriage being the only answer and I found myself saying, Okay, then marry me, and it was crazy, I know it was crazy, but it also worked. It got us enough time to figure out what Durbin was up to, and we beat him. But the whole time I was with Rhett…” she led out a shudder. She actually ached. She hated this. She hated him. No, she didn’t. Of course she didn’t.
That was the entire problem.
“You fell,” Maddy said softly, still keeping an arm around her shoulders.
Nat sniffed. “I’d already fallen,” she said, because if you couldn’t be honest with your best friend, who could you be honest with? “I think I never got over it, that night in New York, and I know that sounds stupid. It was one night. But that one night turned into a friendship, and that friendship had a line, and I crossed it, Maddy. I freaking bulldozed over it. The line is obliterated. I know every inch of that man’s body now, and I love it. I am doomed. And I knew I was going to be doomed! That’s what’s killing me. I knew. Deep down, I knew. And I still did it. Why?” She looked up at her friend with tear-stained eyes.
“Because you love him,” Maddy said, her face sympathetic.
“He’ll never leave the mountains,” Nat said. “And I can’t leave the city. I won’t leave my work.”
“I doubt he’d ask that of you,” Maddy said.
“But I can’t ask that of him, can’t you see?” Nat asked earnestly. “And if we can’t ask it of each other, then we’re never going to move forward. There’s nowhere to go. We’re stuck. As soon as River Run is safe, we’ll get a quickie divorce, and that’ll be it. Back to friends.”
But even that wasn’t true. Because they couldn’t go back. She could never go back. They’d become something more than friends and they’d shared things that she’d never…
We’ll never be the same again, she thought. This is all I’ll have. This handful of weeks when I got to pretend he was mine and I was his. And they’ll haunt me until the day I die. I’ll never forget… I’ll compare everyone to him.
She felt sick at the idea of another man ever touching her again, at sharing someone else’s bed, at waking up without Rhett by her side, his hand sliding over her stomach.
“I think it’s blanket fort time,” Maddy said, gently pulling her up and grabbing her coat. “And whiskey time.”
The relief that burst inside her made her cry even harder. “I missed you,” she said.
“I missed you too,” Maddy said. “I have hilarious honeymoon stories, but we’ll talk about those later.
By the time Maddy had decided on what food to order, Nat had changed into a pair of bamboo yoga pants and a slouchy sweatshirt with the neck cut out. It was one from college, soft and worn from repeated washings, and it enveloped her like a hug.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed as Maddy as they had built their blanket fort, just as they’d done when they were kids. It was silly, but there was something incredibly comforting about it, and they’d kept up the little tradition whenever things really hit the skids in their lives.
Of course, nowadays, they were using cashmere and chenille blankets rather than twin-bed sheets printed with Snoopy characters. They slipped inside the cozy den, sitting cross-legged like little girls, their stemless wine glasses carefully balanced on their knees.
Maddy took a sip of Chardonnay and nodded her approval. “Have you told him how you feel?”
Nat shook her head.
“And he hasn’t told you.”
“I don’t even know if he feels the same way,” Nat said.
Maddy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. The first time I met him, he could barely keep his eyes off you. Carter and I joked about it the entire ride back. When even Carter notices the chemistry between two people, you know it’s obvious.”
Nat glowered at her and Maddy smirked. “Don’t worry about his feelings,” she said. “He has them. I’m sure he’s expressed them in… other ways already.”
“Oh my God, Maddy,” Nat said.
“How was it?” Maddy asked, wiggling her eyebrows in an entirely exaggerated manner. If Nat wasn’t in a delicate blanket fort surrounded by expensive cashmere, she would’ve flicked some red wine at her.
“I’m not talking about this!”
“Hey, what’s said in the blanket fort stays in the blanket fort,” Maddy said.
“It’s not just about the sex,” Nat said. “It’s about… the intimacy.”
“Elaborate,” Maddy said, cutting a meatball into pieces.
“We were pretending to be newlyweds so Durbin didn’t cry
fraud or something, so we had to act all loved up. And staying at River Run and being in the same house with him, it was just…” She paused, not knowing what she was really saying. “I love my life,” she said, like she needed to remind herself. “I love my job. But I loved it there with him, too.”
“That’s okay, you know,” Maddy said.
“But it’s not,” Nat said. “It can’t be.”
“Why not?” Maddy asked.
“I told you. My life. My job.”
“Why can’t it become your lives and both your jobs?” Maddy asked.
“Um, remember how he despises the city, and I can’t run a sex toy company out of the mountains?” Nat asked and then flushed, because that was bitchy. “Sorry,” she said.
Maddy waved her apology away. “If you want it bad enough, Nat, you could make it work.”
“I don’t see how,” Nat said hopelessly. “He loves that place. and for so many good reasons. The animals depend on him. And that land is him—it’s his heart. How can I ask him to walk away from his heart, even part time, for a place he despises and that makes him positively twitchy? Have you seen him in a city? He hates it. He hates the noise and air, and he’s just this big ball of tension the whole time.
“I can’t see him changing,” she went on. “Which means that I would be doing all the changing. And I am a lot of things, Maddy… I try to be a good boss and a good friend and I’d like to be a good wife someday, but I can’t sacrifice who I am, even for love.”
“You say you can’t see him changing,” Maddy said. “But have you even asked him?”
Nat sighed. “Well, considering we haven’t even talked about our feelings, I think it’d be a little weird to be like, Hey, Rhett, want to come live in the city with me part-time?”
“Right,” Maddy said, circling the rim of her wineglass with her finger. “Hmm. I still think you at least need to talk about it, Nat. You never know what a person is willing to do unless you ask. I know it’s scary, just laying everything out on the table and putting all your fears out there, but if he’s the one, isn’t that worth the risk?”
