by Lexie Ray
I hadn’t before, but I did suddenly, and all at once, fighting every muscle and tendon in my body, begging them not to waver, to stay upright, to continue to carry me in everything I still needed to do.
“I guess I am a little tired,” I allowed.
“That’s the understatement of the day,” she muttered sarcastically. “It’s almost dawn, you know. The start of a brand new day, and you haven’t slept a wink.”
“There’s just too much to do,” I said. “I’ll just gargle some coffee or something and get started again.”
“If you do that, you’ll be a danger to yourself and everything around you,” Zoe said. “Come on. Take a break. Even just a few hours napping will do you good.”
I opened my mouth to argue and closed it again. I was having to focus so much energy on just the simple task of staying standing that I knew Zoe was right.
“I guess I will go take a little nap,” I sighed.
“I’ll just check and see if anyone wants or needs anything around here,” she said.
I was doing my post-ranch ritual, standing under a spray of water turned as hot as I could stand, willing the smell and the dirt and sweat away with the industrial-grade soap I was scrubbing myself with, when I jumped at the touch of a small hand on my shoulder.
I hadn’t known what to expect. Not after that sudden, joyful kiss in the barn. I hadn’t expected anything, already girding myself against disappointment. It had been an accident, that kiss. So many kisses before it had been accidents, too — small actions sprung up because of an overflowing of emotions. But when I turned around and saw that Zoe was completely naked, ready to share at least a shower and perhaps something more with me, it was like I’d died and gone to heaven.
She gave me a small smile, laid her finger against my lips, warning me to be quiet, then replaced that finger with her lips, kissing me softly before breaking it just as quickly.
“This is complicated,” she said, pressing her forehead to mine.
“This is complicated,” I repeated cautiously, desperate to say the right thing, terrified that I would inadvertently frighten her away. I didn’t understand how badly I’d needed her until I had her in my arms, slippery, skin to skin, standing under the shower spray.
“This is complicated,” she said again, “but I’m done giving a fuck about it.”
And then we were really kissing, hot, her breasts sliding against me, fingernails digging into my arms, aggressive and needy and vulnerable all at once. She broke the kiss and blinked up at me, water droplets clinging to her long eyelashes. I looked right back at her for as long as I was able, until my heart constricted so painfully that I had to grab on to her and squeeze her to me. In that moment, her eyes had said everything to me. They’d begged me not to hurt her, to make her feel good, to help her forget about whatever lay coiled up in her past. I would do anything in my power to do right by her. I cared about her so deeply that it was difficult to understand how we’d waited so long before sinking into the things we felt for each other.
I bent forward and picked her up, encouraging her to wrap her arms around my neck. It took some doing, but I found the right height and angle to slip the tip of my cock right into the opening of her pussy, waiting for her to give me the go ahead, which she did with a frantic nod. I was almost painfully hard, but she was slick inside, and I knew it wasn’t just the shower water raining down around us. She wanted this just as badly as I did.
She suckled my neck to keep herself quiet as I began thrusting up and into her, and I could’ve sworn that her mouth was hotter than the water. Her teeth spiked my pleasure with the sweetest pain, and I ached for her even with her in my arms. I wasn’t afraid of slipping and falling in the shower and ruining all of this. I just somehow knew I wouldn’t, that I had something too precious in my possession to let anything bad happen.
Zoe bit down on my collarbone so hard that I was afraid she’d draw blood, but I knew the way her body was clenching, arms looking to choke the life out of me, her pussy taut around my cock, that she was coming. The realization stunned me and stimulated me simultaneously, and I joined her in that climax, belatedly realizing that this was the scene of a certain jerk-off session I’d had in honor of the woman who had sought me out for pleasure.
When I thought it was safe to, I lowered Zoe back down so she could stand on her own two feet, and for a while, we just held each other, mesmerized that there was still hot water falling around us, bone tired and satisfied deeply.
“Goodnight, Chance,” she whispered, kissing me briefly before stepping out of the shower. She was gone by the time I got myself together, the water turned off, and dried off with a towel.
I fell asleep almost instantly when I hit the bed with a smile on my face, and the knowledge that this was the beginning of something really, really good.
Chapter 4
When I heard the beating on the door, I welcomed it. I didn’t know how I’d ended up doing so much paperwork. I wasn’t built for it, wasn’t designed to sit hunched over a table, squinting at rows of figures and words. I’d be happier astride a horse, out in the sunshine, riding with the herd or along the fence lines of the ranch. Maybe I’d even help Avery with his dude ranch tours once we made the final approvals for bookings. Something about the prospect of teaching people about this way of life was immensely appealing. This was my way of life, our way of life. We’d fought to make it this far, and we’d do anything in our power to keep the ranch going.
Yes, if we ever really, really made it on the ranch, I was hiring an accountant, an office manager, or both. Someone else could take care of this paperwork while I enjoyed the spread of land in front of me, the horse beneath me, and the family I cared for.
If I was turning into a sentimental old fool, then so be it. It was because of Zoe, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. She made me so happy, so eager to embrace the good in life that it was easier to deal with the bad — also known as budgets and payroll and taxes and invoices and purchase orders. Someone had to manage all that boring stuff, but if it was what I needed to do to keep the ranch going, I’d do it. Usually, the paperwork wasn’t even the worst thing going on here. I wasn’t sure who I had to thank for the good luck with the weather, and the lack of theft-related activity.
Whoever was knocking on the door saw fit to do so again, making me realize that I’d gotten lost in my own thoughts. Maybe I really was getting old.
“Is anybody in here? Chance?” Zoe called from the kitchen. “I’ve got shit all over my hands.”
“I hope you mean food products, and not actual shit,” I called back, standing up. “I’m here. Sorry. I’ll get it.”
I grinned at her as I passed by the kitchen — she had somehow managed to coat herself in her entirety in a thin film of flour — and stepped to the front door. I didn’t think we were expecting any shipments today, and those usually got taken down to the barn, but there was really no telling. It could be someone looking for the clinic or for Emmett and Peyton, or even just a new delivery truck driver taking this route for the first time.
I opened the door and lost some of my optimism, that feel-good effervescence that had me thinking about how good I had it here on the ranch with Zoe and my family by my side. It was hard to explain. I’d never seen the man standing in front of me before in my life, but there was something about him that made me check my smile and tighten up.
“Can I help you?” I asked, hating myself a bit for the uncertainty in my voice. This guy didn’t look like he tolerated much uncertainty. I also doubted that anyone could help him. He was dressed in dirty jeans and scuffed construction boots, a torn T-shirt rolled up at the shoulders. He was well muscled and strong looking, but had a softness in the middle that I recognized came from drinking too many beers to go along with the hard work that had honed the rest of his body. There were several tattoos on his arms that I could see — a pinup girl, a longhorn skull, barbed wire crisscrossing a heart, some generic tribal symbols. He was fairly covered
with them, but that wasn’t what gave me pause.
It was the eyes. They were dark and hungry, angry for something that hadn’t yet been named. He’d shown up on this doorstep with an ax to grind, and I was almost afraid to try and figure out what it was.
“Zoe live here?” he slung, accent so thick I could barely understand him, and monosyllabic to boot. I frowned and looked him over again until I finally understood just who had showed up at my doorstep.
I’d never seen any photos of Forrest Holland. I’d never cared to. But I knew it was him, knew it from the way he carried himself, knew that he had finally figured out where Zoe was and decided to show up and do something about it.
“She doesn’t,” I said, looking at him appraisingly. Could I take him in a fair fight? Maybe. But that was only if he wasn’t packing any weapons, and this looked like the kind of guy who fairly bristled with them.
“Not what I heard,” he said, surprisingly laconic for the kind of question he was asking. “She’s my wife, and I’ll have her back now.”
Wife? I knew she shared a last name with him, but I hadn’t been aware they were married. That made me a home wrecker, in the most literal sense of the term, but from what I understood, Forrest was the man who wrecked homes the most.
“Sorry I can’t help you,” I said, and started to shut the door before he jammed his boot into it.
“I know she’s here,” he said. “They told me she was living on the Corbin Ranch, and this is the Corbin Ranch, isn’t it?”
“The ranch is a big place,” I said, pointing behind him to try and get him to look. He didn’t. “I don’t know if she’s living here. I just know she’s not here in this house.”
“I’m not stupid,” he drawled. “The only other house is the Summers house, and she isn’t there. She works at the Corbin house, which is what this is, and you look awfully like Chance Corbin.”
I had no idea where he’d gotten all this information, but all he really had to do was feign friendliness with anyone in town to get my life story, along with all of my brothers and the women who loved them. It was part of the small town mentality. I couldn’t blame anyone for it.
“Get your foot out of my door,” I said, dropping my polite facade. “If you refuse, I will call the police.”
“You think I give a damn about the police?” He had a crooked smile that I didn’t like one bit. “All I want to do is talk to my wife.”
“I’m not your wife, asshole.” Zoe had apparently heard the commotion and come to see what was going on.
“You don’t have to talk to this guy if you don’t want to,” I told her, but she just shook her head at me.
“What do you want, Forrest?”
“What’s mine,” he said, leering at her in a way that raised my hackles.
“There’s nothing here that’s yours,” she said, wary but haughty. “Get on back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”
“There was a time where you never would’ve dared to speak to me like that,” he said, grinning. “Can’t wait to beat that out of you again.”
I put myself between Zoe and Forrest. “Say something like that again, and it’s not the police you’ll have to be worried about.”
That grin just wouldn’t leave his face, not even when he was under threat. “I just want to say my piece and I’ll be on my way.”
“Let him say whatever he has to say, Chance,” Zoe said. “Otherwise, we’ll never get rid of him. Go on, idiot. What do you want?”
“I want my wife back,” he said. “And I want my son.”
“Like I said,” Zoe said, pretending patience, “I’m not your wife. And you’re not good to Toby, so you’re not going to get to see him.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to see him. I said I wanted him.”
“That’s not happening, either,” Zoe said.
“You’re not hearing me, woman,” Forrest growled, the shine of his game wearing off. “That boy is mine, and I want him living with me — not with these stuck-up pricks. I’ll go to the courts if I have to. They have to hear me. I made that boy.”
“And I’ve been raising him even better than you ever could,” she said. “The courts would laugh in your face.”
“I bet they’d give me weekends.” The smile was back. “Weekends with just me and my boy. Think of how fun that would be. All the things I could teach him.”
“Get the fuck away from us,” Zoe said, shrinking away from him. “You’re not wanted here.”
“You heard her,” I said. “Go, or I’ll make you go.”
“You think about what I said,” he warned, not bothering to look at me. “Be an awful sad day when child services have to march Toby on out of here just because you wouldn’t let him see his pa.”
“Go,” I said forcefully, closing the door in his face.
I turned to see if Zoe was all right, but she’d already returned to the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said softly, following her in there.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, her voice shaking, her back to me. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, now, before dinner, so you’d best leave me be.”
“Are you okay?”
“Right as rain,” she said with false cheeriness. “Let me just cook.”
“Zoe …” I took her gently by the shoulder and turned her around, surprised to find that she was weeping.
“He’s right,” she said, trembling. “Toby’s his biological son. He has a right to pursue custody.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“What if he tries to take us? I can’t go back there. I can’t be that person anymore.”
“Also not going to happen, Zoe.”
“I’m just all alone in this,” she said, looking everywhere and nowhere. “I’m a single mother. The court’s going to give him a chance at custody. He’s a great manipulator. He’ll clean up and talk nice and convince the judge that he isn’t a piece of shit, and what will I do then? I’m just a single mother. I cook and clean for a living? What am I supposed to do?”
"Marry me, Zoe," I said, finally forcing the words past my teeth, afraid that I would vomit. I said it so quickly, the syllables jumbled, that I was terrified she'd ask me to repeat myself. But judging from the way Zoe's face paled, the way she stumbled backward a few steps, I knew she'd heard me perfectly fine the first time.
She'd heard me, and what she'd heard had shocked her. It had surprised her so thoroughly that it had dried the tears that had been falling out of her eyes. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
I wanted to tell her a million different things, to take it all back, to beg her to take me, but all I could do was wait and let her come up with whatever response was inside of her.
"Don't be stupid, Chance," she said at long last, fumbling for a chair and scraping it along the floor in an awkward eagerness to plop down in it. There wasn't an ounce of grace in her jerky movements, her back knocking against the back of her chair.
I swallowed hard and wished I could take this offer of an escape, but I couldn't. This was too important. It was something I could do for her that she couldn't do for herself. It was the only way I could think of to help her beyond physical comfort or emotional support. I could marry her.
"Think about it," I said, hoarse with anxiety. "If I marry you, Forrest won't have a claim anymore. If I marry you and adopt Toby, he never has any hope of fucking you in court."
I watched as Zoe's brain processed this information, nervous that she would mull it over and still find it too horrible to comprehend.
"That's a hell of a reason to get married," she said after way too long. "I don't fucking know, Chance."
I inhaled deeply and exhaled the same amount, trying to make room for the right thing to say, the thing that would convince her this was right.
"I know it would work," I cajoled. "It's not romantic, but it's better than the alternative. And we have some sort of connection, don't we?"
She snorted, and I flinched. "If by some k
ind of connection you mean we fuck at every goddamn given opportunity, then I guess you're right. That is some connection."
"I ... care for you," I said, gulping. "And I really think this is the best solution, for the moment."
"There isn't a momentary solution for Forrest," Zoe muttered darkly. "He's a cancer."
"If we get married, I can adopt Toby," I said suddenly, inspiration striking swift and true. "That would solve a lot of things, wouldn't it? We'd be married, Toby would have me on paper as his father, and that would loosen Forrest's claim, right?"
She gnawed her lip. "I don't know, Chance. Forrest is Toby's biological father, after all. That's something."
"It is something, but not enough for a judge to grant him sole custody." I leaned forward, willing Zoe to take me at my word. This concept had become so important to me, even if I'd asked her to marry me almost on a whim. "Consider the fact that you and I are gainfully employed, in stable jobs."
"Well, as long as the cattle aren't being stolen and the rain is falling regularly," she said.
"But things are good right now," I said. "Right?"
"That's right."
"And so in addition to our jobs, Toby has his own room in a fine house, a ranch full of people who care for him, and is regularly attending school."
"All of that is true, but I don't know what you're getting at."
I took her hand, tentative, afraid she'd pull it away, but she didn't.
"It means that, if we're married and I adopt Toby, the judge will recognize that we can give Toby a better life than Forrest can. Your ex might have a job somewhere around here, but God only knows where he lives. It wouldn't be a good environment for Toby. Anyone could see that."
"Anyone could see that and everyone sees that," Zoe said. "All I need is for the judge to understand."
"I think we have a fighting chance of that happening," I said. "If we get everything in order, I'd bet on us."
"This is the well being of my son we're talking about, not a damn football game," she warned mildly, arching her eyebrows.
