“That sounds more like it.”
There was a long silence, and I knew Cal was building up to something. I waited.
“Look, Dane, I’m fucking happy to have you back. We all are. I’ve missed you, baby brother, like you wouldn’t believe…but if being here…isn’t the right move for you…if you find yourself falling back into old patterns…”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
Cal didn’t look convinced. “When it comes to Everly, you’re single-minded…protective to the point…you take risks…”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I repeated.
My brother dipped his chin. “Good.”
We stayed quiet after that, drinking in companionable silence. I missed it, missed him. Bull as well.
We ate dinner, and I hung around for about an hour.
But all I could think about was Everly. So damn close.
I needed to leave before I did something I’d promised Cal I wouldn’t.
I said my goodbyes and was at my bike when Everly walked right out of the barn like I’d summoned her through the sheer force of my desperation to see her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Fuck, how I’d missed her. I’d missed my best friend.
Her auburn hair was down and wild, like it often was. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts and a red tank top, both of which hugged her curves, curves she hadn’t had quite so many of before I moved away.
Everly was short—the top of her head fit under my chin perfectly. She was kind of petite, and now she was also built. A small curvy package.
I clenched my teeth. Don’t go after her. Don’t do it.
I cleared my throat, because my vocal cords were suddenly tight as hell, and because I was a glutton for punishment. Goddammit, I wanted her to fucking look at me.
She spun around, and as soon as her eyes found me, they widened.
I lifted my hand like I was preparing to approach a wild horse, my mouth opening to say something, anything—
Everly took off running in the opposite direction. Fucking running.
I’d tried. Jesus, I’d tried to leave her alone, to give her time, but I couldn’t deal with this, the way it made me feel, the way she had to be feeling to fucking flee from me like I was a goddamn ax murderer.
It was like a gazelle running from a lion; instincts kicked in and there was no holding back. My feet were already moving, pounding across the field after her. “Fucking stop, Everly.”
She veered left, shooting down the side of the barn, and I followed, chasing her around the barn like a damned fool until we ended up back where we started. She shoved open the door to the ranch hands’ quarters as I came flying around the corner.
“Eves, wait…”
She lifted her hand, saluted me with her middle finger, and slammed the door in my face—then locked it.
I stood braced against the doorframe, breathing heavily, heart racing not from the impromptu run—not entirely—but from my fucking desperation to talk to her, from being so close to her.
Being barred from her.
“Let me in, Eves. We need to talk…you know we do.”
There was nothing but silence from inside.
I’d been without her for a year and a half, and it had sucked a lot. More than I could even put into words. I wanted her back. I wanted what we had back.
How the fuck was I going to make this right?
Chapter Two
Everly
I woke to the sound of birds chirping and the sun shining through my curtains.
It was like something out of a fairy tale.
The kind of beauty you’d expect in a book. The princess would fling open her windows and sing to the wildlife outside, inviting them in—
The rooster started up again, shattering my idyllic surroundings with one earsplitting crow, like the surly bird’s life depended on it.
Yep, it was a good thing I’d stopped believing in fairy tales. It happened right after my dad’s helicopter went down, killing both my parents ten years ago. He’d been a commercial helicopter pilot and they were going to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a weekend away. I stopped believing in a lot of things after that.
Then I’d met Dane.
My hand went to my chest and I rubbed at the pain behind my sternum.
I’d been delivered to my new foster home, twelve years old, scared out of my mind and so incredibly sad, and there he was. Dane had watched me from under his overlong hair, through his thick black eyelashes, golden-brown eyes assessing me, and I’d looked right back. Honestly, I hadn’t been able to look away from him.
That angry boy with the curled lip and the chip on his shoulder had scared away everyone who tried to get close to him, but not me—never me. I’d been drawn to him, something between us pulling me closer, from the start. Over time, he’d become my champion, my savior, my everything.
Then my aunt, a woman who shared a father with my mother—the result of an affair—a woman I never knew existed, found out about me and came for me.
And everything had changed.
But Dane remained constant. He sent me a cell phone as soon as he had the money. My aunt didn’t believe in them, so I’d gotten him to send it to one of my friends’ houses, and I kept that phone hidden for years. We told each other everything, called or texted each other every day.
Until he didn’t.
The pain of his rejection still felt like a fresh wound. Now, all of a sudden, he was back, and he wanted to talk? Was demanding that from me like he hadn’t ignored all my attempts to contact him for a year and a half, like he hadn’t made his family keep his whereabouts a secret from me. Me.
His girl.
That’s what he’d always called me.
I shoved him out of my head, or at least tried, and flung back the covers. I didn’t have time for this, didn’t want to think about it, him. I didn’t want to deal with it. It hurt too much.
No, running away from him last night wasn’t helpful or mature, but honestly, it wasn’t a conscious thing. Whenever I saw him, my flight instincts just kicked in. Like I was a freaking startled rabbit and he was a hungry predator. And if I stayed still, if I let him catch me, I’d be devoured.
Dramatic? Yes. But no less true.
While I was with my aunt, she made it clear she didn’t like outbursts of emotion, not for any reason. And for a girl who’d always worn mine on my sleeve, we’d had a serious rough patch for the first few months after I moved in with her.
I quickly learned to lock it all down, all of it, but when Dane left, the floodgates had burst open—or more, exploded—and locking it down had become an impossibility.
Which meant there was no hiding how much I’d missed him. There was no hiding anything I was feeling when it came to him.
He’d see it, he’d see it all, and I’d be sucked back into the Dane vortex. How could I not? And I couldn’t handle another blow from him when I still hadn’t recovered from the last.
I quickly showered and, careful of my stitches, replaced the Band-Aid on my forehead to keep it clean.
The wind coming from the mountains could still be cool, but the midsummer sun had become intense the last few weeks. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a blue tank top, slathered sunscreen all over, shoved on my riding boots, and pulled open the door—
A body fell across the threshold and I screamed…until I saw who it was.
“What the effing eff?” I yelled.
Dane lay sprawled in a heap at my feet, blinking up at me.
Then he grinned, slowly, sleepily, and oh-so familiar. “Hey, how’s my girl this morning?”
I ignored his sleep-roughened voice and nudged his shoulder with my boot. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He pushed up into a sitting position and shrugged. “Fell asleep against your door last night.”
“You’ve been out here all night?”
He yawned. “Apparently.”
“You idiot. You do realize there ar
e wild animals around here, the type that would happily eat your stupid face off?”
He climbed to his feet stiffly and rested his inked hands on either side of the door, blocking my exit and my ability to shut it on his face.
He chuckled. That look in his eyes I’d seen a million times: a bit wild, unpredictable, wicked. “Always did have a way with words, Eves.”
Oh no. No goddamn way was he going to win me over with that smile or that husky chuckle that I’d always loved so much.
“Speaking of faces, what happened?” He tapped his own forehead then motioned to mine.
I inwardly cringed. I was humiliated enough already. No way was I going to tell him I’d brained myself in Tanner’s truck going in for a kiss. My date hadn’t seen me coming and I’d ended up sucking face with thin air, resulting in my head making friends with the bottle he’d been holding instead. After rushing me to the emergency room and dropping me off, it had been radio silence.
Inexperienced dorks obviously weren’t his thing. Perfectly understandable. It had been my third dating disaster since I moved out of my aunt’s home. I was a failure at the whole boy-girl thing, and each attempt had been more humiliating and confidence shaking than the last.
I was hopeless, and Dane didn’t need to know about any of it, which should have been easy since I had no intention of talking to him.
“Get out of my way,” I said, instantly making a mockery of my previous thought. But he wouldn’t move, and I needed him to. “Now.”
He sobered. “Eves, we need to talk.”
“I wanted to talk a year and a half ago. I’m over it now.” Okay, apparently I did have things I wanted to say after all.
He rubbed his palm over his cropped hair. “I…didn’t handle things in the best way, but, Christ, you can’t keep ignoring me like this.”
Dane used to wear his hair longer and dye it different colors. Blue had been his color of choice for a long time. It was all shaven off now, and what I could see was dark, his natural color. The facial piercings were gone, too. I did a sweep of him from head to toe, unable to stop myself.
He was also a lot bigger. I’d noticed before now, of course, from afar. But this close it was impossible to miss. He’d always been tall, was as tall as his brother now and close to his cousin, but he’d been leaner. Not anymore. He was thicker, more solid.
There was no sign of the boy I’d loved, my best friend. None of the softness was there anymore either.
Dane was all man. Muscle and hard lines, and there was scruff on his angled jaw. The jeans he wore looked soft and sat low on his hips, and his T-shirt was black and strained over his wide chest, the sleeves hugging those bulging biceps, showing off all that ink on his arms and hands and the tattoos around his throat.
He was beautiful still, but different. And he seemed more controlled—well, again from what I’d observed of him from a distance. The fact he hadn’t tried to force his way back into my life before now was evidence to that. The old Dane didn’t know the word restraint. If he wanted something, he went after it.
He didn’t seem to smile as easily or as often either.
He was…rougher.
I swallowed, mouth desperately dry all of a sudden. We’d never been anything but friends—though that seemed too small a word for what we were to each other.
All I knew was I’d needed him; he was part of me. I never thought he’d leave me behind like he had. Never.
“I have to get to work,” I said.
Frustration lined his face, but he stepped back when I pushed through the door and followed me outside and into the barn. I grabbed a lead rope hanging on the wall and turned back.
Dane was standing in the door, his eyes angled down. He was looking at my legs, then his gaze moved up to my thighs—and a muscle in his jaw jumped.
I inwardly sighed. He’d always been protective to the extreme. Scared any and all boys away from me; thought everyone was looking to take advantage of me, hurt me. And yes, those years we were living together there had been situations where that was true.
So I’d known where it came from back then. But now, here? Ridiculous. Was he worried the horses might look at my butt? Or the rooster?
“Will you meet me later?” he said, the frustration on his face also clear in his voice.
“Why?” I said. “What’s the point?”
He crossed his arms, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he did, brows lowering. “Why?” he repeated, like I’d said something so absurd he was having trouble comprehending my words. “Are you fucking serious?”
I crossed my arms as well, and his golden-brown eyes dipped to my chest this time. His mouth thinned, that muscle in his jaw jumping again.
I almost rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’m serious.”
His expression had gone hard, those eyes back to wild. “You willing to throw it all away, everything we are to each other?”
I looked at him in disbelief. “Me? You’re the effing one who threw it away.” I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes. I would not shed more tears over him. I wouldn’t, and especially not in front of him. “You threw me away. Not the other way around, Dane.”
He froze, and I didn’t waste a moment. I strode past him and, ignoring the gate, bounded over the fence and out to the field.
When I brought Zephyr in a short time later, Dane and his bike were gone.
Good.
That’s what I wanted, right?
Then why did I feel like he’d abandoned me all over again?
* * *
The next morning, I woke again to the sound of birds chirping, the sun shining, and, yeah, that effing rooster crowing like he was worried the neighboring towns couldn’t hear him.
I got up and looked out the window. Another gorgeous day ahead, doing what I loved most. Living and working on a ranch. Helping Cassy with her breeding program, the kind of work I’d wanted to do since I moved to my aunt’s property and she gave me my first horse.
She might have been strict and cold, distant, but she was the reason I had my love of horses. If it wasn’t for her, I might never have discovered my passion.
My room was stuffy, so I unlocked the door and opened it…
And jumped back with a shriek when Dane fell through again.
Only this time he was in a sleeping bag and had a thermos beside him and a bag with takeout boxes from Dino’s Diner.
“Morning,” he said, voice all sleep roughened.
I watched him in stunned silence as he unzipped his sleeping bag and climbed to his feet. He was smiling, but when his gaze moved over me, taking me in, it slipped from his face.
Color slashed his sharp cheekbones and he growled. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
Huh? I frowned. The ratty white tank I wore to bed had actually belonged to him. I’d stolen it out of his drawer before my aunt came to get me. So yeah, it was old and thin. It came to mid-thigh, was low at the front, and the armholes came halfway down to my waist, but it was comfortable.
Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t wearing a bra.
I wasn’t wearing a bra.
I looked down at myself and blushed. My boobs, which were not small by any definition of the word, were not well hidden by the thin fabric. Not only was there a whole lot of side boob showing, you could see my nipples, and not just the way they were poking out—at Dane—but the darker shade behind the worn white material.
I yanked another shirt out of my laundry basket and shoved it on. “I don’t exactly wear it in public.”
He scowled and was breathing strangely, kinda heavy. “Anyone could have seen you in that thing.”
“I don’t usually have people camped at my door first thing in the morning either, so it’s never been an issue,” I gritted out.
His head tilted to the side and he grabbed the collar of the shirt I’d just pulled on, yanking it to the side to get another look at the tank at my shoulder. “Is that…mine?”
I crossed my arms. “Well, yes.”
> His gaze slid back up. “You’ve been sleeping in it since you moved in with your aunt?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not every night. I do wash it.”
“Why?” he bit out, and I got a flash of the barbell he still had through his tongue.
My attempt at sarcasm was lost on him. I flushed darker but not with embarrassment—with anger. “Because I like clean clothes, a-hole,” I said, purposely avoiding his question.
He did not look amused. “Everly…”
“Why do you think?” I fired at him. “I missed you—is that what you want to hear? You’d been my constant for three years, then my aunt came and I didn’t have you anymore. It was the only way I knew how to be close to you.”
He was quiet for a long time, then he made a rough sound in the back of his throat and moved closer. I couldn’t make myself move away, or run, or back up, not when my heart and head were battling so hard against each other.
“Eves,” he whispered.
“Are you going to keep sleeping against my door until I talk to you?”
“Yeah,” he rasped and moved closer still.
My lips started quivering and I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t stop him, or force him back, because this was Dane. My Dane. Tears filled my eyes and spilled over without my say-so as he closed the gap between us and tugged me into his arms.
No, I didn’t fight it. I couldn’t.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he said against the top of my head, his face buried in my hair. “So fucking much.”
He felt different, but he smelled the same. I wriggled closer. “You hurt me,” I whispered.
“I know. And I’m going to try and explain, if you’ll let me?”
“If I don’t, you’ll just keep showing up, right?” If I knew anything about Dane it was that he was persistent when he wanted to be, single-minded, determined. If I didn’t agree to this, he’d just sleep at my door until I relented.
“Right,” he said.
I lifted my head, looking up at him. “Okay. We can talk…tonight.”
He smiled and my heart, the traitorous sap, melted.
Meant For You: Rocktown Ink, Book 3 Page 2
