“It’s okay.”
“You know, I remember a time I couldn’t get the two of you to quit holdin’ hands at my table. Seventeen years old and you couldn’t stop touching him.”
I wince. “Things change, Mama.”
“Mm-hmm, and sometimes things change so much that we find ourselves right where we need to be.” She walks over to the counter and picks up my plate before setting it down in front of me. I bite my lip to hide my smile. Once upon a time, if you left my mother’s table without finishing your plate, what was left of your meal went to the chickens and the dogs. I lift one half of the sandwich and dig in, rolling my eyes back in my head as mustard and home-cooked roast beef roll over my tongue, and I moan. Mama grabs two glasses from the cabinet and fills them with sweet tea, then she pulls out the stool beside me and sits.
“So, Colton Hayes has grown up a lot,” Mama ventures.
“Yep.”
“He’s a fine young gentleman and he’s been such a great help around here. The ranch wouldn’t still be running without him and West.”
“Well, he always did love this place.”
“He was devastated when you left. Daddy found him drinking himself to dea—”
“That’s enough, Mama,” West booms, and we both turn to see my brother, livid as he stands in the entrance to the kitchen. I hadn’t even heard the sneaky bastard come in.
“Well, someone has to tell her.”
“Tell me what?”
“Nothing,” West snaps at the same time Mama opens her mouth. “You ran off to marry someone else. You weren’t here, so you don’t need to concern yourself with the fallout after you left.”
“I didn’t run away to marry someone else. I ran to get the hell away from … this.”
“And what exactly is wrong with this?” Mama’s tone is icy as she turns her own livid expression on me.
I pinch the bridge of my nose to stave off a headache. It seems like every time I open my mouth, I’m jamming my foot in it. “Nothing, Mama. I just needed a change. I wanted to do something different. Something no woman in this family has ever done.”
“Bullshit,” West growls. “You left because you couldn’t stand the sight of Colt after what happened.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I felt. You have no idea what we went through, what I went through.”
“Maybe if you’d stayed, we might’ve. You broke a lot more than just Colt’s heart when you left. You broke ours too.”
“Well, there ain’t nothing to be done for it now, is there?”
“I guess not. So how long before you’re back to your rich fiancé and your fancy New York City apartment?”
“Geez, West. Why don’t you make it a little clearer that you can’t wait to be rid of me?”
“I’m just looking out for everyone. You ain’t just Winchester Wild. You leave a trail of chaos wherever you go, little sister. You always have. You’ll forgive me if I’m on damage control while you’re in this house.”
“That’s enough, West. Your daddy hasn’t even been gone a week and already you’re chasing away his only daughter.”
“I ain’t chasing anyone away.”
“No, because Lemon’s made of tougher stuff than that, but you’re trying for all you’re worth.”
“I’m just making sure we’re all—”
“Why don’t you head back to work and let me worry about this family? We certainly don’t need protecting from Lemon,” Mama says.
“Yes, ma’am.” He grabs his hat off the rack by the back door and heads out, slamming the screen back on its hinges.
I let out a sigh. “Maybe I should just stay at the cabins?”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“They don’t want me here, Mama.”
“Then they know where the door is and how to use it.” She pats my hand and I squeeze hers back. “Now, come help me with this pie. We got a lot of baking to do for your daddy’s wake.”
“Mama, have you even stopped since you left the hospital?”
“I’ll stop when I’m …” she trails off and for a beat, I just watch her, waiting for her to finish a sentence I must have heard her utter a thousand times before.
“Mama?”
Tears form in her eyes and she wipes them away with the backs of her hands and keeps rolling out her pastry on the counter. “I’m fine. I’m fine. You know he wouldn’t want me to lie about, cryin’ over things I can’t change. This family ain’t gonna feed itself.”
“This family knows how to fix themselves a sandwich.”
She makes a tsking sound. “So, when are we getting to meet this handsome fiancé of yours? Is he flying in for the funeral?”
“Um … we broke up.” I take a bite of a potato chip and chew, thinking about how I stormed out. “Well, it wasn’t so much a breakup as it was me kicking him in the unmentionables after I found him cheating on me with my best friend.”
“Brooklyn? Oh, Lemonade. I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s only okay if you castrated him.”
I laugh. “I’m pretty sure that’s still illegal in New York, Mama.”
She shakes her head. “Well, it shouldn’t be. You want me to send your brothers after him?”
“No. He isn’t worth it.”
“No, he isn’t. There’s never been anyone worthy of my little girl but—”
“Please don’t say Colt. Things are different now. We can’t go back to who we were.”
Mama raises her hands in a warding gesture. “Okay. No more talk of Colton.”
I sigh and try to figure out why I fell apart the second my high-school boyfriend touched my hand, but I haven’t shed a tear over walking out on the man I was going to marry. Why am I not more upset about my engagement ending? Why haven’t I cried about it? I’m not even that mad. What does that say about our relationship?
She nods and whispers, “Well, you know what your daddy always said—it’s no good cryin’ over spilt milk now, Lemonade. You just gotta do your best to clean it up.”
“I wish I knew where to begin.” I climb off the stool and walk around the counter to help Mama. I learned how to be a strong, independent woman from her, and Colt and my brothers may not want me here, but it’s clear that this family needs me now more than ever. Maybe even just as much as I need them.
CHAPTER SIX
Colton
I finish mucking out Bye Bye Belle’s stable. She’s close to foaling and irritable as all hell, so I reach into my pocket and pull out a sugar cube before offering it to her in the flat of my hand. She takes it and I rub her nose and give her a little loving because God knows she needs it right now. We both do.
Fuck.
Lemon Goddamn Winchester. I never thought I’d see her again. Especially not when her mama said she was engaged to be married. When she first left, I didn’t think it was gonna stick, but as the days passed and not having her in my life anymore got worse and worse, I gave up hope of her ever coming back to me. Now I wish I hadn’t prayed so hard for her return because those old wounds that I tried to stitch up just burst open, and I feel as though my entrails and internal organs are in plain view for everyone to see. Especially her.
Footsteps echo down the stable corridor and I yell at Wade to get a wriggle on. When there’s no answer, I swallow hard because I know it ain’t Wade who’s just walked in.
“Not Wade,” she says.
“No, I guess you’re not.”
“I could never be that annoying.”
“Well …” I pick up a brush and comb Belle’s coat.
She whinnies and Lemon enters the stable and pets her nose. “You poor darlin’. Not long to go now, huh?”
“She’s ready to drop any day.”
“She’s a little old to be foaling, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. A young colt got out through a broken fence and found his way into her pasture.” I duck under her neck and brush her other side. “We were worried for a while she
was going to lose it.”
I glance at Lemon. She ain’t looking at me. She’s staring at the stable across the row, two doors down from this one. “Where the hell is Sleep’n Pete?”
Shit. Lemon walks over to the stable and my eyes follow her every move. She turns back to me, her jaw set and her forehead all pinched. I swallow hard and sigh. “He was gettin’ on and he—”
“No!”
“He changed after you left, Lemon. We all did. No one could ride him. No one could even get near enough to him, and then one of the ranch hands was dumb enough to try. He got maybe three yards before Pete threw him from the saddle, but Pete injured himself too. He was lame.”
“No. You didn’t?”
“We had to.”
“Who did it—who was this ranch hand and who the hell killed my horse?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s gone now. Your daddy fired him.”
“When did this all happen?”
“About a year after you left.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because no one thought you’d come back. I mean, hell, you couldn’t even stay for me, for us. You just left and no one knew until it was too late …”
“Too late for what?” She shakes her head. “The damage was already done. Me sticking around wasn’t going to change that.”
“It was too late to stop you,” I finish, but the point is moot. It’s clear she didn’t want me to try and change her mind. If she did, she wouldn’t have run out on me in the middle of the night.
“Where did you bury my horse?” Her voice breaks over that last word, and all I wanna do is pull her close, kiss her, and take away the sadness in her eyes. But it ain’t my job to ease her heartache anymore. She saw to that the second she left. “Colt?”
I sigh. “In the field near our tree.”
Her features crumple, for just a second, and then she puts on a brave face and leaves the stable without looking back.
I don’t know how to talk to her now. I don’t know how to open my mouth and not let all that shit pour out because the truth is, I’m full of it. I’m angry, but it’s more than that. I’m fucking broken. I’ve been bottling this shit up for years, and I can’t help but just want her to hurt too. I just need to know she feels something, anything.
All I wanna do is take her in my arms and hold her, but twelve years of bitterness and longing means I’ll never let her get close enough again. She was my whole fucking world, and she just up and left without a backward glance. Now that she’s back, I need to remember that she’s the one who broke us because all I want to do is forgive her. All I want is to bury myself inside her and finally find my way home. As if I’m the one who’s been away all this time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lemon
I pick two of my mama’s roses from the garden and saddle up Teraway to ride out. It’s been a good long while since I did this, long before I left the ranch. I chose one of the wilder horses used for roping cattle, as if I have something to prove, and head through the west pasture to a place I knew like the back of my hand growing up. The red oak stands tall in the distance, and the closer I get the more I realize that it hasn’t changed a single bit. I climb off the horse and tether it to the stump Colt had fixed in place years ago. When we were teens, we came here all the time. Every spare second we weren’t doing chores, we were making out at the base of this tree or whiling away long, hot summer days at the watering hole.
I take the roses from the saddlebag and frown at the bruised petals. Two crosses lay to the left of the tree, and I place a flower at the base of each. You’d think I’d be used to crying by now, but I’m surprised by the tears that stream down my face and the sobs that wrack my body.
“I’m so sorry I left you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. You were the best horse—the best friend—any girl could ask for.”
The ATV cuts through my quiet eulogy and I tip my head back and close my eyes, just praying for some reprieve, for a single minute where someone’s not yelling at me for leaving them.
“Lemon?” My brother’s voice is soft, softer than I think I’ve ever heard it as he rounds the oak.
“I just really need a minute, Wade.”
“Look, I’m sorry I was kind of a dick to you.”
I open my eyes and turn to face him. “Kind of?”
He nods and lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Well, okay, a huge dick.”
“It’s fine. It’s not like I don’t deserve it.”
“Are you okay? Colt told me you didn’t take the news of Pete’s death well.”
“Why didn’t none of y’all call me?”
“Would you have come home even if we did?”
“Probably not.”
He’s right. Nothing could have pulled me back home at that stage of my life. Not even my best friend dying.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” I’m no longer sure if I’m talking about our father or my horse. With Daddy gone, seeing Colt, and then finding out my horse died because of some idiot ranch hand is just the icing on a craptastic cake.
“That horse was never anything but wild, Lemonade. You’re the only one who could tame him.”
I glare at my brother. “He didn’t have to die because he didn’t trust other people.”
“No. He didn’t, but what’s done is done, and no amount of wishin’ is gonna undo it.”
I nod, because he’s right. I never thought I’d see a day when I’d say that Wade Winchester is right. Twice. A tear rolls down my cheek, and he pulls me to him and wraps his strong arms around my shoulders. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. He just lets me cry into his T-shirt and he rubs my back in soothing circles. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed this. Family, hugs, people who know you and who’ve loved you from the second you opened your eyes. Maybe being home isn’t so bad after all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lemon
Seventeen years old
I walk Sleep’n Pete out of the stable and through the west pasture. It’s just after midnight and I can’t risk his hooves waking my daddy or brothers as he thunders away from the yard. I glance at the stars overhead and the fireflies sparking in the distance like tiny green light bulbs flashing on and off, helping me find my way in the dark.
When we’re far enough from the ranch house, I hoist myself up into the saddle and nudge Pete’s sides with my boots. He bolts through the west pasture, and I ride the whole way as if the devil were on my back just to get to Colt. I can make out the lanterns and the shape of his body long before I come to a stop in front of our tree, and my heart trips all over itself at the prospect of meeting him, of touching him, without the fear of anyone catching us. I slide from the stirrups, spooking Colt’s horse Knievel in the process, and I throw myself into Colt’s waiting arms, kissing him like I’ll never get the chance again.
He cups my cheeks with his hands and pulls away. “Hi. I wasn’t sure you were coming.”
“I had to wait until Daddy went to sleep. He’s been staying up later than usual.”
“Do you think he knows?”
I laugh. “Well, considering we’re both not dead, I’m gonna go with no.”
Colt shakes his head and peppers my face with kisses. “I don’t like this sneaking around we’ve been doin’.”
“I want you to make love to me,” I whisper, running my hands up under his T-shirt, caressing the hard ridges and valleys of each clearly defined muscle.
“Whoa! Slow down there, Lemonade.”
“Stop callin’ me that. And I’m serious. I love you, Colton Hayes. I want you to be my first.”
“We got time, Lemon. We’ve got all the time in the world—”
“Then we should be using it doin’ what we love.”
He chuckles and places a kiss to my nose. “I can wait. We don’t need to rush into anything right now.”
“I want you, Colt. I don’t want to wait. This isn’t something I’m going to change my mind about.”
“Why not? It’s not like anyone else is out here at this time of night to see us.”
He leans down and kisses me, tender at first and then our kisses become deeper, needier, and much more insistent. He walks me backward toward the blanket at the base of our tree. I stumble into him and we sink to the ground, his lips on mine and my hands in his hair. Colt kneels as he grasps the hem of my shirt between his fingers and slides it over my body, discarding it on the dewy grass. His Adam’s apple bobs as he takes in my shirtless breasts. My nipples bead against the tepid summer breeze and I’m suddenly nervous. We’ve spent so many nights just like this one, touching, kissing, and getting lost in one another, but all of that was above our clothing and I’ve never felt more exposed. I never thought I’d like it this much either.
Colt reaches out and traces his warm fingers over my collarbone and down my chest until he’s cupping my breast in his hands. He pinches my nipple and sensation bolts through me like an arc of lighting across a black Texan sky. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful.”
I smile coyly and bite my lip. “Your turn.”
I grab his T-shirt and yank on it. Colt removes it and tosses it aside with lightning speed. Colt’s been working my family’s ranch since he was old enough to ride a horse and lift a bale of hay—but even knowing he was all hard-won muscle, even feeling him through our clothes when we made out, the images in my head clearly didn’t do him justice.
I reach out and touch his chest. He covers my hand with his and guides it over the hard planes of his abdomen to the bulge in his pants. Together we rub him through his jeans and his free arm wraps around my body and pulls me to him. I straddle him and lean down to kiss him, rocking back and forth in his lap. Colt grabs my hips and slides me over his dick. I gasp at the desperation in his movements. We’ve done this a few times now, but every time I’m this close to him, feeling his obvious desire for me against my pussy, my body is on fire. I work my hips faster, and Colt guides me with his hands on my ass. I lean forward so I’m close enough to kiss him, and he drives his tongue in my mouth as his hands slip between our slick bodies and squeeze my breasts.
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