I bit my lip, the words that I really wanted to say bubbling up inside me, threatening to rush out. But I kept my cool the only way I knew how. I put myself in his shoes.
I had just beat him in the competition, I had just kissed his little sister, and as far as he believed, my next of kin had set fire to his barn and his shed. Of course he was pissed.
Any red-blooded American man would be.
“Now, Crit, I understand why you’re upset, but I —,”
I didn’t even see his fist coming. I never expected he would actually hit me, but when his fist cracked against my jaw, my ears rang and I could have sworn I saw stars. And then, I saw red. A hot flash of anger rushed over me, and I spun around and threw myself into his gut, rushing him to the ground and punching his ribs as I scrambled on top of him.
Dustin, Seth and Finn ran in just as I sat on him and pulled my fist back to punch him. Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me off of him, as we both began hollerin’ at each other.
“That’s enough, goddammit,” Dustin yelled at us both. “If you don’t stop this fuedin’ right now, I’ll have you both kicked out of the fuckin’ competition, I swear to God Almighty, I will!”
We scrambled to our feet and stared each other down. Blood trickled down my chin and I reached up to wipe it away.
“Stay the fuck away from my sister, Haggard!” Beau spat, as I grabbed my shit and walked out, slamming the door behind me.
***
Lee was waiting at my truck when I reached the parking lot. He was the last person I wanted to see, and it took all my strength not to punch him out for just showing his face.
“What the fuck are you doing here? Half the cops in this county are looking for your sorry ass,” I said.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked, pointing to my bloody lip.
“Nothing. Why are you here?” I asked again.
“Thought I’d hang out at the folks for a few days,” he said.
“Think again,” I said.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“Seriously? You’re going to act innocent, Lee? First, you assaulted Georgia, and claimed you didn’t remember. Then, you set fire to the Hope’s shed, then the Baker’s bar after they cut you off, and then the Hope’s barn? You don’t think maybe the sheriff and the fire chief might have a few questions for you? You don’t think it’s best that maybe you lay low for a while? Are you really that fucking stupid?”
His eyes narrowed as he listened to me.
“You really think I did all that shit?” he asked.
I was at the end of my rope. I was sick and tired of all the fucking drama that was spinning around me and I wanted nothing more than to go home to my quiet cabin and call it a day. A little bit of time spent with Georgia would be icing on the cake. Lee, standing in front of me, like a thousand excuses for stirring up shit, was something I had no patience for in that moment.
“Lee, I wouldn’t put anything past you,” I replied warily.
He shook his head, and I could have sworn I saw a flash of pain in his eyes before he shut down.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” he replied, his voice steely and full of anger. “But you never really had that much faith in me anyway.”
“Show me something different, Lee,” I said, the anger rising in my voice. “All you ever show me is shit. And let me tell you, brother, lately, I’ve had enough shit in my life. You show me something different, and maybe I’ll think something different.”
Lee shook his head, and without a word, walked back to his truck, slammed the door and burned rubber out of the parking lot, his truck fishtailing around the corner until it disappeared from view.
CHAPTER THIRTY
George
“Where the fuck are you going this late at night?” Crit roared as he blocked my bedroom door.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.
“No, I’m not fuckin’ kidding. Beau Haggard is bad news, Georgia, don’t you see that?”
“No, I don’t actually. Now, if you’ll kindly move out of my way, I’d appreciate it.”
“No.”
“Crit, you can’t keep me here like I’m a child or your fucking prisoner or something!” I exclaimed.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, George? What are you trying to prove? Don’t you think I have enough shit to deal with without you laying up with the fuckin’ low-lifes in this town?”
“Beau Haggard is a good man, Crit,” I said, trying to reason with him. “In fact, he reminds me a lot of you.”
He paused briefly, but his mind was too clouded with anger and my comment only further offended him.
“You think he cares about you, Georgia? Those Haggard boys only want one thing from you. Look what Lee did! And I’ve seen the way Finn looks at you, too! What makes you think Beau is any different?”
“I hope he’s not, Crit,” I whispered. “Because I want him just as bad as he wants me.”
“What the fuck, Georgia!”
“I’m a grown woman, Crit! Who I choose to spend time with is none of your business, contrary to what you seem to believe. Just because they died doesn’t mean you’re my boss now!” I was screaming, and I felt the hotness on my cheeks before I even realized I was crying.
Crit looked at me, stunned into silence, and I pushed past him, running out of the house as fast as I could.
I ran past my truck, past the barn, past our fields and then past the Haggard’s farm until I reached Beau’s cabin. He was just walking out as I ran up to him.
“Hey, I was just headed out to meet you,” he said, peering at me approaching in the darkness. “I thought you said to meet at — hey are you crying?”
I threw myself into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. He held me close, stroking my hair silently as he let me cry for what seemed like hours.
Finally, when it seemed as if every tear I could ever cry had escaped from my swollen eyes, I lifted my head and met his eyes.
“Oh, baby,” he said, pulling his head down, his lips meeting mine, as I melted into his embrace.
Somehow, we made it inside his cabin, and as soon as the door shut behind us, our clothes seemed to glide away effortlessly, and before either of us could second guess ourselves, we were tangled together in his bed, our hungry souls holding onto each other as we rocked together, our lips, hands, arms, legs, feet finding every way to touch, inch by inch, until we were connected completely, his hardness sliding into me smoothly, filling me up with the very essence of the man that I had been starving for.
My legs wrapped around his thrusting hips, pulling him deeper into my center as he kissed me passionately, his moans echoing into me as he sought even deeper depths. His cock was huge, filling me completely as he moved inside me, throbbing and twitching as I spasmed around him, begging him for more and more as I clutched him tightly.
“Oh, Georgia, Georgia,” my name was a moan on his lips, repeated over and over in between kisses, his lips, his tongue, his kiss tasting sweeter and hotter with each passing moment.
His thrusts pulled the pleasure from my center like a yearning that had long been begging for release. I opened my thighs wider as he quickened his pace, his cock pounding into me now in a beautiful dance of pain and pleasure, a beating drum that we moved to, our rhythm perfectly aligned with one moment, one sensation, one explosive fiery reward that only we could reap together as our bodies shuddered and came together as one, our souls winding into each other as we cried out, the ecstasy washing over us until we lay panting, spent, breathless on his bed, the sighs of a thousand lovers on our lips, and only this one perfect moment in time in our hearts.
“I love you, Georgia Hope,” Beau whispered, his blue eyes peering into mine in the darkness.
“I love you too, Beau Haggard,” I whispered back, truer words having never passed my lips.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Beau
The flames of the bonfire flickered and sparkled, dancing under the dark midnight sky that was
sprinkled with infinite stars. The Hope’s cabin sprawled behind us, and our two families had gathered to celebrate Jesse’s eighteenth birthday.
The bonfire always seemed to turn into a pissing match between the Hope and Haggard boys, each of us taking turns to throw in the next thing they had found to burn. The fire never seemed to be big enough, tall enough, or strong enough.
Lee was there, so was Finn, right by my side, and yet every one else seemed to be floating out of reach, circulating around me like a May Day parade. Soft colorful ribbons slithered around me, like sensuous calls of a siren’s song, beckoning me to follow them in the darkness, pulling me into the flames of my memory.
I resisted. Calmed my pounding heart and turned away from the heat, my eyes drifting over the group of enchanted fire worshippers, caught up in the magic of the flames that flickered in their eyes, the reflection of the truth, the reflection of regret, the reflection of everything I wished to forget.
I stopped, drawn to the one pair of eyes that were still soft, still present, the only other pair that dared to look away from the flames. Our souls smiled at each other, recognizing the mystery, the old ancient song of chemistry, of risk, of pain, of pleasure.
Georgia’s green eyes taunted me with promise, telling me tales of secrets that we hadn’t lived yet, promising me adventures of which neither of us had dreamed but had already experienced in some crazy, washed-up, parallel universe.
She reached out to me, her soft caress on my face, and I closed my eyes. I opened them again, and blinked in confusion when I saw Marisa’s face instead of Georgia’s.
My silent terror jarred me awake. I jumped, startling Georgia awake in my arms. She stirred gently, and I took a deep breath.
I was here. In my house, with Georgia. Not Marisa. Marisa was gone.
That was a long time ago, I reminded myself, a mantra that almost sounded like permission to forgive, to forget.
Georgia’s hair smelled like heaven, like home, really, a mixture of horses, dirt and flowers. It was all I could do not to give in to the demands of my body and sink myself into her once again, but she seemed to have fallen right back asleep, if she had even woken up at all.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling of my cabin, my head spinning, the feel of her hair like silk on my chest, and the promise of tomorrow on my mind.
I had so much to think about, and yet the fact that I had just made love to Georgia was the one thought that was holding court in my mixed up brain. Part of me couldn’t believe it had happened, part of me couldn’t believe how it happened, and the other part of me couldn’t believe that we had just fallen asleep like an old married couple afterwards. And the most incredible thing of all was how easily we had fallen together, how right it felt, how it felt like coming home.
Granted, it had been a long ass day for both of us.
But still, there was a lot of making up I was going to have to do in the making love department. Georgia hadn’t seen the best of me yet, that was for sure.
If her brothers didn’t kill me first, I thought.
As if reading my mind, Georgia stirred in my arms again, opening her eyes and raising her head to look at me. Every part of me swelled with emotion and hunger as she met my eyes.
With complete conviction, she whispered, “I never want to go home again.”
She kissed me gently on my lips, her warm mouth shooting sparks of electricity right to my swelling cock, and then laid her head back on my chest and went back to sleep.
“You don’t have to, darlin’,” I whispered, taking a deep breath, and tightening my arms around her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
George
I buried my nose in Cherokee’s neck, inhaling his deep therapeutic aroma. I had my arms around his thick neck, and he stood calm and patient, allowing me to sob into his soft fur. He was used to it by now. Since my parent’s accident, Cherokee had endured many pity parties with me.
I shouldn’t have been crying. I should have been ecstatic, blissful, because I had finally slept with Beau, and to be fair, a part of me was. It had been amazingly beautiful, and every cell in my body was still singing from his soft, magical touch.
But I had imagined what it would be like to have sex with Beau many times, and my fantasies never once included me running to his house in the middle of the night with tears streaming down my face and throwing myself into his arms.
I’d never imagined my parents would be dead before my twenty-first birthday was over, either.
Perhaps getting older was just surviving through the continuously reoccurring disappointment of life never turning out how you imagine it will.
He was gone when I woke up. I had been sleeping, hard, and I felt him kiss my cheek, but I barely stirred. Later, I found a note telling me he had an early practice, and a white daisy sitting on his pillow.
I had smiled to myself at the gesture. Beau’s bad boy reputation was being threatened by the intense sweetness I was receiving from him. Each of the times I had spent alone with him, he was a sweet, slow-drawling, devastatingly handsome, attentive cowboy.
The only thing ‘bad’ about him was his past, but how long did one have to pay for such mistakes? He was a man now. When the accident happened, he had been a very young man. It was a young man’s mistake. The Beau that I knew now was an entirely different person, because of that mistake.
He was a good man. Of this, I was certain.
I yearned for a few minutes alone with my mother. She would know just what to say, and she would be open-minded enough to not judge Beau on his past, as the rest of my family was doing.
I hated that my brothers had decided to stop talking to me. Or, had I stopped talking to them? Either way, the rift between us wasn’t getting any smaller.
Cherokee shifted beneath me, and I stood up and wiped my tears on my jeans.
There’s nothing I can do, I thought. I had already done the chores, going straight to the barn after leaving Beau’s, passing the charred remains of the tool barn that my father had built.
That’s what had gotten me crying in the first place, and I had being sobbing through feeding the herd and letting them out in the pasture, and then cleaning the stalls, and giving them all new bedding. It was a lot to do every single day, but they were worth it. Even if I had been crying through it all for the last few hours.
I was saddling Cherokee up for a much-needed ride when Jesse came in. My little brother had been laying low so much, it was a rare sight to see him. I took a good look at him as he walked up to me, and made a note to talk to Crit. He looked a little too thin to me.
“Hi,” I said to him.
“Hey, sis,” he replied, “going for a ride?”
“Yeah, I need some time alone,” I replied, my voice sounding angrier than I meant it to. I wasn’t really mad at Jesse. He had been the least vocal of all of my brothers, and I didn’t mean to take it out on him.
“Have you been eating?” I asked. “You never did show up for dinner the other day.”
He shrugged and looked away.
“Yeah, I guess I wasn’t hungry,” he mumbled.
“Well, that wasn’t the point, Jesse. I wanted us to all be together,” I said, feeling like that had all been a waste of time now. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking down and kicking the dirt with his boot. I could barely see his face at all with the rim of his straw hat blocking my view.
“You okay, Jesse?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he mumbled, turning away from me and heading towards the tack room.
“Okay, see you later, I guess,” I said to his back. Something was off with him, but I guess it was expected. None of us were going to ever be the same again. Jesse was never one to talk about his feelings, anyway.
I wanted to tell him I loved him, and I opened my mouth to call out to him, but I stopped myself. He needed his space.
I guess we all did.
***
Cherokee b
roke through the tree line surrounding LaCroix’s place, and I marveled once again at the beauty of the place. Even if it was rundown and could have used a paint job, it’s age was charming. The fact that it was completely secluded, even unreachable by car, made it a truly magical place.
A lush natural landscape surrounded it, with every flower imaginable blooming at different times of the year. Olly’s wife grew prized roses, and they were in full bloom now, surrounding the house, their unruly and unattended stems still managing to produce perfectly fragrant blooms that were bursting with rich reds and pinks and yellows.
I hoped off Cherokee, letting him graze, as I slowly walked around the house, the sun shining on my skin as I stopped to inhale the heady fragrance of the roses. It was one of my favorite things to do, and as I drank in the sweet scent of the perfect pink flower, a memory of my mother flashed in my head. Her head bent over a pink rose outside of our house, the peel of her laughter as she squealed with delight over the simplest joys in life, the sound of her soft voice as she told me that pink roses always smelled the best.
She was right, I thought. She was right about everything. Since she had been gone, I had been trying desperately to grasp onto every little thing she had ever told me, every bit of advice, big or small. I wanted to remember everything she had ever taught me, and yet, it seemed as if the more I remembered, I realized there was so much I had already forgotten.
I wouldn’t be able to just pick up the phone and call her and ask. She had taught me everything she would ever teach me. If only I had known all those years ago that I would be desperately searching for the memories of what once seemed like insignificant things.
My heart was heavy as I wound around the back of LaCroix’s house. All this time, I hadn’t dared to go in, but as looked at the back of his house, I noticed the back door was slightly ajar. I looked around his property, and everything was calm and quiet. Cherokee grazed calmly at the side of the house.
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