Nolan closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath before he opened his eyes and looked at me.
“When I turned around and saw you in Saryn’s kitchen, I knew it was fate. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. I was meant to see you that day in Paris, I was meant to come back to Texas, and you were meant to be there. Then, you kissed me, and I knew it was love. It was in your kiss, Nolan. And I know I’ve experienced that love before; I felt it in the depths of my soul all those years. I feel it when you look at me now.”
“Linz, please…”
A rush of something mixed with fear and anger took over. “Don’t stand there and tell me I’ve never loved you before, Nolan. Do not lie to me because I feel it here.” I pressed my closed fist into my chest. My eyes filled with tears as I went on. “I ache with it. I laid in bed last night and you were the only thing I could think about. That kiss, your smile. The way my body warmed simply by watching you with those kids. I loved you, I love you, and I don’t know if you ever loved me—”
“Yes! God, yes. I love you so much, Linz.”
I inhaled sharply. “Love? You still love me?”
He rushed to me, cupped my face in his hands, and leaned his forehead against mine. His breathing was so ragged, like he had run uphill for miles to get to this one spot. To get to this very moment. To tell me what I had a feeling he’d been wanting to tell me for years now.
“I’ve never stopped loving you. Never. I’ve been waiting, Linz. For eight damn years, I’ve been waiting for you.”
I closed my eyes and felt a sob finally slip free.
With his forehead still pressed to mine, he shook his head and whispered, “Please don’t cry. God, please don’t cry.”
“Say it again, Nolan. Please.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, and I nearly dropped to the ground when I saw twin tears slip free and roll down his cheeks. I lifted my hands and brushed them away with the pads of my thumbs.
“Please,” I whispered.
He opened his eyes and pulled slightly away as he met my gaze. “I love you.”
Smiling, I felt my heart do a crazy little dip as my stomach followed right along. “I know this is crazy, and I cannot believe I’m saying this, but I know it’s true. I love you too, Nolan.”
“Fuck,” he mumbled as he pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was full of need and passion, and eight years of locked-up feelings between both of us burst free in that one moment of truth.
“Nolan, I want you,” I said as I pulled my mouth from his. “I want you.”
He looked stunned. Then he stumbled back and nearly fell. I reached out and grabbed onto his arm.
“Do you not want me?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice coming out strained. “I want you more than anything.”
He looked around at where we were.
“Will you take me to the cabin now?”
My heart thundered in my chest as I waited for him to respond. My God. I had just asked this man whom I had only known for less than twenty-four hours—yet somehow knew that I’d known him much longer than that—to take me somewhere and sleep with me. Who in the hell was I?
“No,” he finally got out. Then, he shook his head. “I mean, yes. But we can’t…we can’t be together. Not there.”
I nodded and tried not to look as devastated as I felt. I plastered on a smile that I was positive looked forced. Why in the world had I let my emotions take over?
Why?
Nolan
I COULDN’T HEAR a damn thing. My heart slammed against my chest, in my ears, at every pulse point.
Linnzi stood there, a sad smile on her face as she drew in a breath and then looked past me. “Should we keep walking?”
I was sure I stared at her like she had grown three heads. “What?”
“Our walk, should we keep going?”
Her sudden casual switch threw me.
“No. I mean, we can if you want to.”
She nodded and started down the trail, or what she thought was the trail from where we had originally been walking.
I shook my head to clear all the damn noise in there. As she walked by me, I reached for her arm and she stopped. “You have no idea how desperately I want to take you right here, right now, Linnzi. I have done nothing but dream of being with you. You’re not the only one who woke up affected by dreams. I’ve had my cock in my hand so many times, and you were always the vision in my head as I called out your name when I came.”
Her mouth formed a small O, and her cheeks turned bright pink.
“Don’t think for a minute I don’t want you. The only reason I said no is because there’s people there. We wouldn’t be alone. And to be honest with you, I don’t want to mess this up.”
She stared at me with a confused smile. “Mess it up how?”
I closed my eyes and tried to form cohesive words. “I’ve got an inner battle going on inside of me. I want to tell you everything, Linz. God, I want to tell you everything. But I have this fear that if I tell you or you remember, you’re going to hate me. Hell, hate a bunch of people.”
She gasped. “Hate you?”
With downcast eyes, all I could do was give her one nod.
“Did you cheat on me?”
My head snapped up to meet her gaze. “I have never cheated on you and have been nothing but faithful to you these last eight years.”
Her eyes widened in shock as she whispered, “What?” Then suddenly, her hand came up to her mouth. “Oh my God. We were together when the accident happened.”
I felt my entire body stiffen.
“We were dating, weren’t we?”
Even though I tried not to let it happen, I sagged slightly in relief. “Yes. We were…” I stopped myself before I told her we were engaged.
A hint of a wobbly smile appeared on her face. “Did we have a fight?” she asked.
“No.”
Suddenly, the tightness in her face disappeared. “I don’t care. I don’t care what happened, why it happened, how it happened. I don’t care. I do not care.” She almost sounded frantic. “I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You came back to me, or I came. It doesn’t matter. We’re together. That’s all that matters now.”
I cupped her face in my hands and wiped her tears away. “Linz.”
Sobs escaped as she spoke. “No, Nolan, don’t. Please don’t. I don’t want to remember. I mean, I want to remember us, but I have my dreams that I’m almost positive are memories. That’s all I need. You’re all I need. Please.”
Leaning over, I kissed each eye, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, each corner of her mouth as she cried. “I love you. I love you more than anything on this Earth. You’re mine, Linz. You’ve always been mine.”
She sobbed harder and held onto me as I wrapped my arms around her. A sick feeling rolled through my stomach as I thought about what I had taken from her. The dreams, the years I had robbed from both of us. The child we had both lost and never had the chance to grieve over.
“I want out of this storm,” I whispered as I squeezed my eyes shut.
She moved her head back and looked into my eyes. “Tell me what to do, Nolan.”
“Love me, Linz. Please, just love me.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I pressed my mouth to hers once more. It was like the first time I had ever kissed her. I wanted the moment to last forever. I needed it to last forever. Linnzi fit me so perfectly, and I knew—like I knew then—that she was the only woman I would ever love. She was here, in my arms. She was mine once again. And I vowed to do everything in my power to make it all up to her.
I wasn’t sure how long we stood there and kissed until I finally stepped away. “We better go.”
Her lips were swollen from my kisses. When she pressed her fingers to them and smiled, my chest squeezed.
“That kiss,” she whispered.
“Will be picked up later. Come on, let’s get back to the hor
ses.”
After we braved our way back over the bridge, we rounded up the horses and rode on. As we rode in one of the pastures, we ran into one of the ranch hands who had just pulled up in the ranch truck.
“Bubba is about to start caking cows,” I said.
“Caking cows?” she asked, her nose scrunched up in the most adorable way.
“Yeah, dropping cubes for them. Want to feed them some cubes?”
She frowned. “Cubes?”
I kept forgetting she had forgotten all of our time together. She clearly doesn’t remember anything about ranch life. Before Linnzi moved to Boerne in high school, she had lived in Austin in a subdivision where you could spit on your neighbors from your bedroom window they lived so close to one another.
“Cattle cubes. It’s a combo of grain and roughage. We feed it to them about once a week to help balance out their protein when we’ve got dry pastures.”
She nodded, but I knew she had no idea what in the hell I was saying. “Do they like them?” she asked as we both got off our horses.
“See for yourself,” I answered with a wink.
I walked over to Bubba and reached out to shake his hand. “Hey, Bubba, how’s it going?”
“Nolan, it’s going. Paul told us you were back.”
“Only for a few days.”
He gave me a nod.
“I was wondering if you could spare a handful of cubes.”
He smiled. “Yes, sir. Number 480 is our gentle giant.”
I reached in and grabbed some and then turned to Linnzi. The cattle were all walking up, making their presence known.
She laughed. “Well, they are certainly vocal.”
“They know a good thing is coming. Bubba will drive along and let it all dump out and they’ll follow right behind.”
“Why do they have numbers on their ears?” she asked.
“It’s like their form of a dog tag. It makes it possible for us to identify them, and tells us what shots they’ve had, as well as other information about them.”
She chewed on her lip. “Does it hurt when you do it?”
“Nah, feels like an ear piercing.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, giving me a skeptical look. “Did you ask them?”
“Oh Lord,” Bubba groaned.
I laughed. “We don’t abuse our cattle. When we slaughter them, it’s done in a very peaceful way as well. Not everyone who raises cattle treat them like shit.”
Her face changed into a regretful expression. “Oh, I wasn’t saying that you did. I’m so sorry if you thought…”
Holding up my hand, I laughed. “Here, hold a few in your hand, and when they walk up, put your hand out. Look out for 480, though.”
Her eyes widened, almost exactly like they had the first time I did this with her. “You want me to hand-feed them?”
“Yes.”
“The cows?”
I nodded. “Yes. Are you afraid of them?”
She glanced back at the herd of cattle all standing there, waiting. “Oh God,” she mumbled.
“Bubba, toss some out.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Once he tosses some out, they’ll all head that way. But the ones who aren’t afraid of you will walk up.” And sure enough, number 480 came directly up to Linnzi.
“Nolan, she’s almost here!”
I laughed once more and held out a cube. “Hold it out, and she’ll take it from you. Like this.” Holding out a cube, the cow took it with no issues.
“It’s your turn.”
Linnzi held out the cube exactly like I did, hand open flat with the cube in the middle, and let out a gasp when the cow gently took it out of her hand, with a bit of slobber left behind as a thank you.
With a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon, she held her hand out for more.
Bubba started up the truck and began moving down the line, dropping the cakes, and we stood there and fed a few cows that were too curious to move on.
“This is amazing!” Linnzi said with a giggle. When we ran out of cubes, she simply wiped her hands on her jeans and started to follow them. “I would love to do this,” she said, more to herself than to me.
“Do what?”
“This!” she said, her arms open wide as she did a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. “Live on this ranch. Feed the cows. Milk the cows!” She stopped and looked at me. “Do you milk the cows you have?”
I couldn’t help that my smile turned into a chuckle. “No, we don’t. My mother used to, though.”
“That’s right. Well, I want to milk cows and goats and make goat cheese and goat something that you put on your face that I saw in the airport the other day. I want a garden where I grow my own veggies. I don’t think I could eat number 480, though. Not after feeding her.”
“Well, I would simply not tell you if it was 480.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I waited for her to mention the fact that I had assumed she was actually talking about this ranch—my ranch—someday being our ranch. But Linnzi didn’t miss a beat.
“Let’s make a deal right now.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling my heart drop slightly at not knowing what she was about to say.
“Anytime you grill up steaks and serve them to me, let’s pretend they were bought at the store and not raised here on the ranch.”
I nodded and tried not to smile like a damn fool. “It’s a deal.”
Linnzi glanced back over her shoulder. “The horses are following us!”
“They’re trained well. You should see the cuttin’ horses.”
“What are they?” she asked.
I reached for her hand and laced my fingers in hers. “I’ll show you next time I’m in town.”
She smiled, but it didn’t fully reach her eyes. “I forgot you’re leaving. I know I don’t have a right to feel this way, but I feel sad. Like I just got you, and you’re leaving again.”
I squeezed her hand. “I won’t be gone long.”
I watched her glance down and smile. “So, no more bad memories to keep you away?”
Swallowing hard to chase the lump in my throat, I stated, “They’ll always be there, but I’m pretty damn excited about making new ones.”
We spent the rest of the morning riding the ranch, and I showed Linnzi some of my favorite areas. Then we made our way over to the hunter’s cabin for lunch, where we were joined by Truitt, Saryn, Liliana, and baby Nolan. It was a nice surprise for Linnzi, and she and Saryn quickly fell into a conversation about Saryn’s latest DIY project.
Truitt leaned in and asked in a hushed voice, “How are things going?”
I slowly took in a deep breath. “Way better than I thought.”
“Any memories?”
With a shake of my head, I answered, “No. But she’s dreaming about me. They could be memories or simply dreams. She seems to think they’re memories.”
Truitt saw the look on my face. “Nolan, maybe you should tell her. If she remembers…” His voice trailed off.
That familiar fear gripped at my chest, like it had a million times over the last eight years. “How do I tell her, Truitt? Hey, by the way…”
At that moment, Linnzi looked over at us and smiled.
“It’s gone on for too long now,” I said, watching her. “I really think if she was going to remember, she’d have remembered by now.”
“She’s also been gone,” Truitt said. “Gone for over eight years. She clearly knows there was something between the two of you. Why is she not asking any questions?”
“The same reason she didn’t ask them in the hospital. I think her mind knows and is keeping it from her to save her the pain.”
I pressed the beer bottle to my lips and watched Saryn show Linnzi something on her phone as Nolan walked over and held up his arms. Linnzi reached down and picked him up. She covered his face with kisses and then gave him the brightest smile I’d ever seen.
“Maybe her mind is going to b
lock it forever,” Truitt said.
I dragged in a breath, not even realizing I had been holding it during the entire scene. “Maybe. But how do I keep something like that from her? We didn’t tell her so that her body and mind could heal and the memory would come back on its own. At the time it felt like the absolute right thing to do, and now…now I can hardly stand myself.”
Truitt reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Follow your heart, Nolan.”
“I followed it eight years ago, Truitt, and it took her away from me. I’m afraid if I follow it again, I’ll lose her forever.”
He sighed. “That’s a risk you’re going to have to take. I don’t see you being able to live with this between y’all, Nolan. I know you, and I know you won’t be able to do it. Why in the hell do you think you walked away the first time?”
I watched as Linnzi stood, Nolan in her arms, and walked to the other side of the cabin, where Liliana promptly gave them instructions on how to play a game she’d set up.
Slowly, I shook my head. “I don’t want to lose her again. I don’t think I can live through it twice.”
Linnzi
NOLAN HELD MY hand as we walked down the path that led to my parents’ front porch.
“Maybe I should get my own house,” I mused out loud.
“Your own place?” Nolan’s voice sounded strange. Like my suggestion was insane.
I turned to face him, looking up into those beautiful eyes. A girl could easily get lost in those depths. The dark ring around his pupils seemed to change with his moods. I hadn’t figured out the reasons why yet, but I longed to.
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