LINDY’S MIND WAS RACING. Her heart was thundering hard. She’d gone back to the place she’d avoided for years and found something of herself there. That something she didn’t like. That she saw every time she stared down into her mother’s blue eyes. Those blue eyes that were so similar to her own.
She was angry at her mother, but it was so very difficult to stand up on her high horse when realizing she was essentially looking in a mirror. Oh, Lindy had found ways to make it seem like she was normal. Well-adjusted. She had convinced herself that because she had a good relationship with Dane, because she had gotten married, that she was poles apart from the woman her mother was.
But the fact that she had stayed away with rare exception for the past decade over an argument...
The fact that she hadn’t wanted to go to her mother for sympathy, for help, after her divorce.
The fact that she had never, ever wanted to have a moment in front of Damien, or his friends, where she didn’t know what she was doing.
It was hard to deny that she wasn’t her mother’s daughter. So damned hard. She didn’t give anyone anything. Not honesty. Not really.
It hurt her to realize her own mother hadn’t thought Damien could ever actually love her. But the fact was, she hadn’t ever believed it either. But she wasn’t entirely sure she had loved him with all of herself either. Because there were always parts she kept back. She was always trying to be the right thing, to do the right thing. To avoid feeling stupid. To avoid being rejected.
When she had cut ties with her mother, she had burned it all to the ground, because that was safe. Easy. Her decision.
Distance was easy.
When she had sensed Damien begin to withdraw from her, she had withdrawn herself from him. They hadn’t worked on it. It was easy to blame the fact that he wasn’t home, but she hadn’t put herself out there. Not ever.
She had never made herself vulnerable, not once.
And it was why she was alone.
It was why she was always going to be alone if she didn’t figure out how to just... Be. Her. Without those walls and separations between herself and the world. Herself and other people.
“Yes. I want to go to the waterfall.”
She wanted to fix it. To reclaim a moment she should have taken weeks ago, but didn’t. To reclaim herself.
Or maybe, find herself for the first time.
The girl she was back then, the woman she was now.
All those things were her. All of them.
“You don’t have your little hiking shoes,” Wyatt pointed out.
She shook her head. “I don’t care.”
Wyatt parked his truck outside the house, and he and Lindy walked in silence through the rows of cabins, back to the path that led to the falls.
Lindy watched the way that Wyatt moved through the landscape, so confident, broad-shouldered and strong. He was a part of this. A man at ease in his own skin, and while she knew there were plenty of demons inside of him, plenty of things that didn’t sit well at all, he was at ease with his body.
With who he was.
He was Wyatt Dodge. He was a former bull rider. He was a cowboy. The scenery around him seemed to move in his wake, tree branches bending with ease to accommodate him. That was how he was in every social situation she’d ever seen him in. It wasn’t about pride or holding himself back, standing stiff-necked and refusing to stand out. He stood out easily. Happily. And other people wanted a taste of it.
God knew she did.
She thought back to that day she had seen him for the first time in the bar. The way that light seemed to shine down on him. Like no other man she had ever met. He was easy, and he was hard all at once. Someone you couldn’t look away from. Someone who demanded focus and attention.
It was the kind of thing that would have horrified her. And yet... It was the same. She was who she was. Lindy, from Boulder City, who wasn’t born into money, who had never set foot on a college campus. Who had tried so desperately to pretend that she fit in so that she wouldn’t be rejected. So that she wouldn’t be too much work. So that she wouldn’t have to show all of her rough, unpolished places and have those real, insecure, wounded spaces rejected. No. Far better to keep those things hidden and never experience real rejection.
So, so much better.
Seeing Wyatt for the first time had been like a lightning strike. And lightning struck what stood out. What stood taller than everything else around them. The feelings that had erupted between them had been bigger than anything else in that bar. They couldn’t blend, not in that moment.
And maybe that moment had been necessary. Because...she didn’t know if she would want to change if it weren’t for him. She didn’t know if she would know she needed it. Her mother was a mess, and it was easy to make her the cause of that early pain. Damien had wronged her, and it was easy to blame him for everything.
Easy to ignore her own issues, when he’d dropped such a destructive bomb into the middle of everything. For all the platitudes she’d given about the dissolution of a marriage being the responsibility of both parties, she’d still been able to walk around knowing she was the most wronged.
As long as she clung to that, she didn’t have to figure out what was wrong with her.
But there was something about being with Wyatt that made her want to...
He had brought about a peace with herself. She wanted more of that. To take those pieces of herself she’d let fragment and splinter and join them together. Find Lindy, the way she wanted to be. And not Lindy, the way the world expected her to be.
And she wanted the woman she’d found, the woman she was, the real woman, to get beneath that easy grace of his, because for all that he could accomplish about a thousand things she couldn’t—that ease with himself, that casual ability to look silly, to be wrong, to be dirty or forward—there was also something deep and hidden in him. Maybe even deeper than the things she kept hidden inside of herself.
She felt like it was the key to herself. Getting rid of all that space that was between them. Wyatt was everything, and if she wanted that everything, she would have to give everything in return.
She realized that with clarity as they walked down the steep part of the trail, heading down to the bottom of the falls.
When she had first set eyes on him he had seen her. In a way no one else had. She was sure it was the same with her too. She had been married, and she would never have violated her marriage vows. She knew Wyatt well enough to know that he wouldn’t have asked her to. They had both ignored that moment. That lightning strike. Had both gotten up and gone on with things as they had always been.
But they didn’t have to now.
She stood there, on the banks of that swimming hole, and she let that realization wash over her.
Things didn’t have to stay the same.
She didn’t have to stay the same.
“I’ve changed a lot,” she said, to herself more than to him. “So many times. I imagined that if I could somehow be this perfect wife for Damien he’d love me forever. And when that didn’t work I clung tighter to all my changes. New hair, new clothes. New money. I was a new woman. A strong one. But I haven’t changed at all. I’m just like my mother, Wyatt. I don’t let anyone close to me, and I call that pride. I call it being independent. But it’s just protecting yourself. Because you don’t think anyone can love you. It’s pride. And it pushes people back.”
She swallowed hard before continuing on, “I never let him see me cry, Wyatt. Ten years I was married to that man and I didn’t let him see me cry. I didn’t let him see me cry when I caught him kissing another woman. Not in court after. Never. Not when he came into the winery with her when she was pregnant. I never let him see me cry. I never let him know how much he hurt me.”
“You let me see you cry,” he said, his voice rough.
She nodded. “It was easy to give you that, to let you see it. Now. It wouldn’t have been, not before. But something changed. You changed something in me.”
“I couldn’t have.”
She turned to face him. “If I had been a single woman the night we met in the bar I still could never have followed through on that attraction. It was so real and intense. The most raw thing I’ve ever experienced in my whole life, and it was just a look. I would’ve run away from it even if I hadn’t had a ring on my finger. It was too strong, and I didn’t want that. Not really. You don’t let me hide, Wyatt. And I would’ve hated that then. I think I’ve hated it all this time. Because something in me always knew that you saw me. Melinda. From the trailer park. You call me that. And no one else does.”
“I don’t...” He cleared his throat. “I don’t call you that because I look at you and see somebody from a trailer park. I call you that because it irritates you. I call you that because no one else does.”
“I know, but still. That’s what it feels like. And that was the thing that scared me most. Because I would rather be rejected for this thing that I’m not, this part of me that isn’t real, than to be rejected for my real weaknesses. For my real shortcomings. It’s easier to not let people see them.”
She was trembling inside, but she had to keep talking. She couldn’t go back now. “I didn’t want people to know about us because... There’s something real in it. And I can’t control it. I didn’t want anyone to see... I feel exposed when I look at you. When you look at me. How can people not see everything between us when they see us together? But you can’t really love people if you have walls between you. And I am so tired of my walls.” With shaking fingers she took her hair down, and then she unbuttoned the shirt she had on slowly, methodically.
After that, she threw her bra down onto the rocks before shimmying out of the tight pair of black pants she was wearing and kicking her shoes off by the wayside. And before she knew it, she was naked. Naked in the sunlight, in front of Wyatt Dodge.
Like she had been that first time he’d seen her.
Oh, she had been dressed, it had been night and they hadn’t been alone. But she had felt, even then, that he had seen her. Really and truly seen her.
In him, she had seen the possibility of who she could be. And finally, five years later, she was taking a chance on it.
Getting on the train wasn’t just hopping into bed with him. No. Getting on the train was this. This moment. It was deeper than touch, deeper than skin.
“I don’t know how to do this. How to be...exposed and unprotected. This is the best I can do. This is all I am. Everything else... Clothes... Makeup. A big winery. My mother is right about that. All that can be taken away. But I don’t think the solution to that is building up taller walls around myself. I think it’s about opening myself up. Because this...” She took a step toward him, and pressed her hand to his clothed chest. She could feel his heart thundering beneath the layers of shirt, his skin. She could feel his heart.
Even with his clothes on, he was naked too.
“This is what can’t be taken away. This thing between us is real. There was nothing that I could put up that could hide it. There was no defense against it. It was undeniable. Then and now. And we had a choice not to act on it, and we didn’t. Because then it was the right thing to do. But it was still there. Wyatt, it’s always been there. There was nothing and no one that could take it.”
She stretched up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I think I’m ready to skinny-dip with you now.”
“But what will people think?” he asked, his voice gruff, the words light, spoken with humor, but she sensed so much more underneath them. And she wanted to know everything that was there. She wanted to dig beneath those words, to explore the context. To explore the meaning.
But after. Right now, she just wanted to explore the feeling. The one she had been running from for so long. The one she was ready to feel.
Finally.
And she knew that tangled up in all this was the way her emotions were running because of Dane. She knew that. But hell, this was the kind of thing that brought perspective, after all.
The fact of the matter was there were no guarantees. And maybe her brother would never wake up. And she would never have told him all that he meant to her. And if it were her lying in that hospital bed, then she would have lost her life without ever really living it.
A business was easy. You could love it. You could pour all of your energy into it. But it didn’t ask for your secrets. It didn’t ask for your heart.
She had loved Damien, but it hit her then that they had never been in love. It was impossible for them to have been. He didn’t know her. Not really. And she hadn’t really known him.
If they had felt distant, it was because they were. Because they’d had a marriage without sharing and sex without intimacy.
She didn’t want to die without that. She wanted to live. She could go to the end without experiencing real devastation. Could keep on giving all she had to project after project, to expanding the winery. She could live a good life, and never be hurt.
But she couldn’t live a real life without pain.
And if that pain came through Wyatt, then that was all the better. She was ready. Ready to let him destroy her. Because he was worth it.
And so was she.
He stripped off his clothes, slowly and methodically, stood out there in the sun naked right along with her. And he was beautiful. The most beautiful man she had ever seen. And she felt it. All the way down.
Not only her body, but her soul.
Wyatt swept her up off the ground and started to carry them both into the water. It was cold, so cold it almost burned her skin. But she didn’t mind because it mirrored what was happening inside of her. Those untouched places opening themselves, the feeling almost too intense to fully take in.
The first time they had been together they had been desperate, hungry for each other, and it wasn’t that she didn’t feel that now. That intense, irrepressible appetite for his body. She did. She wasn’t sure if there was anything in the world that would ever make that go away. That would ever ease it.
But it didn’t feel frantic. Not right now. It was deep, down all the way into her bones, but she felt like they had time. She pressed her hands to his chest, lifted her chin and kissed him on the edge of his jaw. He hadn’t shaved today. He had spent most of the night at the hospital, and then when they had come back, he hadn’t seen to any of his own needs. Instead, he had spent all of today dealing with her.
She loved that. Loved the evidence of that. But he had neglected himself for her, she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever done that.
If anyone ever had.
“Wyatt,” she whispered his name, as she kissed him again. Then again. Along that stubble-lined cheek, all the way to his mouth. She clung to him as he held her there in the water, suspended, warmed now by his touch, unconcerned with the temperature of the water.
The way he looked at her, like it was all he wanted to do...it was magic. That kind that had only ever existed with him.
His arms were strong around her. Steady. She slid her hands down his chest, down beneath the surface of the water, across the rippling ab muscles there, all the way down to his arousal, which defied the temperature of the swimming hole.
She didn’t linger there though, instead, she traced a path back up, curving one hand around his neck before sliding her fingers through his hair. Then she took both hands, pressed them against his face, touched the lines by his eyes, the grooves by his mouth.
Had they been that deep when they had first met? Had he had that scar above his eyebrow? The one that nicked his chin? She couldn’t remember. She wished she could have explored his face then so that she could appreciate the changes.
She wished that she could explore it again in five years and mark the changes that take place between this moment and that.
But she wouldn’t think about the futility of that. The ways in which that desire would never come to pass.
It felt like they had time, but she knew that they didn’t.
Right now, she was trying not to care. Trying not to let that affect her. Because this was about her. Her heart. Protected and sheltered for all of this time. Like a bird in a cage whose wingspan had been thwarted by being kept in such tight confines. She wanted to stretch them out. She wanted to be set free.
And whatever happened after...
She would simply have to survive it. But, God in heaven, how she wanted to fly first.
If she was going to hit the ground either way, she wanted to soar to blistering heights. There would be no preventing the fall, so why not make it a long, blissful ride. It would leave her changed. Broken, maybe, but she would heal.
She would because she had been created for this. For him. For this moment. And so she had to trust that she would be strong enough to endure whatever it brought.
She learned him with her fingertips, every inch, every line. Every scar. Smooth, beautiful acres of skin, and some covered by rough hair. All of him.
She traced figure eights down his back, down to that glorious ass, and then around the front again, gripping his hard length in her hand, holding all that vitality and just letting herself glory in the beauty of it.
The beauty of him.
He could be everything if she let him. And she had never let anyone be everything. Not even once.
For now, in this moment, she wanted him to be.
He groaned, letting his head fall back as she continued to explore him. And all she could do was stare. At that strong column of his throat, the way his jaw flexed as her fingers continued to explore his body. The way he fought for his control, the way that he wanted, and the way that she brought him to the edge yet again.
“I wanted this,” she murmured. “I wanted this for so long. Since the beginning.”
He captured her wrist, turned her hand toward him and kissed her palm. “I knew you liked me pulling your pigtails.”
“Of course I did,” she whispered, looking down. “Because I never actually hated you. I was just scared of what you made me feel.”
She had been so lost in exploring his body she hadn’t seen the way he was looking at her, his eyes now blazing down into hers. There was fire in them. Heat like she had never seen before. It was so deep and dark and terrifying that she wanted to turn away from it. But she couldn’t. She had promised herself she wouldn’t.
“I’ve been so afraid,” she said. “Even of myself. Mostly of myself.”
And it wasn’t that there was nothing to fear. There was. All the flying, the falling, and the pain that would result. Yes, she knew exactly what she had to fear. It wasn’t so much about not being afraid. It was deciding that the journey was worth the risk. That finding a way to open herself up, to be loved, to be known, would be far better than being safe.
Damien had been a man who had allowed her to keep her secrets. Who had allowed her to keep her heart protected.
Wyatt was a man she could love.
With all of herself. With every beat of her heart.
Not a gentle, steady rhythm, but an intense drumbeat that she knew would leave her bruised, ragged. But that was what a heart was for. And if she knew what it was beating for, it would be all the better.
It was him.
Tears stung her eyes as the revelation thundered over her like the falls thundered into the water behind them.
She loved him. Not the picture that being with him painted in her mind, not the security he represented—because there was no security at all—not the physical pleasure he gave her. No. She loved him. This wild, untamable man who had rocked what she believed about herself and the world down to its core. This man who she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt could paint her life with deep, bold strokes that would go far beyond what anyone else could do. If only he would open himself up to it.
She had sensed it, that night by the fire. That this man could love. That he cared on a level that surpassed anything most people could understand. That he covered it up with that ease of his. She used a tight bun and buttons, and he used a devil-may-care smile. But the result was all the same. It was hiding.
It was just that Wyatt liked to do his hiding in plain sight.
But he had made her free, and she wanted him to join her. Because she was the one who could love him like he was. Who could love everything in him. No matter what. If he would only be the one who loved everything in her.
She said nothing. Instead, she kissed him. She kissed him until she couldn’t breathe. Until they were both gasping for air. She kissed him until she couldn’t think straight. Until the world was spinning and the sound of pounding water was the only thing in her ears.
Then, he carried her out of the swimming hole, and he laid her down on a patch of sun-warmed grass a few paces from the water.
“I need you,” he said, his voice rough.
And that didn’t scare her. She wanted to be needed. By him.
“I need you,” she said, and that didn’t scare her either.
She had never needed anyone before. She had never let herself.
Pride prevented a hell of a lot of things.
She didn’t think anyone had ever needed her before either. But here they were. Gasping for air because of that need.
She felt like something that had been broken inside of her for all this time was fixed. Or maybe it was being held together, by Wyatt Dodge’s strong hands. And if he could hold on long enough, then maybe all those pieces would stay together. Would heal on their own. But until then, she needed him to hold on. She had only just started to sift through that wreckage in her soul, had only just found all those little fragments inside of her. She hadn’t even known they were there, let alone how badly they needed fixing. But she did now.
“I don’t think I have...”
“I’m on the pill,” she said, her heart thundering hard. “I trust you.”
He nodded slowly, gravely, and she felt something weighty stretch between them. Something real and deep. He cradled her face as he slowly filled her, bare, nothing between them.
Nothing at all.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry. Trying not to make this feel bigger than it was.
Then she opened her eyes again, and her gaze collided with his.
It was like deciding to let go of the edge of a cliff. Like deciding to fall. But she did. She stopped holding back. She stopped trying not to feel. As he thrust deep inside of her, she felt it in her heart. Everything, her physical need, her desire, her emotions, rushed to the surface. Her chest felt so full she thought she might burst with it.
This was it. The full burst of that moment she had first laid eyes on Wyatt Dodge. It hadn’t been love at first sight. But it had been the promise of love. The taste of it. And now, she was immersed in it, like a baptism. In fire, in heat and desire. An unending, all-consuming love.
This was the moment she had known she would have. The fulfillment of that destiny that had been promised the moment she had walked into that bar. And if anyone had told her that there was such a thing as meant to be, as the one, she would have laughed at them. If years ago she had been told that she was running toward a fated moment, one she couldn’t avoid, no matter what, she would’ve called them a fool.
But this right here, this moment and Wyatt Dodge’s arms. This was that moment.
She hadn’t missed the train that night in the bar. She had simply seen the one she was already on. Had caught a glimpse of that destination she was headed for. Nothing she could do about it.
All she needed to do was say yes to it. Open herself up, and embrace it.
She loved Wyatt Dodge. She loved him.
A tear slid down her cheek and she pressed one hand between his shoulder blades, clinging tightly to him, the other wrapped around his neck, their fingers laced through his hair. He pounded into her, beating a steady rhythm along with the waterfall, driving them both higher, higher. To the ultimate peak. But she had reached it already. She loved him.
His eyes met hers and another tear fell down her cheek. She loved this man.
His control slipped, his jaw going slack, his thrusts growing erratic. And then he froze above her, groaning out his pleasure as he spilled himself into her. And then she was lost. Pleasure breaking over her like a wave, but more than that, love. That certainty. Feeling every corner of her body. With nothing held back. Nothing reserved. Nothing protected.
She loved him.
And she would never, ever be the same again.