Chapter Thirteen
“What are you doing here?” Skylar asked him when he finally drew close, because she couldn’t think of what else to say.
But he clearly didn’t like that. His dark green eyes glittered, and that jaw of his was set at a stubborn tilt. There was something about a man in a cowboy hat, especially when it wasn’t a prop. She suddenly felt sorry for all those bulls he’d conquered over the years. They’d never had a chance.
“Nice to see you too, Skylar,” he drawled, and it was the same as it always was. Fire and need, rushing through her and pooling there, low in her belly. “This is called a grand gesture.”
She wasn’t sure she could process this. She’d been thinking about him and now here he was. It was like magic. Or possibly it was the nervous breakdown everyone seemed to think she had coming. Maybe he wasn’t here at all—but no. She saw her sister standing a ways behind him, and Scottie was grinning entirely too wide for Cody to be a hallucination.
Then she made it clear he was real by shooting Skylar a thumbs-up.
“I didn’t think you made grand gestures,” she managed to say, returning her attention to the cowboy who was still simmering in front of her, all hard expression and that body made of steel and determination.
“I ride bulls,” Cody growled. “My life is a grand gesture.”
She conceded the point with a faint nod of her head.
“Let me break this down for you,” he continued when she didn’t speak. Because she couldn’t. “About five seconds after you got out of my truck, I decided this was all bullshit. By the time I parked, you were through security—and, Skylar, you still haven’t given me your goddamned phone number.”
“I told you my number in Billings.”
“It isn’t in my phone.”
Because they hadn’t been apart. Because there had been no reason to call when she was always right there.
But she assumed he didn’t care about any of that, if the way he was looking at her then was any guide. All dark and grim and somehow beautiful.
“You didn’t tell me where you were going, so I had to figure it out,” Cody said in the same pissed-off growl that probably shouldn’t have made every part of her hum in a deep delight. “I put together all the pieces of the stories you told me about your family in Marietta and your brother in order to figure out where he might be getting married. I had to do a little detective work to make sure that I was right. Then I had to drive all night and all day to get my ass to Montana from California. Don’t ask me what I’m doing here. You know.”
“Cody…”
Skylar didn’t know where to start. She wanted to tell him about the history of Marietta and the history of her. She wanted to make him understand all the different contours of her heart, how it beat and what it needed, and how somehow, she felt safe for the first time in years when he was the one cradling it between his hands.
But she didn’t know how to put that into words.
“Let’s focus on the big picture,” Cody said. He was moving again and it took Skylar a minute to realize that he was backing her up against the nearest wall. Because he didn’t seem to care that the entirety of her family was watching him do this. He didn’t appear to notice that there was anyone else in the room.
It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
Because he was giving her that focus of his, intense and intent. She’d seen that look on his face before. She saw it every time he dropped down onto the back of the bull. She saw it every time he lowered himself over her and thrust deep into her, as well.
She couldn’t seem to help the shudder that overtook her at that.
“I’m in love with you,” he told her gruffly. “And I get that you don’t want to hear that. That doesn’t change it. Nothing’s going to change it. I had some twenty hours of driving, over mountains, to talk myself out of it and it didn’t take.” He shook his head when she opened her mouth. “I know it’s fast. It’s straight-up crazy. But it is what it is. And you can take all the time in the world you need to get your head around it, I don’t care.”
Skylar cleared her throat, amazed he couldn’t hear the way her pulse was kicking through her veins.
“That’s very romantic,” she managed to say after a moment. “It’s amazing to me that some lucky woman hasn’t already snapped you up.”
“That’s pretty funny, Skylar. Hilarious.” His jaw seemed even harder. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Deflect. Lie if you have to. But here’s the thing: I think you love me too. And I get why that terrifies you.”
“It doesn’t terrify me.”
“Bullshit.” He fired that out like a bullet. Relentless, his aim true. “It scares you so badly you’d do anything to run away from it. And I sympathize, I do. The last time you fell in love it ended badly and this time you sure weren’t looking for anything. But the thing is, darlin’, you don’t get to choose.”
She felt as if her skin was too small, stretched across her bones until she was practically see-through. She felt vulnerable. Exposed.
It should have been unbearable.
She waited for the shame to kick in, but it didn’t. She waited for the grief to come claim her, but there was nothing there. Just that same old sadness, more sweet than bitter these days, she imagined she would always carry with her. Somewhere deep inside.
“I think you’re wrong,” she said, almost solemnly. “I think you do get to choose.”
Something ignited inside of him then. She saw it. She felt it. His eyes kindled with a bright flame and his hard mouth went tight.
“You were right about me,” he told her, fiercely. “I’m a martyr and I’m a dick. And I’ve been proud of both for so long that I don’t know any different. Until you. Don’t you understand? I didn’t see you coming either.”
She whispered his name, but he ignored it, moving in even closer until he took over the whole saloon. Or maybe the world.
“You make me wish I was a better man,” Cody told her, as if he was making vows. “You make me think I could be, if I wanted. If I tried. And Skylar, you must know you’re the only thing on this earth that could ever make me want to try.”
“Cody,” she tried again.
“And I know you left me because you think you’re still in pieces.” He reached out and slid his hand over her jaw, curling his fingers around the base of her skull and pulling her face to his. “But you are not broken.”
She might not have been broken, but she couldn’t seem to stop the tears that welled up and started down her cheeks at that. Not because she was sad. It was a different emotion entirely. Complex. Layered.
And it had everything to do with the hard man in front of her.
“Everybody’s scarred, darlin’,” he told her, his voice almost hoarse, as if the things he was saying were as difficult for him as they were for her. Difficult and good, she thought. Difficult and necessary. “It’s what makes you strong. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The fact that you can get up again and move on? That’s what makes you beautiful, Skylar. It’s what makes you you.”
“You need to stop talking,” she told him then. She wiped at her cheeks and saw something bleak move over his face, like a cold shadow. And she smiled at him then, no matter if her cheeks were damp. “I was just standing here thinking about how easy it was going to be to stalk you, after this weekend. And figuring exactly how I was going to do it. Sacramento, San Diego, Tucson. So many options to hunt you down on tour.”
He blinked. For a moment his dark green eyes looked blank. Then slowly, very slowly, the corner of his mouth kicked up.
And all those knotted things inside of Skylar seemed to run smooth.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said slowly, as if he was picturing all the things he could do with her in all those places. His hand tightened just a little bit on her neck. “And it’s okay if you don’t know how you feel, baby. I’m a bull rider. I like a challenge. Give me enough time, and I promise, I’ll make you love me. I’ll make you forget.”
There was a time she might have heard that as a threat. Found it offensive, even. But tonight, she reached over and put her hands on him, reveling in the flat planes of his sculpted chest.
Letting the heat of him remind her that she hadn’t been anything like frozen in some time.
“I’m never going to forget him,” she said, soft and sure. And she held Cody’s gaze because she wanted to make certain he understood. “Because remembering Thayer reminds me of the girl who fell in love with him. I’m always going to think about her, and wonder who she would have been if he’d lived.” When he started to say something, she let her fingers curl into fists, and gripped him a little harder. “But she’s not me, Cody. She died when he did and I’m not the same person as I was then. I can never be that person again.”
She took a deep breath, held on to him, and kept going.
“This is who I am.” She tipped her head back and smiled at him, damp cheeks and all. “I’m the girl who fell in love the minute I opened my father’s door and let you in. I’m the girl who slept with a stranger on a picnic table and somehow never felt cheap. You’ve seen me messy, real, and a little bit crazy. You’ve seen me lie and you’ve seen me run and you didn’t let me hide. You drove all the way here because I somehow ‘forgot’ to give you my number.”
“I love you,” he said again, as if it was a challenge. One he intended to win.
“It’s not that you know me in ways he never did, you know a different person. He was the right man for someone who doesn’t exist anymore. You’re the right man for me.” She laughed a little bit at that. Because this should feel crazy. This should feel like silly, giddy madness that might disappear at any moment. And yet, somehow, it didn’t. It felt as solid as the wall behind her that had stood there since the 1880s. It felt as real as Marietta. “Although it’s only been three weeks. I guess that could change.”
“Strap in, darlin’,” Cody said in his low, determined way that made her heart flip over in her chest. “Because it’s not going to change. I’m pretty sure this is it.”
“I love how your version of romance is always a threat,” Skylar said, then she let out a little squeal, because he was moving again.
He pulled her into his arms, and then he dipped her low. As if they were in a very old movie. The kind of movie that would be filmed in black-and-white and take place in a saloon just like this one. He dipped her down, over his arm, like some kind of ballroom dance. He dipped her down until she thought her head might hit the floor behind her, or would have, if she didn’t trust him to hold her up. He dipped her until she felt as if she must have been wearing some kind of ball gown, when she knew better. When she knew that she was wearing a cute little sundress and matching sweater, like the conservative and sweet thing she didn’t think she was anymore.
Or wasn’t around him, anyway.
Cody dipped her until she was certain every single eye in the room was on them, if they hadn’t been already.
“Say it,” he ordered her, that glittering thing in his dark green eyes that made her tremble. Everywhere. “Or I swear I’ll drop you on the floor.”
“I love you,” she told him, unable to contain her smile. “And you’re not going to drop me. Just think how that would play on social media. Can’t ride a bull, can’t dip a girl—”
“It’s that mouth,” he said then, as if in some kind of wonder. “That crooked smile. And someday, Skylar, the only ghost you’ll have in your eyes will be me.”
And when he kissed her, she saw fireworks all over again, though this time she knew that they were inside. And it wasn’t the Fourth of July.
It was just him.
And it took her longer than it should have to understand that it was her family, cheering them on, as if the famous Grey Curse was shattering all around them.
But none of that mattered. Because all she felt, all she wanted, was Cody.
For as long as she could have him.