Because I’m not the same person anymore.

  I’m stronger.

  And instead of diving into the pool and screaming in the deep end, I dust off my camera.

  27

  JACK

  “Lauren,” I say for what feels like the millionth time since I called her back. The ten messages in my voicemail and five texts told me it was urgent, my ability to only put out one fire at a time making me pace myself. “Did you call your sponsor? You haven’t answered that question.”

  “How am I supposed to know how to be a mom, Jack-Jack? How? Our mom didn’t love us enough to stick around, so how in the hell did I think I could be one?”

  I rein in my sigh of frustration and fight the droop of my eyelids caused by the couple of beers at Axe’s and too little sleep.

  The hysteria in her voice warns me she’s on the edge again, and neither of us can afford to allow her to fall the fuck off.

  “Did you call your sponsor?” I repeat the question.

  “Why did I—”

  “Lauren.” My voice is a little firmer this time, my directness about to be even more so. “Don’t do this to yourself. You’ve worked too damn hard, only to pick up that bottle again.” And I don’t have time to come home and pick up the pieces. “The kids need you. Everyone at the ranch needs you.”

  I blow out a sigh at the silence on the other end and picture her. She probably has her long hair pulled atop her head in a messy knot and her glasses pushed high on her nose. There is probably one kid asleep on her lap and the other beside her on the couch because her need to prove to them she isn’t going anywhere has created this codependence that is probably unhealthy.

  But it works.

  “And Mom did love us. It was Dad and his . . . shit she couldn’t handle.” I have no idea if our mom loved us, and the pain still stings regardless of how much I say it doesn’t, but Lauren needs to hear this. She needs to believe it.

  Fuck, I’ll lie to her all goddamn day if this is what it takes to keep her sober.

  “Did you call your sponsor, Lauren?”

  “Tell me about you, Jack. What’s going on with you? Is the job what you thought it would be like? Is she what you thought she would be like? Are you finding the closure you need? You better be because I’m telling you, when you get back, it’s my turn to run from this place and find some myself.”

  “I understand.”

  And I do.

  “Don’t do it.”

  Her warning catches me off guard. “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t fall for her. Besides the obvious reasons, you can’t do that. You can’t fall in love with her and not come back home.”

  I snort at her absurdity, but at the same time, my eyes flit out the window and over to the light on in the windows at the main house.

  “I’m not falling in love with her.” I laugh and get up to grab another beer from the fridge.

  “Said with such conviction,” she teases, sounding a bit more like herself.

  “We aren’t doing this. We aren’t turning the subject off you and on to me so that you don’t have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ll talk if you talk.”

  “Jesus. This isn’t—”

  “You’ve slept with her, Jack. You wouldn’t be so defensive if you hadn’t.”

  “I’ve slept with a lot of women,” I counter.

  “Yeah but then you move on. You aren’t moving on just yet. That means it will give you enough time to fall for her, if you haven’t already. Isn’t this what happened with what’s her name?” I can hear her snap her fingers on the other end of the call, but I don’t offer up the name. I don’t remind her of Becky Lofton.

  “Why are we talking about me? I thought you were the one—”

  “And you’re the fall-hard type of guy. I’ve seen it too many times to count.”

  “I’m not the fall-hard guy anymore.” Falling hard means I get hurt, which is something I’ve learned to avoid.

  The last fall I took nearly broke me.

  “And I’m not your alcoholic little sister either.”

  “Did you call your sponsor?” I ask yet again, but now with my mind preoccupied on the light in a window where there hasn’t ever been one on before.

  “God, you sound just like Dad,” she says.

  “Then don’t call me acting like the world is going to end if you don’t want me to make sure you’re taken care of and are okay. I love you, kid, but . . .” Fuck if the constant management of you and your addiction isn’t exhausting.

  “But what?”

  “I just want you to be okay.”

  Silence eats up the line. “I will be.”

  Christ, I despise the fragility in her voice. I hate myself even more for not understanding it or her better.

  Is this how Dad felt?

  Exhausted from wondering if she was serious or playing games each time she cried for help? Was he constantly on edge, waiting for her to relapse again?

  “You sure?”

  “For now, I will be.” There’s a shuffling sound on the other end. “Promise me you’re coming back.”

  “I’m coming back.”

  I end the call and toss my phone onto the couch before blowing out a loud exhale. Then I pick it up and debate calling our longtime ranch manager, Evan, to check up on her.

  With the phone in my hand, I walk toward the window and stare over to the main house. To the shadow that continues to cross in front of the window every few seconds. To the woman I parted ways with a few hours ago but who I can’t seem to shake from my goddamn mind.

  “Well, shit, son. Did hell freeze over?”

  “Funny, old man,” I say to Evan.

  “If you’re calling, there must be something wrong.” His voice sounds like a thousand cigarettes smoked and crushed into gravel.

  “Nothing wrong. Just checked in on Lauren and she seemed a little rough.”

  His sigh has me feeling guilty instantly. “It’s been raining nonstop for five days. That’s a lot of time to be cooped up in that house with two little ones. I’ll see about getting them out with me tomorrow. We’ll do something in the stable to give her a break. I’ll pretend I need help or something. That might help.”

  “Evan . . .”

  “Don’t even think of it. She’s family. You’re family.”

  Always have been.

  “Thank you.”

  “You coming back? You better not get any ideas about staying there.”

  “I’ll be back, Evan; although I’m sure you can run that place blindfolded and with one hand tied behind your back.”

  “I can.” He chuckles, and it’s a sound I can remember as far back as possible. Evan and his gruff demeanor but huge heart, his big bushy mustache and the magic tricks he could mesmerize a young boy with, has always been in my life. The man probably spent more time with me than my own father did, but he never judged me. “But it’s you they’ll all be looking for direction from. They need a Sutton here.”

  “Lauren’s there,” I say and know that she doesn’t quite cut it.

  “Not the same.”

  “I know.” I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “I know.”

  “See you soon.”

  On the way to the kitchen, the lights in the house pull my attention again.

  Keep on walking by, Jack. Don’t even think about heading up there.

  Last thing I need in my life is a woman who provides anything other than a physical release.

  Organize the paperwork for the Steely Brothers. Get caught up on your work.

  Last thing I need is to fall for a woman when the last one nearly broke me.

  Go check on the horses and make sure that Will got his list of tasks done.

  Besides, I have a life to get back to. My promise has been kept. But Tate, this, can’t happen—no matter how good the sex is.

  And if sex is that good the first time, it will only get better once we get to know each other’s bodies. Imagine what it will be like when the nerves are gone.

  I should head to the bar.

  Gain some distance.

  Get some space.

  I grab my keys and figure it wouldn’t hurt to see what kind of ruckus I caused with my reaction to the pricks at Axe’s today.

  Her light is still on when I walk to my truck.

  Her shadow still moving back and forth across the window when I climb behind the wheel.

  28

  JACK

  She opens her front door.

  This is a mistake.

  Those lips of hers shocked in an O.

  Such a huge fucking mistake.

  Her nipples are hard, and the darkness of them is just visible through the flimsy white of her tank top.

  Fuuuuck. There’s no walking away now.

  “I was going to the bar.”

  “Okay.” Confusion etches the lines of her face as she opens the door a few inches wider.

  “Tell me to go to the bar, Tate,” I demand.

  “Go to the bar, Jack.” Her voice is flat. Unemotional.

  “Mean it.”

  “But I don’t mean it.”

  “What?” I ask in reflex when I like her answer perfectly fucking well.

  “I don’t want you to go to the bar, Jack,” she says and then does something completely unexpected. She pulls her tank top over her head. Those handful-size tits with pink nipples tighten when the breeze hits them.

  Like a jackass, I just stand there and stare at her. At Tate. At the woman I want but have known since day one that I should walk away from.

  I’m screwed.

  With her eyes locked on mine, she pushes her shorts down until they fall to her feet.

  The curve of her hips. The tight strip of hair atop her pussy. The shuddered breath she emits that tells me she feels every bit as fucking taken aback by this as I do.

  So fucking screwed.

  “You should go to the bar, Jack.” The suggestive smile on her lips tells me she doesn’t mean a goddamn word she says.

  And I’m going to enjoy every unexpected minute of it.

  “FUCK THE BAR,” I mutter the moment we crash into each other.

  We’re a frenzy of lips and tongues and me pulling off my shirt and her undoing my pants as we crash into the wall at her back.

  There is no time for patience. No time for foreplay.

  Only an urgency to be buried in that tight, wet pussy of hers that feels like Heaven and tells me it will haunt me like Hell and will take me every goddamn place between.

  There is only insanity in the desperation to feel her again, to have her again, to fucking claim her again.

  Seconds pass in ragged breaths. Each one panted a second too long until I can be buried in her.

  Her back pinned against the wall. My hands on her waist, lifting her so that she can wrap her calves around my hips.

  She curls her hand around my cock, and as good as that feels, it has nothing on when she arches her hips and rubs it up and down her slit.

  Wet doesn’t even begin to describe how fucking drenched she is.

  Tight doesn’t explain the resistance I feel when I lower her down onto me.

  Fucking ecstasy doesn’t hold a damn candle to what it feels like to be buried in her balls deep.

  “Christ, Tate.”

  “Soooo good.”

  She clenches her muscles around my dick and pulls me in tighter, and I swear to fucking God, any less of a man would have come on the spot.

  It takes everything I have not to.

  But that’s only because this feels so damn good that I don’t want to waste the pleasure.

  “You do realize that, when you do that, it begs me to fuck you on every goddamn surface in this house, right?” I groan as my head falls back, and I fight the urge to fuck her into oblivion.

  Her laugh rings out as her fingernails dig into my shoulders. “Then I guess I need to keep doing it.”

  Those storm-cloud-colored eyes of hers are dark with desire, etched with need, as she tightens around me again.

  My jaw clenches—hell, every goddamn part of me clenches in response.

  I lean in and kiss her. The kind of kiss that makes my balls ache and my eyes roll back. The kind of kiss that is soft and slow like she needs since it’s all she’s going to get. Because she feels so fucking incredible that, the minute I move—the minute my dick slides out and then pushes back in again—there will be no way slow is going to pass through my mind again.

  Hell, thinking won’t even begin to be an option.

  With my lips on her and my hands on her waist, I begin that slow slide out. I hold her against the wall as I fight for every ounce of control when I push gently back into her again.

  “Jack.” A sighed moan.

  “Jack.” It’s my name she’s calling when I’m buried to the hilt so there isn’t a single ounce of space between where our bodies meet.

  “Jack?”

  Another pull out.

  “Mmm?” I lean back to look at her to remind myself what I needed from her last time that she didn’t give me.

  Her eyes open and on me.

  Her lips moaning my name.

  It’s her needing me right now.

  Not Fletcher.

  Not him.

  Those eyes pull me in as much as her pussy does. Lids heavy with arousal. Hair a mess falling around her face. Lips parted and swollen from mine.

  “Fuck me, Jack.” If her words were explosive, then the groan that follows them is a Molotov cocktail.

  Restraint snaps.

  Gentle. Soft. Slow—cease to exist.

  Now. Need. Hard.

  It’s all I can think.

  All I can feel.

  Until I can’t think.

  Until it’s just Tate and me and her pussy and my dick.

  “Look at me,” I demand as black eyelashes flutter open.

  Until it’s just her fingernails scoring lines in my skin and my teeth nipping her shoulder.

  “Look at me, Tate.” As sex-drugged eyes hold mine.

  Until it’s her panted cry as the orgasm slams into her and my own release hits me so goddamn hard I almost black out.

  Instead of moving, we slide down the wall, my jeans still around my ankles, and her legs still wrapped around my waist.

  We don’t speak as our hearts decelerate. We don’t acknowledge we had sex two nights in a row when technically this isn’t really a thing. In fact, we don’t do anything other than sit with her forehead resting on my shoulder and my dick softening inside her.

  “We have to move at some point,” I finally mutter as her skin begins to cool beneath my lips.

  She chuckles. “You mean we have to do the unsexy part of sex?” she asks as she slides her hand between her thighs and cups herself as I slip out of her.

  “The unsexy part?” I ask, knowing full well what she means but loving that she’s talking about it. Loving that this woman is comfortable enough with me to.

  “Yeah,” she jokes. “The duckwalk to the bathroom part for me. The wash your dick off in the sink part for you.”

  “Well,” I say through a laugh as she rises and I watch her head down the hall. “I guess I need to find that sink then.”

  “You probably should,” she says over her shoulder looking to where I’m sitting. Her eyes roam to my dick, still semi-hard against my thigh, still coated in both of us. Her smile is shy when, after what she just did, there’s no way in hell she’s shy. “We’ll need to use that again later.”

  And just like that, I’m left speechless for the second time tonight.

  29

  TATE

  “Holy shit.”

  It’s my first and only thought as I look in my mirror above the sink in my bathroom.

  My cheeks are flushed. My neck has red marks from where his goatee scraped against it. My eyes . . . my eyes are alive with excitement and pleasure.

  And I initiated it.

  Not only did I initiate it but I also told Jack Sutton that I freaking wanted to do it again.

  My hands go over my face as I die of embarrassment, questioning what had emboldened me all of a sudden.

  But I know what it was.

  It was picking up the pieces of my old life off the floor. It was realizing each memory felt manufactured. Each one was hiding a lie I never knew about. Every piece held love, but it was deceptive and duplicitous. Yes, Fletcher and I loved hard, but he also lied harder.

  It was as I was sorting the mess that I realized just how strong I am and how I don’t recognize the woman I was back then.

  It was hearing that knock on the door and knowing who it was and what I wanted, to lose myself in Jack for a while. To forget to remember, to bury the past, and to see that I have a future as Tate Knox, not Fletcher’s wife.

  It was hiding behind the realization of what I had done by using humor to do the walk of shame, only to find there isn’t shame. There is only freedom in knowing what I want and not being afraid to express it.

  That’s all new for me.

  I run a hand down my chest, over my breasts that Fletcher teased were too small but that Jack seems to have absolutely no problem with. To my hips that swell out. To the apex of my thighs still throbbing from the pounding he just gave it.

  And I feel alive—scream-from-the-rooftops, dance-in-the-rain, flip-off-all-my-haters alive.

  A giggle bubbles up in my throat as I try to figure out what in the hell to do next.

  “You okay in there?” Jack calls out with a laugh as I hear a faucet turn on in the bathroom down the hall as he cleans up.

  “Yep. I’m good.”

  And when I look back in the mirror at the goofy smile on my face, I know I just might be.

  30

  JACK

  The door is ajar.

  Black trash bags, which look to be full of shredded photos, line one side of the floor. Framed photos are arranged in a gallery on one wall. There are black-and-white stills of the landscape, colorful ones of exotic places overseas, muted ones of the everyday on this ranch. The other side of the room has unframed 8x10s hanging from clips on a crisscross of strings. There is a small workstation with a laptop, camera parts, and accessories beneath a row of windows.