“None of this is real for you,” he gritted out. “You’re on vacation. Maybe you think you’re slumming, I don’t know. But I do know that you’re running away from something—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“—or you’d answer your phone. It rings all the time. And the last time I saw you take a call was in Montana. I wanted to pretend you were just caught up with me, but we both know that’s not true, don’t we?”
She stood up then, in a rush. She slammed her hands on the table as she rose, as if she was thinking about using them on him. He wished she’d try.
“I’m not running away from anything and you spend a lot of time training and performing, Cody. You have no idea who I talk to when you’re not around.”
“Great. So you’re hiding the fact you’re with me. Even better.”
“You’re the one who’s famous for this kind of thing,” she threw at him. “Not me. Forgive me for not knowing the protocol.”
“Here’s a newsflash, Skylar. I’m famous for one great night, if you’re lucky. Not this.” He opened up his hands, taking in the whole of the Airstream. The land outside, stretching out for miles. The ocean down at the foot of the bluff. “This is my home. You think I bring anyone here? Because I don’t. Only you.”
“I didn’t ask you to treat me any different.”
“You don’t ask for anything.” And Cody could hear that his voice was too loud. But he didn’t know how he could change that when he was holding on to his control by such a slim margin as it was. So he barreled on ahead. “And it’s not because you don’t want it. It’s because you think you don’t deserve it. Or whatever crazy thing you’re telling yourself while your phone rings night and day, while you get so many texts you stopped checking them a week ago, and everyone you know is freaking out over the fact you came away with me. That tells me that none of this is what you do, Skylar. I knew that going in. So why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
“I’m leaving,” she said, and it sounded like the words were hard for her. As if she was biting back a storm and trying to sound calm while she did it. Or maybe Cody just wanted to believe that. “What does it matter what I was doing here?”
“I’ve spent all this time trying to figure out what makes a girl like you run away from everything she knows for some guy she met one night.” Cody shook his head. “Some cowboy. But I can’t figure it out. You think I can’t tell that this isn’t the kind of thing you do? You think I can’t see that you’re hiding things? You have ghosts in your eyes, Skylar. Sometimes they’re all I can see.”
She jerked at that, as if he’d thrown hot water on her. As if it burned.
“Are you my boyfriend, Cody?” she demanded, her blue gaze dark and raw. “Do we share our emotions with each other—or anything else? Because I was under the impression that what we do is have sex. That’s it.”
“Because that’s all you want.” He threw the words at her like a punch, fast and brutal. “It’s all you’ll allow.”
“My fiancé was killed.”
It was like a sucker punch. It hit him hard, low in the gut; it took him a moment to find his breath again.
But she wasn’t waiting for him to process what she’d said.
“Two years ago.” Her voice was tight. Something too raw to be pure fury, but dark enough to match.
And he understood, then. The ghosts in her eyes, maybe, but also that she’d had no intention of ever telling him this. He’d brought her to his land and showed her what he held close, but she’d had no intention of letting him near hers.
Skylar was still talking in that same raw way. “He went out one night with friends. It was a Tuesday and an old friend was in town for business, so he went to meet him. He wasn’t much for partying on the weeknights because he worked in finance and he liked his job, so he didn’t expect it to be any kind of big night. It was just a random Tuesday.”
And part of Cody wanted to stop her. Tell her she didn’t have to tell him this, or anything.
But the truth was, he wanted to know. So he said nothing.
“I saw him before he left.” Skylar didn’t look particularly emotional, or wrecked in any way, but he couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or very, very bad. “I was an event planner and I’d spent all day mired in a huge corporate thing we were doing, so I was frazzled and cranky when I got home from work. He was getting ready to go out and I was still checking email, wishing that he and I could go out to a nice dinner. I was annoyed that he was going out with his friend—who I’d met in the past and didn’t like that much—instead of doing something with me because I was in a mood. Not mad. Just a little annoyed.”
Her smile seemed even more crooked than usual. “He kissed me goodbye the way he always did, he told me to take a bath and maybe rethink my attitude, and then he went out.” She cleared her throat, as if it hurt. Or as if she’d laughed a little, then thought better of it. “And you know, I had a lovely little night. I poured myself a glass of wine, I took a long bath, and then I fell asleep on the couch watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls. And then there were police at my door.”
She shrugged then, and that hurt. But Cody thought it hurt him more than her, if that was possible.
“And that was it,” Skylar said. “I had one life when I fell asleep that night and another when I woke up. A drunk driver took him out while he was driving home. He had dinner and a couple of drinks, but his blood alcohol was well below the legal limit. Because that was who he was. Safe. Responsible. Good and kind. And some drunk idiot ran a red light, hopped a divider, and took him.”
Cody kept his gaze on her as if the world would crumble into pieces if he looked away. He wanted to go to her, an impulse that he didn’t entirely understand. He wanted to get his hands on her, as if to prove that she was still the woman he knew. Or maybe to remind her that she was. He wanted to pick her up, hold her in his arms, and chase the last of that darkness away from her face.
But he didn’t do it.
Because maybe he was a bigger dick than he’d ever given himself credit for. Or maybe he knew, somehow, sympathy wasn’t what she needed. Not from him. Not now, while she was busy using her ghosts as a weapon.
“So…what?” He made his voice bland to the point of insult, and knew he’d done the right thing in following that dark impulse when her gaze flashed bright again. It was better than that dull haze. It was better than ghosts. “Did you die too? Is that what this is about?”
“Thank you,” Skylar said, and then she laughed, and Cody didn’t know which one of them was more startled at the sound. “You’re the first person in two years who’s learned the tragic news about me and hasn’t apologized. You’re not sorry for my loss. You don’t think that everything happens for a reason. I’m betting you’re not about to tell me that when God closes a window he opens a door, or whatever. And honestly, that kind of makes me want to hug you.”
Cody refused to let himself be distracted. “That’s not really answering the question.”
Skylar took in a breath, then blew it out. Loud.
“I don’t know,” she told him, keeping up her chin. Maybe raising it a little, like she was contemplating taking a swing at him. “Maybe all the good parts of me died with him. Maybe that was it, my one good possible life, and it’s gone. I don’t have an answer to that.”
“So this is what you do?” he asked, because he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You run around, fling after fling until you can’t tell us apart, getting real good at temporary? Is that what you want?”
She blinked at him. “I’m sorry, did you actually ask me that? You?”
Cody was aware of the irony. It even stung a little. “I know what I’m talking about. That doesn’t make me a hypocrite.”
Or at least he didn’t think it did.
And she looked too furious to call him on it. “This might come as a surprise, asshole, but you’re it. You’re my single fling. I’m pretty sure they call this the shameful, embarrassing re
bound.”
Cody shook his head at her. “Nice try, Skylar. But you’re not ashamed or embarrassed. Do you think I can’t tell? And don’t kid yourself. I’m no rebound.”
Something moved in her then, he could see it. For a moment she looked fragile, and his heart kicked at him. He wanted to put her back together if she broke. He wanted to gather up all those jagged little pieces and make her whole again. He didn’t care if she was a little cracked, because he knew scars were beautiful. She’d showed him that.
But she recovered herself. That fragile expression disappeared, replaced by something fierce, and she didn’t quite meet his gaze.
“I just need to get to the airport,” she said quietly. “The novelty of you failing to express the slightest bit of sympathy is wearing off pretty quickly, it turns out.”
“You think you’re the only person in this world with pain?” he asked. “Because you’re not.”
“Yes,” she bit out, and she was definitely looking at him then. Straight on, like she wanted to rip him into pieces. “I’m sure that you suffer terribly as you make your money, handle your fame, and navigate the attentions of all your buckle bunnies. I’m sure that’s very difficult. My heart bleeds.”
“My mother has always been a bitter woman,” Cody told her, because he told this woman everything, apparently. He shared all the things he kept hidden, one after the next. “But when my father was alive, she was softer. She smiled more. Or at all. Now she smokes cigarettes and lets her new husband smack her around, because I think she thinks she deserves it.” He let out a little bark of something that no one would describe as laughter. “Because she wasn’t with him when some methed-out fool stole a car and rammed it through a busy intersection, taking out a mother with twin babies, two high school kids, and my father in one big, multi-car crash. So believe me, Skylar, I not only understand your pain, I’ve seen exactly what happens if you give in to it. I know what happens if you let it eat you whole.”
“Are you talking about your mother? Or are you talking about you?”
“I’m not the one who packed up shop and called it done because somebody died,” Cody said. Or maybe shouted. “I watched my mother do it and apparently, you’re doing it too. Meanwhile, some of us dedicate our lives to taking care of what’s left. I have two half-sisters. It’s up to me to make sure that they are as protected from the things my mother can’t control as possible. I pay for them. I keep them safe. I can’t bring my father back, but I’ll be damned if I’ll die along with him.”
“Well, aren’t you the very image of an early Christian martyr?” Skylar seethed right back at him, even taking a step toward him as if she wanted nothing more than to swing at him. “How wonderful that you were able to take your own suffering and turn it into such a positive experience for everyone around you. I’m sure that’s why you’re known as the least approachable, most obnoxious member of the entire American Extreme Bull Riders Tour. I’m sure that’s why not one person in the family and friends section had anything good to say about you that didn’t relate to your skills on the back of a bull.”
“Good. I take that as a compliment. I’m not there to make friends.”
“That’s what sociopathic reality stars say,” she hurled at him, taking another step toward him as if she couldn’t help herself. “It’s what people with absolutely no social skills and no grasp of reality say to cover the fact that they don’t know how to forge relationships with anyone. In life, you make friends. You go out into the world and share experiences, and you do that with people.”
She was breathing harder then, and her gaze was so bright it should have hurt. Him or her. Both of them.
And she was still talking. “People need people, Cody. That’s what people are for. The fact that you’re a veteran of the tour and have absolutely no friends says a great deal about you. None of it good.”
“I appreciate the lecture,” he drawled. “Especially from someone who’s so great at forging relationships herself.”
“I don’t have any trouble with relationships.”
“Yeah? When’s the last time you answered a text? Or a phone call?”
“When’s the last time anyone bothered to call you at all?” she retorted.
“You’re so determined that this is a fling. Well guess what, Skylar? It’s not. It never was. I set eyes on you standing there in your father’s doorway and that was it.”
Cody shouldn’t have said that. He knew it was a mistake even as the words came out of his mouth, and not only because she took a step back as if he’d reached out and put his hands on her the way he wanted.
But that didn’t make it any less true.
“The only reason you’re even considering saying these things to me is because I told you I wasn’t available.” She let out a sound that he couldn’t define. It lodged itself between his ribs, as if she’d broken one off and stabbed him with the jagged edge. “You think I don’t know how men operate? Especially men like you?”
“You sure seem to know a whole hell of a lot about men like me. When I’m pretty sure you’ve never met one before.”
“You’re a bull rider,” she said, and her voice was scratchy, but not from sleep this time. And she made his profession, his calling and his love, sound like his doom. “You spend your entire life chasing eight seconds. You want things you can’t keep. And you don’t want me. Not really.” She raised her hands, then dropped them back to her sides. “You don’t even know me.”
“And whose fault is that?” Cody demanded.
Skylar didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then another. She stared down at the floor instead, and Cody was sure he could feel her temper. Or maybe that was his, making his heart pound too hard. Making every muscle in his body clench tight.
Making him want nothing more than to do all of this over. To do something—anything—that would keep her from going down this path in the first place. Or to keep his own big mouth shut instead of making everything worse.
“I don’t want to do this.” Her voice was quiet when she spoke again, but intense. “I’m not going to do this.”
And Cody stood there. Because he didn’t dare move. He stood where he was as she gathered her things from the table, then walked toward the back of the trailer, skirting around him without so much as brushing against him. It took some doing. And it infuriated him. But he knew that if he did anything—if he so much as breathed on her—he would sweep her up into his arms and try to reach her a little more directly, and he was pretty sure that she’d hate him for that.
If she wanted to know the truth about them, she wouldn’t be leaving him. Not like this.
He stood there, staring at nothing, and tried to wrestle himself under control.
He could hear her back in the bedroom, and he knew what she was doing. Packing that same damn bag that she’d already packed a couple of times now. Maybe she’d never really unpacked it. He should have known from the start how this was going to go. He should have understood what he was getting into.
Maybe if he had, he would have kept a few of his own secrets in reserve.
He heard her come out of the bedroom behind him, and then pause.
“I’m going to call a car,” she said, and she was using that voice again. He remembered it from all those weeks ago in Billings. So calm. So even.
So full of shit.
But he didn’t call her on it. Because wasn’t that the point she been trying to make? It wasn’t his place to call her on anything.
“I’ll take you,” he told her.
“It would probably be better if you didn’t. All things considered.”
“I might not be the man you want,” Cody said in as even a voice as he could rustle up on short notice, “but I’m a man, Skylar. And a man doesn’t leave a woman out in the middle of nowhere to find her own way home, no matter how many unfortunate words got thrown around one morning in a trailer. I’ll take you.” But he said it calmly. Almost easily. “And I don’t know where you think you a
re, but there are no cars to call out here.”
He heard the way she let out a breath behind him.
And he knew how to do this. He knew the dance. The rawness of it, the wild magic, good or bad. How to lean into the jolts and ride out the bumps, making it all look like grace.
He knew what to do when it was over. How to disengage and roll until he was free.
Cody had managed to get off the backs of more bulls than he could count. Hundreds and hundreds of qualified rides, and that didn’t even count all the times he hadn’t made it to the full eight seconds. And he’d gotten off every one of them, one way or another.
Pretty or ugly, he usually managed it without breaking every bone in his body—even if sometimes, he came away battered and limping and in need of a little medical attention.
He could do this, too.
So he turned around, he made himself smile, and then Cody set about letting her go.
Chapter Twelve
The town of Marietta, nestled at the mouth of Paradise Valley east of Bozeman, was possibly Skylar’s favorite place in the whole, wide world, and she was determined to be happy she was back.
Because she was always happy when she was in Marietta. That was what Marietta was for, she’d always thought, on all those trips they’d taken from Billings over the years and all the extended family holidays since.
Her ancestors had come here hundreds of years ago, out into the untamed wilds of Montana where there were rumors of copper in the hills and railway barons were laying claim to wide swathes of the glorious western landscape. And more to the point, far away from the reach of Boston authorities. Skylar felt that same pull every time she found herself in the sturdy, pretty little western town at the foot of Copper Mountain where Greys had lived since before there was a Marietta or really anything but hardy prospectors with more inbred, bone-deep stubbornness than sense.