At Whit's End (Wells Ranch, #4)(24)

It’s clear I need to lay off the wine until I get some food into my stomach, so I head for the kitchen sink, snagging a glass from the cupboard on my way. The water bends around my fingertips, slowly cooling, and I lose myself in the patter of droplets hitting the sink basin.

My mind drifts to Jonas. Specifically to the pure excitement in his eyes after I reluctantly agreed to text Colt this morning. There was no hesitation or anxiety hiding behind a brave face like there is when I announce Alex will be coming over.

How fucked up is it that he already trusts Colt—a man he’s known for a few weeks—more than his own dad? Granted, there’s something about Colt that seems to put people at ease. Except me. I’m remarkably uneasy in his presence. In case that wasn’t clear from the way I’m staring into a stream of tap water like a Victorian woman experiencing indoor plumbing for the first time.

Eventually I speak to fill the silence. “It sounds like he had a lot of fun fishing.”

“It was nice to have company, even if he tried giving me a facial piercing or two.” Colt leans against the counter, resting on his elbow. “Kid needs to work on his casting outside of video game land.”

As if hoping to trip me up, the man never wears shirts with sleeves. I get a full view of sculpted arms, golden from long hours in the sun, leading up to broad shoulders that he could so easily toss me over.

Whit, what the fuck is wrong with you?

The cold water sends a shiver down my spine, and I wait impatiently for the ribbed glass in my hand to fill so I can chug it. Arguably, dumping it over my head would be a better solution to this weird mental state I’m in.

I need to be normal.

“He, uh…asked if I could take him fishing the next time his dad can’t hang out, and obviously I said yes. Hope that’s okay.”

I practically drown myself in water, gulping back the entire glass in one go. Why does he have to be hot and kind?

“Oh, that’s really nice of you. His dad—Alex—can be a bit…”

“Flaky?”

Understatement of the century.

I study Colt’s unruffled face, letting the weight of silence hang between us until I’m confident he’s not asking from a place of judgment.

“At the best of times. For the most part, I’ve stopped letting Jonas know when Alex is going to come over. But now that he’s ten and has the ability to send messages online, sometimes Alex goes over my head and makes plans directly with Jonas. And then ends up letting him down more often than not.”

“Sounds like a real piece of shit—no offense.”

“None taken. He is.” I surprise myself by admitting it. Used to be I’d defend Alex in the same way you defend your family members—it’s okay for me to say he’s a piece of shit, but not for anybody else. Hell, I covered for him when Colt offered to take Jonas fishing today. But now he’s here with that trustworthy, earnest look, and I don’t see the point in lying. “And I knew that from the start but…I was a really stupid teenager. At one point I thought it was cool that he broke all the rules and didn’t care about anything.”

“We were all stupid as teenagers.”

“What’s the stupidest thing you ever did as a teenager?”

He thinks long and hard, stippling the pads of his fingers against his jaw. “Well…man, the list is long. One time I tried to teach a chicken to play fetch.”

Arguably the worst time for me to have a fresh gulp of water hitting the back of my throat. Though I manage to keep it in, thanks to the palm that slaps across my mouth, a small stream dribbles out of an unmanned spot at the corner of my lips. I choke on a cough and blink up at him through teary eyes.

“You…what? A chicken?”

“Her name was Nugget. She was a pretty smart bird but fucking awful at fetch.”

“I feel like the failure there wasn’t Nugget’s.” I half-smile at him, still coping with the water that took a wrong turn on its way to my stomach and ended up in my lungs. “I was expecting you to say something like you made an idiot of yourself while you were drunk or—”

“Oh, well, I’m usually the designated driver for my buddies.” Of course he is. “I don’t need to be drunk to make a fool of myself, so I have no problem keeping up with them. Just high on life.”

“High on life. Must be nice.”

“It’s as easy as having a good time and not giving a shit what other people think about it. Should try it sometime.” He winks as he says it, implying I’m some type of prude.

I’m not.

And I don’t know why it irks me so much that he would think that…except the fact that I care a little too much about what people think.

He saunters off to the living room, and I watch him go. All six feet of long, lean cowboy in fitted Levi’s and a cut-off T-shirt. Not giving a shit what anyone—myself included—thinks about him, even after confessing to trying to teach a chicken to fetch.

There is literally nothing about Colt that’s my type. Arguably, I don’t have a type, since I haven’t had a boyfriend since Alex and I broke up when Jonas was a baby. But he’s so far outside of what I assume is my type, based on the celebrities I look at and the men I read about in romance books. Colt’s goofy and charming; he doesn’t have a single ounce of morally gray “touch her and die” in him. Not a red flag in sight.