Change of Hart (Wells Ranch, #3)(51)
“Wow, it’s gorgeous up here. How did you come across this place?”
He walks around the truck and drops the tailgate, motioning at me to come over. “I did a lot of driving around by myself after you were gone. Eventually, even the never-ending backroads come to an end, so I started driving wherever I thought was wide enough for my truck.”
He gives me a hand onto the tailgate, then reaches into a strategically placed cooler and pulls out two bottles of beer—hesitating for a moment before offering me one. “All I have is beer-flavored water, or whatever your hoity-toity ass called it.”
“The dirty ice water sloshing around in the bottom of the cooler probably tastes better,” I tease, elbowing him in the side but accepting the beer with a smile. “But the beer’s more sanitary, so thank you.”
The cool liquid goes down better than expected, with the sun on our backs and a picturesque view, legs dangling from his tailgate. I press the amber bottle to my neck, sighing at the refreshing cold against my flushed skin, and beads of condensation run down my chest.
“How often do you come out here?” I ask.
How often do you bring other girls here?
“Not as often lately.” The bottle rim hovers in front of his parted lips for a moment as he thinks. “We split up Mom’s ashes because the three of us couldn’t agree about what to do for her. I actually tossed my portion into the wind up here the spring after she died. So for a while, I was here all the time.”
My heart sinks, and I spin to sit cross-legged facing him, resting my elbows on my knees. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“It would’ve been weird for you to be there…considering everything. But I thought you’d like to come see it now.”
I nod silently, internally battling with the urge to reach out and touch him. His right hand is resting on the truck bed, ripe for the taking. His callused palm, warm and strong, would fit in mine perfectly.
“How are you doing? Your mom, moving back here, Brickham’s dumbassery. You have a lot going on.”
I laugh under my breath to keep from crying. “Not to mention babysitting Hazel, helping wrangle my nephew, making sure my dad’s okay, being around you all the time. But honestly, I’m fine. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
So maybe I’m actually flailing, fighting to keep my head above water. But I’m not drowning—not yet—so that’s basically the same as being fine.
He stares at me, breaking down every wall with the hollowing of a dimple in his right cheek. As he takes a swig of beer, his eyes don’t leave mine, and right when it feels like every atom of oxygen has left the air between us, he opens his mouth.
“You’re fine.” His look of disbelief has me feeling the need to double down.
“Yep, sure am.” I give him a weak smile. “Other people have worse things going on, so it feels silly to complain about my life.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Don’t have to do what?” I pick at the corner of the beer bottle label.
“Diminish everything you’re going through. Pretend like you’re managing totally fine. Cut the crap—give me five seconds of honesty.”
If looks could kill, I’d be telekinetically tossing him off the cliff. “I’m not pretending.”
“Bullshit.” His voice echoes in the beer bottle, and in my skull.
“Sorry, do you want to talk about who among us isn’t managing life well?” The label would’ve peeled in one clean strip, if I wasn’t suddenly shaking. I cram the small piece of ripped paper into my pocket and glare at him. “I have responsibilities, Denver. Yeah, it fucking sucks sometimes, but there’s no sense crying about it. Crying isn’t going to change the fact that my mom’s slowly forgetting her whole life. It’s not going to change the fact that I left my job, apartment, and friends to move back here. It’s definitely not going to take any work off my plate. I think my method of keeping my head down and quietly handling shit is a lot more mature than partying and sleeping with every girl in town.”
I pray he didn’t notice the way my voice cracked at the end of that last sentence.
I shut my eyes, taking a long, calming yoga breath. And when I finally work up the nerve to look at him, expecting to see him ready to throw down, Denver’s just smiling at me.
“See? Was a little bit of honesty so hard?” His bottle clinks against mine. “All I was getting at is you don’t need to pretend like you have it all together. Not around me. I know you well enough to know when you’re faking it.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know me—”
“That’s also how I know you weren’t lying in your office the other day.”
Did the sun crank the heat right up? I tug at the hem of my shirt, desperate for a light breeze, anything to help with the sudden hot flash I’m experiencing. His predatory gaze nearly has me tripping over myself to get to him, to sit on his lap like I did in Colt’s truck. That night it took everything in me not to invite him into my bed, and yet he was still there—not literally, but figuratively, Denver was there. He was the throbbing pulse between my legs when I lay in my bed alone. And the memory of his hand grabbing my belt buckle on the dance floor, and of him toying with the inseam of my jeans, was the reason I came so hard I screamed into a pillow.