“Don’t you think that maybe she didn’t say anything because, like me, this is a weird as hell chat to be having with my sister?” I ignore her jab about me being used to this. Little does she know how wrong she is.
“WEIRD?! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to have this chat?”
I take a step back, and with a laugh, hold my hands up. “Did the devil just jump in your body? You sound like you’re about two seconds from your head spinning on your shoulders.”
“Don’t act like a smart-ass now, bucko! This changes everything.” She starts mumbling some gibberish under her breath, and I can’t help the smile that grows as she starts throwing her hands up between words of nonsense.
“Seriously, little sister, I think you should just drop it. This changes nothing.”
“Delusional. Both of you. Idiots, I swear. That girl . . .” She pauses in the midst of her rant and looks at me with wide green eyes that seem to know more than she should. “You really have no clue, do you?”
“Yeah, darlin’, I’m pretty sure that’s correct since you’re makin’ no sense.”
Quinn sighs and plops down on a bale of hay. “Okay, big brother. I’m about to go against every written rule in the best-friend bible right now, but I feel like that is completely acceptable to clue you in here. Lord knows one day, maybe after the birth of your first child, she will forgive me for this.”
“Uh, who’s having a baby?”
“You are . . . well, maybe. If we can get your head out of your ass, that is. And, of course, you’re going to have to grovel and shit, but this hypothetical baby has just been waiting to be born and I will not let you two keep my future niece from me.”
“What the hell are you goin’ on about?”
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this little princess? No, of course you don’t. Completely. Clueless.”
“Seriously, Quinn. Who is having a baby?”
“No one!” she screams, looking just about as crazy as she sounds.
“Do you need some water? Maybe you should sit down for a little while, hell-raiser. I think the heat’s gettin’ to you.”
She looks around before pointing up to one of the many vents in the ceiling of the barn.
“This place has air-conditioning, Mav.”
“Right. Okay? So you’re normally crazy. Got it.”
“I’m not crazy!”
“You also aren’t sane, darlin’. You’re talkin’ some crazy shit.”
“Now you listen here, Maverick, and you listen real good. I don’t want to know what happened that night. I know enough and what I know explains oh so much. For as long as she’s been alive, Leigh’s only wanted one thing. You. Of course, you put a mighty big wrench in those dreams before you left town, but not once did she give those dreams up. Sure, she might have tried breaking all the chains that connected her heart to yours, but when those chains proved their unbreakable strength, she was forced to build a wall around her heart and climb over it. Sealing it away from everyone else while that damn heart continued to remain tied to you. Even after all these years, I know that like I know the sky is blue and the grass is green.”
“I think you’re reading too much into this,” I say with a grunt, crossing my arms and leaning back against the stall post, but fuck if her words don’t hit me hard.
“I’m not and you know it. She’s scared. I get it now. She never, not once in her life, found someone else strong enough to break that wall down and sever those chains to you, no matter how open she was to searching for someone that could. And I would guess she just realized that no one ever will.”
My stomach knots, and as much as I would love to deny what Quinn said, a big part of me knows she’s right. I’ve felt the same way through the years. The tug my heart felt whenever I would think about her telling me that I would always feel the absence of her, that night in the trees.
I pushed Leighton away because deep down, I knew she was it for me and if I admitted that, I wouldn’t be able to get out. I struck with words sharper than any physical touch, knowing damn well that I was pushing her away so that she wouldn’t be able to keep me here. Staying here would have killed me, even though leaving her did the trick all the same.
All I had wanted, my whole life, was to be the best damn cowboy the rodeo had ever seen, but all it took was once glance in her direction and none of it mattered anymore.
All she had to do was walk into a room and I forgot it all.
I forgot because she became the only thing I wanted more than my need to chase my dreams. The only thing I craved more than escaping.