Slow Burn Cowboy(23)

Instead, the door closed behind him, the bell above it jingling slightly. She took officious action, grabbing hold of the dead bolt and latching it with more force than was strictly necessary.

Then she turned, leaning up against the door and burying her face in her hands. She needed him. She needed him to be there for her. She needed him to be her rock. She needed him to keep her from falling apart; she didn’t need him to do the demolition.

She took a deep breath. Then another. Then she closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she half expected to see her store in ruins. But everything looked in its place. Everything looked the same.

Maddeningly so. It made her want to mess things up. To throw a couple jars of jam on the floor, because why not, she had already cleaned up spilled jam once today. What was another disaster?

She didn’t, though. Instead, she stood there, letting the normalcy soak into her skin. It was easy to believe that she had hallucinated the last half hour. That it hadn’t happened at all.

And as she went to collect her things, she decided that that was exactly what she would do. Pretend it hadn’t happened at all.

For her, there was no other option.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

IF HIS GOAL was to blow up his life, Finn was doing a damn good job of it. Not that the presence of his brothers was his fault, or anything he could have prevented, but the way he’d behaved with Lane last night certainly didn’t match up with the actions of a man who was desperate for the status quo.

She was pissed.

He paused for a moment to ponder that.

He didn’t care. Yeah. He didn’t.

He maneuvered his horse down toward the fence, riding along the line, making sure everything was shored up. Mostly, it was just an excuse to get out and clear his head. To get away from Cain, Alex and Liam.

To do a little work by himself. To clear his head, even though he had a feeling a brace and bit and a strong breeze wouldn’t clear his head.

He was angry. Still. So the fact that Lane was angry too didn’t hold all that much weight. It did, in that he didn’t exactly want to blow their friendship all to hell, but it didn’t because there was no way her rage could take precedence over his.

That was the problem. The damned problem in a nutshell.

Her comfort always took precedence. And forget his.

He gritted his teeth, battling against that part of himself that was saying he was being unfair. Considering he had never, ever made a move on her until yesterday. That the righteous indignation had gone a little bit over-the-top, even if there was no one around to hear it. He wanted to cling to his righteous indignation. To his well-cultivated anger over the fact that he wanted a woman he should never have.

She had kissed him back. There was no denying that.

And in that moment, it had been about the sweetest pang of torture he’d ever experienced. Like a jagged knife cutting down under his skin, the pain so sharp and shocking it had twisted itself into something else.

There were a lot of years of need between them. At least, on his end.

When she had first come into town she’d been seventeen years old, and far too young for him to show an interest in at twenty-three. Plus, she had been Mark’s younger sister. But then he’d gotten to know her in her own right. Care about her not based on who she was related to, but who she was.

And while he had never found out exactly what had transpired between Lane and her parents, he knew that it was big. Big enough that she never spoke to them. That she never went back to visit.

Hell, since coming to Copper Ridge the most traveling she’d done was up and down the West Coast. She had never gone back east.

Though, it had never really struck him as overly strange, since he never went back to Washington, to the town he was raised in. He had left it behind when he had come to live with his grandfather, and he had left it behind thoroughly.

Still, no matter that he’d known he should be protective of her, rather than turned on by her, it had been a challenge since she was eighteen years old. Since that moment that was carved into him like a mark on a tree. Part of him now, no way to remove it. That moment when she’d looked at him laughing, her fingertips brushing his thigh...

But he’d pushed it down, even then. Because he had known she wasn’t what he needed. That he couldn’t give her what she deserved. And it had nothing to do with Mark. He was closer to Lane now than he had ever been to her brother.

But no matter that he’d decided years ago he couldn’t act on his lust, it was still there. Always beneath the surface.

It was her obliviousness to it that had finally gotten him. When he had burst into the shop and seen her standing there, completely fine, afraid of a mouse and not in any physical danger, he had wanted to shake her.

Because even though most of him had known there was probably nothing serious going wrong, part of him had gone completely cold at the what if.

He had wanted her to feel even a fraction of what he did in that moment. And it had hit him with all the force of a kick from an angry quarter horse that she simply didn’t feel a fraction of what he did when he was around her.

For him, their friendship mattered, but more than that, it was all about restraint. All about shoving down the desire that he felt for her. All about trying to control this deep, needy thing that he had never managed to master.

He had known that odds were nothing fatal was happening when she had called last night. But it was the possibility that had struck him. The possibility that something could be wrong, that she could be in serious danger. And faced with the prospect of losing Lane, his life had opened up into a yawning void. It had terrified him. And very little terrified him.

But the worst part wasn’t the terror. It was how she hadn’t understood. Not even a little. That he was shaking, that he was shaken.

He wasn’t in love with Lane. Love, to him, was something right next to torture. It was one of the biggest reasons—up to now—he’d never made a move on her.

He wanted her, but couldn’t offer much more than what they already had, coupled with a physical relationship. She was vulnerable, and he’d always known that, and he didn’t want to push her into something she wasn’t comfortable with.

She was important. And she occupied a space inside of him that lovers didn’t, that friends didn’t. That family didn’t. A spot that belonged solely to Lane. He had a feeling he did that for her too, but when he had looked at her last night, he had realized that it was something less, not something more.

Yeah, Lane Jensen was something more than a friend to him. And he was her handyman.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he sighed, retrieving it. He frowned when he saw the name, but he was hardly going to avoid his friend’s call.

“Mark,” he said, looking out toward the mountain, bringing his horse to a stop. “What’s going on?” For one, wild second, he was afraid that Lane had called him. That she had tattled on him. Told her big brother that mean old Finn Donnelly had grabbed hold of her and kissed her against her will until she had renounced their friendship and taken up an alliance with a rodent.

“I just thought I would check in with you,” Mark said. “Your brothers are there, right?” He and Mark weren’t the type to have heart-to-heart talks, but of course he knew about Finn’s family situation.

“Yes, they are. All of them.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely.”

Mark swore, which was the mark of a good friend in Finn’s estimation. “That sucks.”

“No kidding,” Finn returned. “How’s everything on the fishing boat?”

“Fine. But I’m always happy to be back on dry land.” Mark hesitated. “You know I don’t like to do covert reconnaissance on Lane through you, because it’s a little bit awkward.” Tension crept up Finn’s spine, and he waited for the brick to drop. “But, does she seem okay to you?”

His mind was cast back to last night. To the feeling of her warm body beneath his hands. Her soft lips beneath his. The way she had tasted. The way—just for a moment—she had leaned into it. Into him.

It was possible Lane had told her brother, but the odds weren’t high. So Finn was going to go ahead and play dumb. Act like everything was normal. He had no reason not to. Though the fact that Mark was posing the question made Finn frown. Because if there was something going on that wasn’t related to the kiss they had shared, he wasn’t aware of it.

Considering how uncharitable his line of thinking had just been, about their friendship and his proprietary ownership on caring the most, it seemed damned unforgivable.

“I’ve had trouble getting her to return my calls. And when I get a hold of her she’s less chatty than I am. Which is weird.”

“She’s busy with work things,” he said. Which was true. And, come to think of it, she had been kind of manic about that lately. About trying to get him to move forward with all those plans she had for the dairy. Frantically trying to come up with ideas to expand the business.

“Lane is the first person to accuse me of being impossible to read,” Mark said. “She’s always going on and on about how difficult I am to talk to. But she’s worse. She just pretends to talk. She’s my sister, Finn, and I don’t know that much about her. Not really. She’s always been more comfortable with you. So, just keep an eye on her.” There was a pause. “Has she been dating anyone recently, or anything?”