Branded as Trouble (Rough Riders #6)(36)

“How long did this go on?”


“A couple of months. Then I OD’d. I don’t really know how I made it to the hospital, but when I woke up, Skylar was there and Larry was long gone. She sent me to detox. By some miracle I hadn’t contracted AIDS or hepatitis or an STD during my blackout sexual hi-jinks. She took me in for a while. I stayed clean, but I got a job at a bar and started drinking. Heavily. And you pretty much know the rest of the story.”


In and out of jail. In and out of treatment programs. Another OD. When they’d met three years ago, she’d been clean and sober for five years.


It amazed him, how India turned her life around. She’d taken her passion for art and turned it into a career. After her mother died, she’d moved away and started over thousands of miles away.


Colt didn’t have the balls to do that. His life had taken a downward spiral for a year or two, but he’d never contemplated shucking it all and starting over out of Wyoming.


“You’re awful quiet, McKay.”


“Just thinkin’ about how brave you are.”


“For telling you my dirty little secret?”


“Maybe. But mostly because you haven’t let your past experiences paralyze you.” He studied her, wondering if he’d overstep his bounds if he voiced the issue on his mind.


“Just ask me the question I see in your eyes, sugar.”


Colt gave her half a head butt. “Smartass woman, makin’ fun of a poor, dumb cowboy like me.”


“Last thing you are, Colt, is dumb. So ask.”


“You are okay with sex now? No guilt, no—”


“—feelings of shame that make it impossible for me to enjoy sex? I love everything about sex. I’m just a lot choosier about who I have sex with. Why?”


“In the years I’ve known you, I don’t recall you ever talkin’ about a specific man, or a relationship, or sex and I wondered if this thing with your past might’ve affected it.”


“Only in that no one knows. After I first moved here, I kept a long distance, f*ck buddy type thing with a guy from Denver for a while. But it didn’t last.”


Jealousy tightened his gut. “How come I never knew?”


She shrugged. “It’s easier all around if I keep my personal life out of the meetings. When we were together at A.A., especially in the beginning, I was focused on keeping you sober. It was important you saw me as a survivor, not as a woman.”



“I might’ve been a drunk, Indy, but I ain’t never been blind to the fact you’re all woman.”


“Sweet-talkin’ cowboy. There’s been no one since.”


“No one? Not even a one-nighter?”


“Nope. To be crude, I’ve been getting off with BOB, my battery operated boyfriend, or my own hand.” She gave him the same questioning look he’d given her. “What about you?”


“I’m well acquainted with my own hand.”


“Been dating Rosy Palm, have you?”


He laughed. “Exclusively.”


“But I’m talking about when it comes to sex with a person.


You’ve made no bones about the fact you were a serious horndog with a bad reputation before you had a drinking problem.”


“I was. I didn’t particularly care which woman I ended up f*cking at the end of the night, just as long as I got laid. Just as long as I satisfied her to the point she’d tell every other chick in four counties what a stud Colt McKay was, so I wouldn’t have to work at all to coax any woman I wanted into my bed.”