Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(61)

He arched a brow. “Excuse me?”

“I really need my friend Jake. I’m going crazy, because I’m stuck here with my family, and I can’t get a second to myself. And if I can’t get any time to myself, then what I want is time with you. You’re the person that I talk to. Well, what the hell am I supposed to do when you’re part of the problem?”

“I see. I mean, I told you, Cal. I told you that I was worried about this being a problem.”

“Yeah, well. I want you to stand there for a second and be the guy I didn’t see naked, okay?”

“I’m not doing anything different one way or the other. The question is if you can stand there and not picture me naked.”

“Are you picturing me naked?” she asked, her eyes wide.

He laughed, but it wasn’t light or easy. The sound was rusty.

“Here’s the thing. Let’s... Let’s tack up and go for a ride. Okay? Because I don’t want to stand here and talk about this in a place where your family could walk in at any moment.”

“Fair enough.”

She waited while he got his horse ready. And then the two of them mounted up and started to head up one of the trails that wound its way into Evergreen Mountain. It was notably greener than all the surrounding landscape. More blue spruce than scrub brush. It was lush even now, here in the dead of winter when everything else was scraggly.

“All right,” he said, his voice coming from behind her. “Yeah. I can talk to you. Go ahead.”

“He told me that it’s not me he doesn’t trust. It’s the world. He said I’m not the one who isn’t strong, it’s him.” Her voice broke, her heart along with it. “I don’t know what to do with that, Jake. I don’t know how to live in the shadow of someone who died that I never even met. Everyone in my family was so affected by the loss of her and I don’t even know who she was. And sometimes I get angry that she ever existed. Because she’s had more to do with my life than I have in some ways. More to do with the way my parents see me. I can’t be mad about it. Not really.”

“But you are.”

“Yes. I am.”

“Callie,” he said, his voice rough. “Anger is part of grief. You can’t escape it.”

“But I’m not grieving.”

“You’re upset about the life you could have had. And that’s grieving the loss. Whether it’s about your sister specifically or not. It’s grief all the same.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of time to think about grief. I get angry sometimes. At my parents. At the pilot of the plane. At my aunt and uncle. God. I get angry as hell all the time. It’s just part of living. And that’s the thing about grief. It comes for those of us who live on. So... They’re not here to see if you get mad. Might as well feel everything that you feel.”

“My parents don’t deserve it.”

“Grieving or not. Your parents have done a pretty decent job of messing you up. And I don’t mean that in a cruel way. It’s just that’s what parents do.”

“Yeah,” she said, trying to laugh.

She felt safe there, on the back of the horse, in this densely closed-in grove of trees. Felt safe because she couldn’t see him. And she could just hear his voice and think of him as Jake, her friend. Not Jake, the man she had kissed and touched and tasted.

Jake, who she had seen naked.

“We have to talk, Cal,” he said.

“I don’t want to,” she said.

“Like you said, I’m the person you talk to. Well, you’re the person I talk to. As much as I talk. And I need to make sure I get said what needs saying. We can’t do that again.”

She could hardly breathe. “What?”

“We can’t do it again, Callie. That has to be it.”

“Oh.” It felt like being punched in the stomach.

A million thoughts ran through her head. That she had messed it up somehow. That she wasn’t really this great, feminine goddess like she thought she was when it had been happening.

But he’d...well, he’d seemed to like it a lot.

But maybe that was just how men were. Maybe there was no particular kind of achievement or skill in making a man tremble if you put your mouth on his dick.

Maybe that was just how it was.

And she didn’t know enough to know that.

What she hated more than anything was that he’d been right. Because she felt shaken. Undone by what he was saying to her.

Wounded.

And that made it seem like what he’d said about how affected she would be by it was true. That he really had known more about her and her inexperience than she had.

Oh, that made her furious.

And at the same time she was... Relieved. Relieved because it was all too much. Because she’d spent half the day thinking about it and him, and how could she do that if she was still figuring out what she wanted? If she needed him to be her friend, and she couldn’t even have a conversation unless they weren’t looking at each other because she couldn’t stop herself from picturing him naked.

He was right. He was. But she was her all the same.

And upset and sad and a million other things that she shouldn’t be.