44. Colt

Chapter 44

Colt

I slip from the room, leaving Fable and Trent wrapped around each other, and lean my back against the door. Fuck. Not only am I so turned on that I can barely contain it, but that was. . . that wasn't just sex.

We're in fucking trouble.

Fable is supposed to leave in six days. Besides that, she can't exactly stay here, not with the dangerous shit we've got going on, but part of me doesn't fucking care. Part of me just wants to keep her here regardless. I want to explore her, learn every aspect of her, until there's not a shadow I haven't inspected. I want to carve her open and find how she ticks.

I could fucking love her. Hell, I'm halfway to it now and we haven't even had sex. When was the last time I had a connection this strong to a woman? I don't know if I ever have. My past pales in comparison to the present. And clearly, I'm not the only one who feels like this.

Trent. Trent fucking Coldiron. Immovable bastard. Traumatized asshole. People-avoiding cocksucker. He already loves her. I know it. I saw it in his eyes as he kneeled before her, as he begged her to fuck him. She'd looked over at me confidently and I'd felt the air change. She could be all of ours if we're brave enough to take her, to keep her.

But how?

How the fuck do we keep her from leaving short of kidnapping? Hell, I'd certainly settle for kidnapping at this point. She'd probably forgive us. She'll love us all eventually.

I run my hand through my hair, frustrated, desperate, and also a little angry. Ain't not a one of us good people, except for maybe Gunnar. If Gunnar had been left alone, he'd have been a good man, but we dragged him into this. I dragged them into this. I'm the older one. I should have known better than to approach Rhett with my halfcocked idea to save the ranch. I should have realized it couldn't be temporary, that we couldn't just walk away when we were ready. And now here we are, stuck between two gangs and eager for a woman to touch all our open trauma and heal it.

Fuck. If anyone could patch us back together, it would be her. Fable Everhart. My very own Annie Oakley slinging bullets without even knowing it.

Rhett appears at the top of the staircase, his eyes taking in my stance and the closed door behind me. I straighten, not wanting to look needy and wanting in front of Rhett. I'll never hear the end of it. Besides, bastard is still holding onto the idea that he could have gotten Fable out of his system with a single fuck. He deserves no clues.

"How was it?" Rhett asks, his throat thick, as if he's been waiting for someone to leave the room.

What a fucking idiot. All of us know he's being dense. Shit, I think Rhett even knows it, but ain't a single one of us going to give him anything until he admits it.

I roll my eyes and move away from the door, so I don't wake Fable. Trent is probably still awake, his eyes on the door watching for when my shadow moves. He'll only fall asleep when he's too exhausted to stay awake, just like he always does.

We all have our trauma. Trent's runs a little deeper.

"Thought you got her out of your system?" I goad him as I pass by and descend the stairs. Gunnar is still sitting at the coffee table, a beer in his hand he takes a sip of as I come down the stairs. His eyes are heated, as if he's been imagining what's going on upstairs. Lucky me, I don't have to imagine. The scenes are burned into my mind and I fucking love it.

"So, I can't ask?" Rhett growls as I step out onto the porch. He follows, annoyed.

Jethro is sitting out here, and he peeks up at my exit. "It's alright, boy," I tell him. "She's sleeping. You can come inside when I go back in."

That dog don't belong to me anymore. He doesn't belong to Circle Bee. He belongs to Fable Everhart, her protector, and we're gonna have to find a way to get him to her when she leaves. Unless we can convince her to stay of course.

"Not if you had your one-night stand and are done," I tell him as I pop out a lighter and flick it on. I close it right after, then flick it on again. I used to smoke, but Rhett made me quit. He'd argued it fucked with his allergies, but I know it was his way of caring for me. I'd reluctantly given up the habit, if only because I care about this family more than I care about myself. I can't go leaving them behind too soon, or worse, fuck with their health for my own selfish reasons.

"Maybe me asking is my way of tryin' to get a fix," Rhett argues.

"She's not a fix," I growl. "She's not an itch. Fuck off."

"Come on, man. Just tell me," Rhett growls. "I'm fucking dying here?—"

"Then admit it," I spit.

He freezes. "Admit what?"

I straighten and step up to him, bumping his chest with mine. "Admit she's not out of your system," I command. "Admit you want her for more than a quick fuck."

"I don't do commitments," Rhett rasps.

I flick open the lighter again. "Keep lying to yourself, Rhett Thomas. It's gonna make this all the more painful."

His throat bobs before he scowls and turns away, looking out over the pastures. "You know, we've kept this place afloat," he says as he studies all we've built.

Some things are the same as when his parents were here. The four of us, we were friends growing up, and when Trent came in, we adopted him into our group just as Rhett's parents adopted him. Rhett hadn't liked it at first, but he'd come around to the thought of a brother. It helped we were all practically brothers before that. I was older, but I worked at Circle Bee in the summers. Gunnar is the same age as Rhett, but the two of them were actually friends in high school, playing on the football team together. I was already out of high school by the time they were sophomores, but I never let our friendship fester. When the accident had happened, I'd worried about Rhett. He spent a lot of time lost, and really, I don't know what actually brought him back. Gunnar thought he just realized how many were relying on him. I think it was something else.

Rhett was on a one-way path to death, whether by his own hand or someone else's. I think, in the end, he got close, and realized he didn't want to die. He won't talk about it, but I saw the gun sitting out on his desk when he was seventeen. He'd passed out drunk, drooled all over it, and I'd picked up the gun his daddy used to keep in the desk drawer. It'd been loaded.

We never spoke about it. I never brought it up, but I took the bullets. He never asked who took them and no one has brought it up again, but it feels like I should now.

"Would you have done it?" I ask.

Rhett jerks and glances over at me. "Done what?"

"That night I came over and found you passed out at the desk. Would you have done it?" I ask, looking out over the yard. These kinds of conversations, sometimes no eye contact is best.

He hesitates. "I always suspected it was Trent."

"It wasn't," I reply.

Rhett clears his throat. "I, uh, if I hadn't of passed out, I might've. I don't know."

I turn from the yard and meet his gaze head on. He takes a step back, uncertain. "Would you do it now?"

He shakes his head. "No."

"Why not?" I ask, needing the answer. I've wondered for nine long years. I've watched him avoid relationships with everyone but us. I've watched him turn away good women. Not once have I ever seen him act the way he does around Fable the same way he did with the other women.

He blows out his breath. "Shit, I don't know, man."

"That's not a good enough answer," I growl.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" he growls back. "You want me to say it's because of you guys? You want me to admit I didn't want to hurt the three of you?" He slams his hand against the post. "You want me to admit I had a drunken vision of my parents telling me that I needed to be better? That I was too close to failing everyone?"

"If that's what happened," I nod. "I've long since known who you are, Rhett Thomas, but you're so damned concerned with hiding behind a mask of your own makin'." I tilt my head. "You're doin' the same thing with Fable right now."

"Even if I were to like her, nothing can come of it," Rhett growls.

"Why not?" I ask.

"You know why," he spits. "Ain't no woman deserves to be pulled into all this, least of all her!"

I cross my arms. "We can protect her."

"We can barely protect ourselves," he snarls. "The ranch is safe for now, but it can all come tumbling down at any moment. You know that as well as I do. There's no escaping this mess we're in. We're in it until we fucking die."

"In a normal world, if we weren't here, what would you do?" I ask.

"It doesn't matter. It's not gonna change?—"

"Humor me," I snarl, cutting him off. "If we weren't in the mess we're in, how would you have handled it?"

He hesitates, his eyes on mine. Rhett has always been proud. He's always been a livewire just waiting to be touched. His mom used to say the fire in his heart bleeds into his hair and that's why it's the color it is. I used to think it was funny, but when Mrs. Thomas passed, I missed her little quips and sayings almost immediately. Fable brought some more of that brightness back into Circle Bee, the glitter we were missing here. She came in and changed every fucking one of us, and Rhett knows it. As to if he'll admit it. . .

"If things were normal. . ." Rhett repeats, looking out over the yard again. He pets Jethro's head absentmindedly when he presses against him. "If we didn't have to deal with the Crows and the Eight Balls. . ." He sighs and glances at me. "I'd have already asked her to marry me."

My eyes widen. "What?"

"It doesn't matter," Rhett growls. "It doesn't fucking matter one bit, and you can't say a word to anyone. She leaves. She has to. For her safety. "

I study the man in front of me. There's sadness in his eyes, longing, and for the first time, I wonder if it's how we all look at the woman currently passed out in Trent's arms upstairs. I wonder if we've all just been lying to ourselves.

"Fuck," I whisper. "This is really fucked, Rhett."

"Yeah," he answers, hanging his head. "Yeah, it is."

We stand there in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the moon and the stars above.

"You're right," Rhett finally says. "She's not out of my system. I suspect she never will be."

I smirk at him. "Good boy," I say, needling him, but I still don't tell him what happened upstairs. He'll have to see for himself.

"Asshole," he grumbles, but it's half-hearted and he smiles a little at me after he says it. I embrace him in a brief hug before heading back inside and taking a seat in the living room recliner. I make sure I can see both the base of the stairs and the front door, just to make sure nothing comes in that's not supposed to.

Just to make sure she's safe. . .