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She shook her head. “No. I mean it. I’m not going back to Cloe’s. She doesn’t need me staying in the room she should be decorating for her and Rome’s baby.”
“Then I’ll take you to Sweetie’s.”
“Sweetie and Decker don’t need me butting into their lives either.”
He studied her for a long moment before he sighed. “Fine. There’s room at the ranch. You can stay there until you figure out what you want to do.”
She was more than a little surprised. “You’d let me stay at the ranch after what I did to you?”
“I’m already stuck with three Holidays. What’s one more?” He grabbed his hat and tugged it on.
She should have taken him up on the offer, but she couldn’t. “Thank you. But if I’m going to learn to stand on my own two feet, I need to start now. I can drive myself to a hotel.” She stood and the floor shifted beneath her feet.
“Like hell you can.” He hooked an arm around her waist to steady her, except the feel of his strong fingers curling over her hip made her feel anything but steady. “Nor am I dropping you off at some seedy hotel and those are the only ones remotely close to Wilder.”
She frowned at him. “The last thing I want right now is someone else telling me what I should do.”
“I get it, and if you hadn’t imbibed too much alcohol tonight, I would be more than happy to let you go wherever you wanted to go. But since I contributed to your drinking, I can’t do that.”
He was right, but she still couldn’t concede. “I don’t want to be around family right now. I need some space to figure things out.”
A long moment passed before he spoke. “I have another option. It’s not The Ritz Carlton, but it will give you the space you seem to think you need.”
The beat-up trailer he drove her to was about as far from The Ritz as you could get. “Whose is this?” she asked when he pulled his big truck into the dirt lot.
“It’s mine. It used to be my Uncle Dan’s.”
Belle had known Dan Wheeler lived in a trailer. She just hadn’t realized its condition. As she took in the broken windows and rusted siding, her heart ached for Dan . . . and the two teenagers who’d had to live here with him.
Corbin shut off the engine and turned to her. “You can still come back to the ranch with me. I’m sure your family would be thrilled.”
“But you wouldn’t.” When he didn’t reply, she shook her head. “No. This is good.”
“Suit yourself.”
The inside of the trailer wasn’t much better than the outside.
“It’s very . . . nice,” she lied.
He laughed. “There are clean sheets in the hall linen cabinet and there’s a new toothbrush and some toothpaste in the top drawer in the bathroom. Lock the door when I leave and call if there are any problems. Do you need me to come pick you up in the morning to get your car?”
“Thank you, but you’ve done enough. Especially after what I did to you. I’m sorry, Corbin. I’m truly sorry.”
He nodded. “How about if we let that night go?”
“Can you?”
He hesitated and his gaze lowered to her mouth. She had thought she’d sobered up on the drive to the trailer, but if the warm feeling in her tummy and the dizzy feeling in her head were any indication, she wasn’t sober. When Corbin took a step closer, her lips parted on a soft exhalation as her eyes slid closed. But instead of feeling the soft press of his kiss, he spoke.
“Good night.”
When she opened her eyes, he was already heading out the door. Once he was gone, she felt like a complete fool. Corbin wasn’t going to kiss her. He had never been interested it her.
It was Liberty.
Always Liberty.
She locked the door and glanced around the trailer. She had spent the last couple months living alone while Liberty had been helping to untangle things at the ranch. She hadn’t liked coming home every night to an empty apartment, but that loneliness had felt nothing like this loneliness. Probably because she’d known it was only temporary. Liberty would come back and they’d live like two peas in a pod once again.
