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He’s quiet.
For the first time in my life, I see a man admit to his failure. A little part of me heals in his silence. He’s not defending himself or blaming me. He could easily say I was more than willing, but he shoulders the blame even though we both know it’s not fair.
“Now, you’re different than I thought back then,” I manage.
His eyelids flicker, hurt behind them.
“This is all I’ve ever been,” he says hoarsely. “Take it, because there won’t be any leaving, darling.”
There never was—I want to scream, but I can’t even figure out what I feel. He’s so bullheaded. The odds were always against him,but he showed up anyway. Bullheadedness is his best and worst trait—it saved me. I can’t hate him for it.
“You’re it for me, Diane,” he says. “I watched you from the hill almost every night. I went to the cemetery every week hoping to see you there. I might have fucked you too soon, but I never left you.”
My heart aches in my chest. All those nights when I sat alone in my room and stared out the window, he was watching me.
His eyes glitter. “I swore to myself you’d be mine,” he says.
A tear slips down my cheek, leaving a hot trail behind.
His throat bobs. “I’m all in for the long haul, darling. Get used to it.”
He takes me by the nape of the neck and pulls me in. His mouth finds mine, and then it finds the top of my head as his arms wrap around my body.
I’ve learned quickly that Westin needs touch to connect. I think I might be the same. It feels like borrowing his courage and the slow beat of his heart to lay against his body.
“I don’t mind fighting,” he says, voice low. “You can break my shit, throw my plates, but you can’t leave.”
I sniff, wiping my face on the front of his shirt. “I think I give up,” I whisper.
“That’s alright too, darling.”
We might both be more broken than I thought. Maybe he’s right that we need structure to build our relationship. Maybe I should have actually read the contract. It was overwhelming at the time, and I’d wanted an out to think things over.
Guiltily, I pull back and wipe my face. He tilts my chin up.
“You alright?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah, let’s talk more later.”
He kisses my forehead. Then, he leaves me, and I stand in the window that overlooks the back side of the barn. After a while, Sovereign and Westin appear on their horses, moving through the snow until they disappear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
WESTIN
Sovereign and I stand at the top of the hill overlooking the charred foundation of the Garrison home. The police came and went. Animal control showed up with trailers and took the horses and cattle away. Now, the ranch is cold and quiet, still stained with ash.
“How’s your girl?” Sovereign says.
He glances at me, pale eyes narrowed. Now that the snow is cleared, we’ve been busy cleaning up our mess. Sovereign has a bandage on the side of his head where Thomas shot at him, but otherwise, he’s unharmed. I’ve seen Keira up at the house once or twice. She’s pretty well adjusted for someone who took a life for the first time.
But then, it’s hard to know what goes on behind closed doors. I barely know what goes on in Diane’s head, and I sleep in her bed.
“She’s…alright.” I shrug.
His jaw works. When we were up in the mountains, he apologized to me for airing my shit out to everyone. I forgave him, because now that I have Diane, everything else seems unimportant. Maybe we’ll talk about it more. More likely, we’ll crack open a bottle and forget the whole thing. That’s how we’ve operated for years.
I clear my throat. Killing the Garrison brothers was something we had planned for years; I just didn’t expect the world to feel so ordinary now that it’s done.
