Page 77 of Kicking Up Dust

His arms tighten around my waist in silent support, but he doesn’t push me to continue.

“All of the worst things that have ever happened to me have been on nights when it’s raining. When I was five, my parents left for a date night and never came home. Their car hydroplaned and they crossed the median into oncoming traffic.”

Colt’s breath hitches, loud in my ear as he holds it in. I know he lost his dad, too. I know he knows as well as I do that there’s nothing he can say to fix the grief, so I swallow and then press on before he can try.

“And then when I was thirteen, I was placed in a home where the family only had one other kid—a son a few years older than me. They’d tried to have another kid and couldn’t, so they thought they’d try and foster to adopt. Kyle liked me a little… too much.”

He grows stiff behind me and then immediately tries to pull away so he can look me in the eye, but I don’t let him. I just need to get everything out. It’s the only time I’ve ever felt safe doing so.

“He snuck into my room one night. I just remember lying there, with his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t scream actual words, and the thunder crashing in the distance. He’d planned it so if his parents heard anything, they’d just think it was another one of my nightmares because of the storm. I told them the next morning, but they didn’t believe me and when I went to school the following week, he told everyone he wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot-pole and that I’d lied about him touching me just for the attention.”

“Blair,” he grits out, desperate and angry.

His thumbs brushing my cheeks make me aware I’m crying, even though I’m not sad. I’d come to terms with what happened to me a long time ago, and perhaps a therapist would have something to say about me bottling everything up inside, but telling Colt isn’t making me sad. It’s… liberating.

I give him a small smile. “I’m okay, I promise. Just… you saying my word should be enough for someone to believe me… it really meant a lot to me and I thought you should know why.”

“What’s his last name?” he asks, bypassing what I said entirely, but I can understand that. Just because I’ve come to terms with what happens doesn’t mean he has to. For him, this is new—a gaping flesh wound, not a faded scar.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s okay, Colt. I’m okay.”

“To hell it doesn’t matter.”

I reach up to hold his cheek in my hand, brushing my thumb along his cheekbone like he does for me sometimes.

“It matters,” I agree, “but I’ve come to peace with it and I know it’s not fair of me to ask that you do as well, at least not right away, but I need you to know I’m okay now. I have a wonderful boyfriend who believed me right away, and we have a beautiful daughter coming soon. I’m okay, and I don’t want to dwell on it for the rest of my life.”

His eyes search mine, like he’s looking for any part of me that’s hurt, anything he can use as an excuse to continue raging. Finding nothing, his shoulders slump as he presses his face against my neck, breathing deeply, regulating himself.

“I love you, Colt,” I whisper again, threading my fingers through his curls. I’d say they’re my favorite part of him, but that would imply there’s a least favorite part and if there is, I haven’t found it yet.

He holds me for a long time. Eventually, the fire dies out and I talk him into heading to bed. He presses kisses to every inch of my skin as he makes love to me like he can erase what happened that night.

I think it just might work.

FORTY-ONE

COLT

Maddie’s already coming outside when I pull up in front of his cabin the next morning. It’s early, but not really by our standards. Blair’s still asleep though, and I’d be willing to bet Austin still is too.

“Want to get our horses?” he asks, but I shake my head. We need to be still for this one.

“Nah, let’s just sit on the tailgate,” I offer instead, walking around to the back of the truck and letting it down.

Our legs swing awkwardly as we sit there, watching the sun rise in silence for a few minutes.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says again. “I really didn’t mean it how it came out, and I apologized to Blair too, but Austin says I’ll probably have to say it again when she’s feeling better.”

I nod, both because Blair had already told me he’d apologized and because I agreed that he needed to do it again.

“Blair’s willing to take a DNA test. She has been from the start. But that kid is mine, Maddox. Regardless of what that test ends up saying, that baby is a Whittaker and I’ll be damned if you try to say she’s lesser even if she doesn’t have Whittaker blood in her veins.”

Maddox sighs. “Colt⁠—”

“No,” I stop him, turning to look at him for the first time since we sat down. “We’re not going to keep talking about this. In a few weeks, we’ll be able to run the test and you’ll get your answer, but until then, continuing to hash it out will only piss me off more.”

I turn to look at the horizon again. This was probably one of the only parts I’d missed about this ranch—how beautiful the sunrise was. One day, I’d wake Blair up just to make sure she could watch it with me, but right now, I figured she needed all of the rest she could get.