Page 34 of Love Me Again

Because Shane always had a plan. A course of action. Shane always knew where he was going and where his feet were planted when he wasn’t going anywhere.

Boone had never had that kind of certainty. He reacted rather than acted. Jumped into things. Even the rodeo had been initially just a lark, something to scare his mother, ruffle Shane’s feathers.

But he’d loved it enough, so he’d worked at it, but there’d been no plan. No plan until Josie had come along.

Then his only plan had been to find a way to make her happy.

And like all his plans, it had ended in failure.

It was a defeatist thought—funny how he was learning to recognize those instead of just accept them. But still, he couldn’t help but wonder if everything he was putting into motion was just setting himself up for failure again.

He didn’t want to fail this, which meant he wanted to ruin it before hope sprouted. Except Josie was smiling. And the sound of her laugh drifted over the pasture between them, and everything in his chest ached to match the ache in his leg.

“I think I convinced her to stay until the new year,” he managed to say to Shane, but he never took his eyes of Josie.

“It’s a start.”

A start. Boone snorted at the optimism, that Shane confidence Boone didn’t share, or even want from Shane. Or anyone.

“You are going to try to make things right, aren’t you?” Gavin asked. “Not actually get divorced.”

Boone hunched in his coat. He didn’t need his older brothers telling him what to do.

“Lou liked her, and you know that’s a hard sell,” Gavin continued, like he needed to talk Boone into trying to make things right. “You seem to like her, considering you get that smacked-in-the-face-with-a-frying-pan look on your face whenever she’s around.”

“And he did marry her,” Shane pointed out.

“Right. You made a commitment, and that might be a surprise to us, but clearly you wanted to, so you should try to make things right.”

All of his reactions were negative. He wanted to tell Gavin to fuck off. He wanted to tell Shane there was no plan because Boone wasn’t Shane—and he wanted to make that sound insulting.

But Josie was laughing, and his heart ached, and he wanted… God, he wanted to make something right for her. “I don’t want a divorce,” he managed to admit. “But she deserves to want to divorce me, so I don’t really know where to go from here.”

Had he ever admitted to his brothers he didn’t know what he was doing without it being meant to be some kind of dig at them knowing?

“You do what I do when I need help planning something.” Gavin looked up at Shane, jerked a thumb his way. “Ask the most anal man alive.”

“It’s not anal to have a plan,” Shane muttered. “It’s thorough.”

Boone and Gavin snorted in unison.

“As long as the roads are better tomorrow, we’re going down to the Bartons to get a Christmas tree. It was just going to be Cora, Micah and me, but I’ll talk to Mom. Make it a big family affair. You just have to find a way to get her to come with,” Shane said, because thorough or anal, the man did always know how to make a plan.

“I don’t know…”

“Just give it a shot. If she says no, it’ll still be a nice family outing, and Lindsay will be happy we all came out and supported Cal and Sarah. Nothing to lose.”

Boone tried not to sigh. Kept his mouth shut so he didn’t say what he was thinking which was I have everything to lose.

Except he’d already lost Josie. He’d already spent the past near two years without her. Sure, with vague ideas about getting her back, but absolutely no plan of action because…

Well, a lot of becauses.

“I’m rooting for you,” Shane said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Because Cora likes her too—which isn’t a hard sell at all—but she said it seems like Josie needs some family. We’ve got plenty of that to go around.”

Boone looked over at his wife. She’d never had that. Her life had been her father, and then she’d carefully let him into it.

And he’d crashed his way out, when she would have needed someone the most.