Braving The Storm: An Age Gap, Cowboy Romance (Crimson Ridge Book 2)
Braving The Storm: Chapter 40

“What were my grandparents like?”

My girl looks at me from across the small table, her coffee cradled in both hands and breakfast half-finished. She’s wearing my shirt, and even though it drowns her, I swear to god I’d go to my grave a happy man if that was all she ever wore.

“Ma and Pop? What do you wanna know?”

“Anything, really.” She sips her coffee and then clears her throat, all cute and disapproving when she catches me staring at her tits instead of concentrating on the question.

I scrub a hand over the back of my neck and chuckle. “Shit, I forget you never even knew them.”

“My dad never talked about them.” It’s not sad, her tone, more wistful than anything. There’s a certain type of lingering curiosity there. Briar tilts her head to one side and flutters those eyelashes of hers with enough power to bowl me over with just one sweep against her soft cheeks.

She kills me with those eyes every damn morning, I swear.

“Good people. They brought that hard-grafting European mindset with them when they migrated here. Honest to a fault, but firm. Mind you, they needed to be, with my wild ass nearly setting shit on fire at every turn.”

“You would have been a nightmare, I bet.”

“Hey.” Raising my eyebrows allows me the pleasure of seeing her grin in a way that seems so much more natural and carefree than the timid little thing who first turned up here. “I was a perfect angel.”

Briar nearly spits her coffee across the table.

“Come on.” Her big eyes roll dramatically.

“Sainthood levels of perfection.” I fake the sign of the cross over my chest.

“The poor things. Did they ask if they could return you? Exchange you for store credit?”

I’m laughing as I shake my head and drag a hand through my hair. God, this girl makes me feel so much younger, so much lighter. We can talk about stuff I haven’t even thought about for years, and it just feels natural.

“Yeah, I kinda put them through it, but they were already pretty elderly when they fostered, then formally adopted your dad and me. Mom wasn’t in good health, but she always made sure we were taken care of, and knew we were loved and safe, because she’d seen enough kids come from crappy situations that she understood what we needed was stability when they adopted us at the same time. Then, Pop was just a rock. Always there no matter what, you know.”

I swallow hard, thinking about the man who would have adored this girl to pieces. Pop wouldn’t have said much, but I know he would have been wrapped around her little finger.

“We weren’t good at talking, but he could see I needed something to tame my demons, so he got me into rodeo. Put me on a horse and gave me every opportunity he could. Drove me miles to compete, always with his terrible hillbilly music playing and saying about two words the whole time. And if I came off during a ride, he’d look me over and chew his dip and say something like, ‘You dead, boy?’ which for some stupid reason would make me laugh, and then he’d shrug and suggest we head on home. The old bugger knew I was stubborn enough that I wouldn’t leave, that I’d get straight back up there just to prove him wrong.”

An incoming call bursts through my haze of memories. I’ve never moved so fast to check my notifications as I have these past few weeks since she’s been gone.

Except, it’s not her.

It never is.

Beau’s name peers back at me, and I have to fight the urge to swipe out of everything and just fucking hide out, allowing my soul to wither all day.

Instead, I decline the video, but stab the green button with my thumb to answer and grunt.

It’s not even a hello.

“You ghosting me, wild one?” Beau’s voice rumbles down the line.

Running my free hand through my hair, I blow out a breath. “Nah, sorry, just had a rough patch.”

Beau knows my shit. He knows exactly what it’s like when I get low.

Hell, I’ve seen him at his worst after a bad loss in the arena, too.

“Thought as much.”

“Things are going ok at the ranch, though. Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about.”

He chuckles, and in the background, I hear cars going past. “I saw the photos you texted. Looks awesome, man.” The line jostles a bit, and the sound of a truck door shutting drowns out the noise of suburbia I know he’s itching to leave behind.

Silence stretches out.

I lean forward on the wooden chair, elbows on my thighs, staring at my boots. My brain is awash with memories of sitting right here, of seeing her only a few feet across this table.

“Gonna tell me, or do I gotta get on my knees and treat you real sweet to get your secrets?”

That brings a ghost of a smile to my face.

“You’d fall in love with me too quick.” I scrub my hand over my mouth. “Wouldn’t want to go breaking your heart, boy.”

Beau takes his time. Fucking forever it feels like, to get it out.

“That what all this is about?” He muses. “Something crawled inside your chest and jumpstarted that lump of coal to life?”

“Fuck you very much.”

I hear him blow out a whistle to himself. “She got a name?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh, so you’re in deep-deep, huh?”

Being around Beau, living a breathing rodeo in each other’s back pockets for enough years that we did, I know the exact expression on his face right now. Smug fucker.

“Shitttt.” He sounds far too pleased with himself. This man has been waiting for goddamn years, threatening me that one day it’ll happen, that I’d finally know what it’s like to be left feeling this hollow and broken.

“She got you real good, then?”

I mull over things, not exactly knowing how to explain anything, or if I even want to.

“You ever thought you had it all, then woke up, and it was like the dream version of your life vanished?”

Beau shifts, and the speaker rustles as he readjusts himself.

“Can’t say I’ve been lucky enough to know how that feels.”

Poor bastard is married, and yet, I can hear everything in the way he says those words with such finality. Weighed down by years of being stuck in something that looked perfect on the outside, but had a decaying core right from day one.

“She must have been something.” He adds.

“You have no idea.”

“Did you fuck it up?”

“Hey. Low fucking blow, Heartford.”

The asshole is smiling. I can hear it through the phone.

“Well… you’re in Crimson Ridge crying into your pillow. This chick has obviously gone, so I’m just trying to put the pieces together here.”

She’s not some chick or some meaningless hook-up. Briar is everything I never knew I needed, and now she’s gone, and it’s slicing away at me, day by day.

Except, I don’t say any of that.

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know, alright.” My fingers tug at my hair. “Your smug fucking mustache happy now?” I grunt.

“Not if you’re hurting, man.” Beau clears his throat. “You love someone, and it cuts something extra savage when they’re not around.”

My chest aches just hearing him say it out loud. Because it’s the goddamn truth.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do if I’ve already lost her before I ever truly had her?”

There’s a wry-sounding noise from the other end of the line. “As much as it kills me to admit this… because I know you get off on being a clever prick and all, but, I don’t know. I’ve never had someone like that, and whatever it is, it sounds fucking brutal.”

It’s my turn to chuckle now. “It really is.”

“You want me to come out there?”

What I’ve done to deserve a friendship like Beau’s, I’ll never understand. The guy has got an imploding marriage, legal shit up to his eyeballs trying to work out a drawn-out, messy separation, and a new business he’s starting up. Yet, here he is, offering to fly to the back of nowhere just to sit and drink a beer or two and make sure I’m doing ok.

“Nah, man. Besides, it’s only a few more weeks ‘til you’re here anyway.”

“I’m fucking counting the minutes to get outta this circus, I tell you.”

“We can catch up for a cold one, or maybe an entire goddamn bottle; who knows how much I’ll be needing to numb myself by then.”

“Jesus. Maybe I do need to fly out there sooner.”

“Take a joke, Heartford. You’d think with that slug on your face, you’d be able to know a joke when you see it.”

“Whatever, you love it, bet you wanna know what it feels like tickling your pussy.” It’s damn good to hear him like this, and I’m grateful for the brief opportunity to lighten the weight yoked around my shoulders.

“Dream of me. I’ll be in Crimson Ridge before you know it, and you won’t have time for anything except drooling over my good looks.”

“Fuck off.”

“Love you, too, Stôrmand. See you in a couple of weeks.”