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Once he muscled the inflated air mattress back inside and made up the makeshift bed, he kicked off his cowboy boots and flopped on his back to stare at the ceiling He put his hands behind his head and just lay there in silence, so I took rabbed a couple of beers, and went over to join him I set the cans on the floor and sat next to his hip on the squishy bed
"How are you going to survive not having junk to put in your hair for a couple of days?" I playfully poked at the slicked-up blond strands
He caught ht it down to put a kiss onpulse on the underside of my wrist He lifted an eyebrow and tilted his chin down so he could look at ht my cowboy hat"
Oh, sweet baby Jesus, we needed to make up real quick, then I reached out so I could trace the line of one of his golden eyebrows
"I’o to such an extreht and it isn’t fair to you I was just freaking out and I know I didn’t handle it correctly"
His chest rose and fell as he exhaled loudly He caughtacross his broad chest
"It’s not the freak-out or the way you handled it that worries me It’s the fact that you felt like you had to freak out in the first place I know the whole Poppy thing is tricky and uncoured out now But even if I didn’t, it has been you for et how you can’t know that"
He brushed his fingers through ood I wanted to purr like a cat and rub up against him
"I don’t know I guess it’s the sa you I’ and yet you still look atto vanish into thin air We can know one thing, Rowdy, but our heart holds on to so else"
"I don’t want it to hold on to that anymore I just want it to hold on to you"
I squeezed my eyes shut and had to s around how happy and terrified his words ainst the top of o We have to trust each other if we’re going to be together I missed you this week and so did Jimbo"
He yawned so loud I heard his jaw crack and he squeezedaway isn’t going to be as easy as it once was, Sale to let you run anymore"
He sounded so sure, and for the first time since this all started between us I just believed I believed in hi between us having enough legs to be real and forever because that hat fate, and er than fate, wanted for both of us
"I’ some kind of clever coot was a steady rise and fall of that strong chest and his breathjerk had fallen asleep on led off of his up on the air mattress so that he would bedrive after a full day of work and I’m sure his week hadn’t been any better thanout early shot all irl on top of him with no one around to heararound in the bag a pants and a tank to sleep in I made a PB&J for dinner and tried to send Poppy a text to runtled to find that this far out in the woods there was no service I killed an hour and then decided all there was to do was curl up next to Rowdy and try to sleep, so I shut down the lanterns and curled up next to him as close as I could His massive frame took upsounds of the forest and the night I listened to Rowdy’s rhythhed when he wrapped his arhtly to his side
I realized it really was all about where I had ended up and not where I had been, because as long as he was there, wherever that happened to be was going to be where I was supposed to be at as well
Even if that place was sootten cabin in the Colorado ht of sleep that I had gotten since she walked away from me earlier in the week I don’t knookein the middle or the call of the birds in the pine trees, but soht out I automatically reached for the body that was supposed to be curled up alongsideposition when I came up empty
The cabin was tiny, so it was easy to see I was alone and I couldn’t for the life of otten off to before the sun was even in the sky I mean there was no bathroom, the place was beyond rustic, but I didn’t think Saleh the woods without lettinght for her So I pushed my messy hair off my face, pulledThe cabin was in a clearing that sat on a crystal-clear lake that was fed from runoff from the mountains The area was a national forest and the land that wasn’t part of it was privately owned by guys like Phil that just wanted a quiet escape fro with a motor on the water, but there was still a weather-beaten dock for rowboats and kayaks jutting out fro on the end with her legs dangling over the side, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders while she watched the first rays of dawn break across the sky When I got closer I noticed she had an open beer in her hand and a soft s to draith, I would have captured the moment for posterity
I sat down behind her and trapped her between s and wrapped an arainst my chest
"Breakfast of cha a face as I did It was too early for Coors Light, but whatever