Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105161 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105161 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
I looked up in surprise. His face was flushed, eyes bright with huge pupils, and lips wet from our kisses. He wanted me, wanted this. So why was he stopping me?
“Wait,” he said between heavy breaths. “We should talk about this. What if… I mean, I’m not… I can’t give you what you need, what you deserve. It’s not fair. And we work together. And I…”
My sex-addled brain could not make heads or tails of what he was trying to say, but I damned sure knew the bit he hadn’t said there at the end was about him being straight.
His rejection might as well have come in the form of a bucket of ice water.
“Right. Silly me. Fucking with the resident heterosexual. Off I go, then. Good night, Hudson.”
Before he had a chance to respond, I was out of the truck and hauling arse toward the bunkhouse. I heard the slam of the driver door but didn’t look back to see if he was following me. I made my way quickly into my bedroom and locked the door behind me, slipping my earbuds on as fast as I could and jacking the music up loud enough to allow me to pretend he hadn’t followed me and banged on the door, begging me to come back to him.
21
Hudson
Hudson’s Luck:
You always want what you can’t have.
I chased after him and pounded my fist against the door to his room, but he ignored me. He thought I’d rejected him because I was straight. Clearly I wasn’t straight, and I damned sure hadn’t rejected him. I’d just wanted to slow down enough to be clear about what was happening between us. That hooking up couldn’t lead to anything more than casual sex. We each had families we weren’t willing to leave. He lived in Ireland for god’s sake, and I lived in Texas.
And his sister had been right: Charlie was looking for his Forever Man. There was no way I could be that guy for him. Besides the problem of geography, there was also the issue of my sexuality. Didn’t Charlie deserve to be with someone who knew what the hell he was doing? Someone who had a clearer sense of himself than I did?
But he hadn’t even let me explain.
I made my way back to the little cabin for the night and succumbed to an angry session of stroking myself off to images of Charlie’s lean body and soft smile despite my better judgment.
It made seeing him awkward, which left me grateful for the weekend when I could avoid him like the plague. The only problem was my meddling family. Grandpa and Doc wanted to know why I didn’t join them for Saturday breakfast, and my sister Sassy called me out on being a grump when I finally turned up at the barn for a trail ride late in the morning. If I’d waited to show my face on my own family’s damned ranch until a certain Irishman’s vehicle had left the premises, it was nobody’s business but mine.
“What the fuck is your problem?” she asked from the other side of the pony she was saddling. Our niece Tisha was coming to ride with us, and if memory served, she’d expect her new pony to be the first one ready to mount when she arrived with Seth and Otto.
“Are you talking to me or Peanut?” I asked, even though I knew she wasn’t talking to the pony.
“Is it Darci? I heard something happened to her last night and she ended up at the hospital.”
I snapped my head up. “What? What happened? Is she okay?”
Sassy met my eyes and shrugged. “I figured you might know. Stevie told me he saw her there when he was working the coffee cart overnight.”
I handed her Patty Cake’s bridle and asked her to take over for me so I could call Darci and make sure she was all right. Even though we weren’t together anymore, I still cared about her a great deal.
When she picked up on the third ring, I almost didn’t recognize her voice. She sounded tiny and exhausted. “Hudson?”
“Hey, yeah, it’s me. I heard you were at the hospital and wanted to check you were okay.”
“Not really,” she said, sniffling. “Can you… I hate to ask you this Hudson, but can you come get me?”
My heart clenched. She sounded plain worn-out and not at all her usual perky self. “Yeah, of course. You still there at the hospital?”
“Yeah. I’m done, but I don’t want to go home right now.”
Since Darci worked at the regional hospital outside of Hobie, she had an apartment on the outskirts of town. She refused to live at her parents’ hobby farm in Hobie because she took great pride in supporting herself. If she didn’t want to go home to her apartment, I wondered why she didn’t just stay at her parents’ place.