“Well, yeah. After Breanna he was never really the same. But I guess...it affected all of us.”
She nodded slowly, and she didn’t want to look like a fool, not understanding who Breanna was. But it wasn’t even a name she had heard. She had heard a lot of names when they pulled up. She had heard a lot of names over the past few weeks of knowing him, but she had not heard that one.
“He just... I was really worried about him for a while. I didn’t know he would ever... If you ever pull out of that funk, but he did. It’s just that once he did he wasn’t the guy he used to be. Sawyer has always been serious. You know Sawyer.”
She nodded.
Shesortof did.
“He’s a great guy. But he’s very much the oldest. Wolf was never like Sawyer, except in his desire to do what was right. He was never the most outgoing, or talkative, but he was... Well, he was sweet.”
Violet laughed. “I don’t know that I’d call himsweet. But he’s... He is a good man.”
Quinn cleared her throat. “Now, if Arizona King can find somebody to love her exactly the way she is...then there really is hope for the rest of us.”
Arizona was sitting by herself, scowling and drinking a beer.
“What’s her deal?”
“No one knows. Something happened, and she got...feral. And it’s been so long that whatever it was, she really should be over it by now. But it’s like it broke something in her. I guess that’s how grief is sometimes. Whether it’s death or...something else.”
Death.
Breanna.
She was going to ask Wolf about that. She was going to wait. She wouldn’t do it here. Because she had sense enough to know that if it hadn’t come up, there was a reason. Because Wolf was nothing if not utterly and completely protective of himself and his emotions.
She had a feeling she didn’t want to know exactly where this line of questioning was going to lead. But she did want to know Wolf. And she wanted to know Wolf a hell of a lot more than she wanted to be comfortable.
You’re not comfortable. That’s the thing. Because you know there’s more to him, and he’s just not telling you. You know there’s more to him and you also have to know that it isn’t going to be a happy story or he would be a happier person.
And maybe that was just it. Maybe caring about him was going to mean being brave enough to face all of that.
But she was going to have to pry it out of him with a crowbar.
But everybody here knew. It wasn’t fair that she didn’t.
That thought brought her up short.
Fair?
What was fair and not fair about this entire thing?
Sure. Maybe if she was his real girlfriend. Maybe if she was what everyone here thought she was. What Quinn seemed to believe that she was. Maybe if she was actually a woman whom Wolf had fallen in love with. An unexpected bright spot in a life that had clearly been difficult. But she wasn’t.
She was just a woman he’d gotten pregnant. And the one thing that was very clear about Wolf was that he would have proposed to any woman he’d gotten pregnant.
He played like he was a bad boy, but he was traditional. It was clear. In everything he did. And the fact that he’d gone to visit her father. The fact that he’d gone to get her a ring. And she had allowed herself to believe that it might be romantic. But it was just...
She looked across the barn, looked at that man. And she tried to make sense of him. Because who had taught him to be so traditional? He had a mother who left him, and a father who didn’t seem to care. So where did this core of honor come from? It was there, and she was grateful for it. He was good; that was the thing. It was inarguable. Maybe it came from Sawyer. That would make sense. Maybe it was his relationship with his older brother that spurred him to be like this, but Sawyer had it from somewhere. She just... She just wished she knew. And she didn’t know that it mattered. Maybe it didn’t matter at all. Maybe she needed to come to her own conclusions without having those answers.
Well, you’re in luck, because you’re not just going to get them easily.
But fairness wouldn’t be a part of it. Because he didn’t owe her anything.
She wished that he did. But all of this, the entire time, was... It was her own traditionalism, actually. She had been so sure that she was careful and protecting herself. But she had met a beautiful man she wanted to believe in, and she had ignored everything that he’d said to her, cast off all of her misgivings and jumped right in, telling herself that she knew exactly what it was. Telling herself she could handle an affair, all the while secretly believing that she would get to keep him. To the point where...after two weeks of sex she had asked him to stay.
She was still doing it.