“I dunno,” Clara said. “As a fan of bison, I have to disagree.”
“The Sullivans have bees,” he said.
He went on to explain the layout of Four Corners, which Clara asked incisive questions about, and Violet was suddenly irritated at herself for not being more astute about ranch work. She learned more about what Wolf did in a day from Clara’s making conversation than she had in the past two weeks from her own line of questioning. And it was talking about ranching that actually got Wolf...talking.
She was going about it all wrong. She wanted to know all these intimate things about him, but she hadn’t started with the easy things. She hadn’t started with the surface things. The things that he found simple to make conversation about. And that was shortsighted of her. Not entirely brilliant.
When they got into bed, she rolled over and faced him. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Good to know,” he said, his gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“I mean, I’m going back to get my car, and to do Victorian Christmas with Clara and Alison and my other aunts.”
“Good,” he said.
“Were you worried?”
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t do worried.”
“Well. Just in case. Just in case you randomly decided to do worried when I didn’t come home for two days and it finally sunk in that I might have left you.”
A grin lifted the corner of his mouth. “You’re not going to leave me.”
“So confident.”
He rolled over, quick as a mountain lion, and pinned her down to the mattress. “Confident in some things.”
“Clara is just down the hall.”
“So she is.”
He looked unrepentant and unconcerned.
“She surprised me today. I mean, she was halfway here when I found out that she was coming. So I couldn’t have told you.”
“I have one of those things called a cell phone. And I do believe you have my phone number.”
“Well, all right. We went all around town today and...”
He kissed her neck. “Very interesting,” he said.
“You don’t sound interested.”
“Maybe I’d just rather do other things.”
He was so different tonight. Different than how he’d been last night. As if he had managed to go away and regroup and get into a space where he could pretend that the revelations of the day before hadn’t happened.
And she decided to let him. Because the revelation of earlier about the fact that she never talked to him about light and easy things was stuck there inside her. Maybe she needed to let him have this moment. This moment of retreat. Maybe it was just as important as the pushing. The moments where she didn’t push. She just let him take what he needed. And she got a whole lot out of it herself.
And when it was over, she lay against his chest. And she smiled.
She didn’t have to solve any problems right now. She didn’t have to answer the question of how she felt. Maybe right now she just needed to be with him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“VIOLETWENTBACKhome for a few days.” At least, Wolf assumed that she was gone. He had been up before the sun, and out before Violet and her friend Clara.
“Back home?” Sawyer asked, fixing him with a hard gaze. “I thought she was living here now.”