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  And he realized something he hadn’t let himself fully admit before this moment. He hadn’t truly wanted a woman in more than six months. Clara was the first one. And he didn’t want to want her.

  But maybe it didn’t matter anyway, because she wanted someone else. Thank God for that. Because he was going to let that other guy have her. And he was going to stay the hell away.

  But for a moment, he was going to let himself stand there and want her. Because it felt good. It felt damn good. Even though it was wrong.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, looking confused.

  Of course she was confused. He made no sense. None of this made sense.

  “I’m fine. Just had an early morning.”

  “Are you ready for dinner? I am.” She reached down and grabbed the white bucket, and he immediately took it from her hands.

  “Sounds good,” he responded.

  “We can have bread and honey with whatever you brought.”

  He smiled. “That sounds extra good.”

  It was strange, Clara being friendly to him. Them having a truce. Actually inviting him to dinner instead of scowling at him like she was waiting for him to go away.

  The entire walk back to the house, all he could think of was that he had neglected to tell her his biggest failing of all.

  That the real reason he was here helping her, protecting her, lusting after her, was because he was alive thanks to her brother’s sacrifice.

  His biggest failing was being alive when his best friend was dead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ALEX HAD BROUGHT spaghetti for dinner, and much to Clara’s delight, it was one hundred percent nitpicky taste bud approved. There was also a loaf of soft white bread provided by Alex’s other soon-to-be sister-in-law, Alison, who owned the town bakery. He had, of course, provided fresh Laughing Irish butter, and now they had honey too.

  The spaghetti was long since eaten and the two of them were both gratuitously continuing to devour the bread, mostly as a vehicle for the butter and honey.

  “We need to leave some for Lane,” Clara said, eyeing how much they had eaten.

  “We had a vat of it—that should be easy enough.”

  “I don’t know, when we’re out of bread I’m thinking I might escalate to just sticking my face in the bucket.”

  “It is pretty good,” he said.

  “Did you know that eating local honey can help with your seasonal allergies?”

  Alex laughed, and it created a kind of strange space in her chest that seemed to exist just to hold whatever feeling his laughter conjured up inside of her. She didn’t know what it was. Only that it felt weighted, heavy. Maybe because she knew no matter how quick Alex was with a smile, they shared a common pain.

  That they both knew how difficult life could be. That they knew the cost of things.

  But he smiled anyway. And he laughed.

  This time she had made him laugh, and that—she was discovering—held its own kind of satisfaction.

  Even if he was laughing at her entirely sincere bee trivia.

  “I didn’t know that, no,” he said.

  “Well, now you do. Honey is beneficial,” she said, sliding her chair closer to the cutting board that had the bread on it, taking another big spoonful of honey and drizzling it over the top of her selected slice.

  “I’m enjoying it, which means I already considered it beneficial.”

  “I don’t think that’s how that works.”

  “Of course it is,” he said, dipping the spoon back into the bowl and lifting it straight to his lips, taking an unashamed spoonful of the honey all on its own. “‘Good for you’ is a complicated concept, Clara. A series of checks and balances. Sure, there’s good for you in terms of vitamins and minerals and all of that. But does it make you feel good? Does it make you happy? Those are important questions to ask too. If the answer is no, then I always wonder why people are working so hard to prolong a miserable life. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I think it’s better to have a few less years with cake, than a few more with kale, right?”

  “Is that what you do? You just do what feels good?” She watched as he stuck his thumb into his mouth and sucked off some honey that clung to his skin. She realized that over the course of the past few days she had watched his mouth quite a bit. And that she’d catalogued those moments.

  His mouth on her hot chocolate cup yesterday. His mouth on his coffee this morning. His mouth right now.

  “I’ve done a hell of a lot that feels like garbage. I believed in the ideal behind serving in the army. It gave me something to be. Something bigger than myself. And growing up like Liam and I did, I liked that. I like feeling like I mattered. Like I was doing things. Fixing things.

  “But within all of that is a lot of hardship. It’s service, plain and simple. It requires you to do a hell of a lot you don’t want to do, and see a lot you wish you could go back to not even being able to imagine. But you don’t. You don’t forget. You don’t just go back to how it was before. There is no going back. So yeah, in the pockets in between that, I’ve made it a point to indulge in things that made me feel good. Because I’m far too familiar with the alternative.”

  So was she, even if it wasn’t in the same way. She was familiar with loss. With normal, everyday moments being twisted and turned, becoming defining moments when you least expected them to. Days that had started out sunny turning into the darkest of nightmares.

  She took the spoon out of his hand and dipped it into the honey bowl, then popped it into her mouth, sliding it back out again slowly. And then something else hit her. Because yes, she had shared a cup with Alex—twice now—but in those cases she had not pressed her lips to the exact same place his had been.

  Right now, her mouth was following the exact same path as his just had.

  That hollow feeling in her chest spread downward to her stomach, and then down lower still. The spoon suddenly felt warmer in her mouth, as though she could still feel the heat he’d left behind.

  She removed it quickly then.

  “Live fast. Die young,” she choked out.

  “Eat honey. Hell, yeah.”

  She laughed, pressing her hand to her forehead and resting her elbow on the table, the giggles escaping somewhat helplessly. “It’s not funny,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I know too many people who died too young for it to be funny. To even pretend.”

  She wondered then if the tear had been from the laughter, or from something else.

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “We know. We know that we aren’t guaranteed a long ride. So it’s best to make it a fun ride, right?”

  She nodded slowly, and looked down at the bread in front of her. She wasn’t sure she resembled that mindset at all. She didn’t live any kind of blissfully, blindingly fun existence. Mostly, she just had an existence.

  She had small pleasures, sure. Little things. Quiet things. Nothing resembling loud and reckless.

  But hey, she had asked Asher on a date. That was something, right? It was new, at least. Something she hadn’t done before.

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice sounding rough. She lifted up the bread and took a bite, chewing slowly as she set it back down on the plate in front of her.

  Alex leaned forward in his chair, his hand extended, and he brushed his thumb across the corner of her lip. It felt like getting punched in the stomach, except it wasn’t painful, just impactful. And hot somehow. As if all the heat from his skin had magnified, intensified, beneath hers, traveling down through her limbs, pooling in her stomach. Lower.

  And then he drew his hand back and pressed his thumb to his own lips, sticking his tongue out and sliding it along the edge of it.

  “You had a little honey,” he said, “just there on your mouth.”

&n
bsp; She was shaking. But she was pretty sure it was only happening on the inside. Where she felt like she was about to experience an eruption of some kind.

  She had never felt anything quite like this. Anticipation of...something. Hot and cold. A little bit sick to her stomach. Unsettled. Anxious for something she couldn’t put a name to.

  “Thank you,” she said finally, because she had to say something, didn’t she? Otherwise it would look weird. He would know how weird it was. How weird she felt.

  That she could still feel his touch against her skin.

  “No problem,” he responded.

  He stood suddenly, pushing his chair back almost violently. “I should go. I’ve got work to do at my own place tomorrow. So I won’t see you.”

  “Okay,” she said, feeling slightly numb.

  “Okay. I’ll pick up Lane’s dishes later.”

  “Wait! Don’t forget her honey.” Clara scrambled up from her seat and lurched toward the cupboard, taking out a small mason jar and bringing it back over to the table. She efficiently spooned honey into the jar, picking up the bowl and tipping it, pouring the rest in before screwing a lid in place and extending her hand to offer it to Alex.

  He reached out and took it, his fingertips brushing against hers as he did. Rough. His hands were rough. Probably from all the hard work he did. On the ranch. In the military before that. She wondered if Asher’s hands were rough. But then, she didn’t know why they would be. Unless he had a secret woodworking hobby when he wasn’t making coffee.

  It wasn’t like she needed a man’s hands to be rough.

  Those words caught in her brain and began to swirl around in a circle. Need. Man.

  What exactly did she think she needed from a man anyway?

  She didn’t have any specific images to go with that. She only had a feeling. A hot, hollowed-out feeling that made her skin feel too tight.

  She didn’t need anything. She had gone out of her way to not need anybody for a very long time. It wasn’t about need. It was like Alex had just said. What was the point of living a long life if it wasn’t a good life? If you didn’t enjoy it.

  No. There wasn’t anything like need on the table here.

  Except it was the word that kept echoing in her brain as that touch of Alex’s fingertips to hers reverberated through her entire body.

  Need. Need. Need.

  She swallowed hard, that sensation that lingered, remained and was spreading.

  “When will I see you again?” she asked. “That came out a little more dramatically than I meant.” She grimaced. “I just meant...when will you come back?”

  “Day after tomorrow. I’ll check in. Did you want me to come by tomorrow night for dinner? Or...did you need help with anything else? I can take some of your mail home and sort through it.”

  She looked at the stack of envelopes on the counter. “No. I can do it. Thank you.”

  He nodded once. “Of course. Whatever you need, Clara. Whatever you need from me, you know I’m going to be here to give it to you.”

  There was that word again. Need. Spoken right from those lips, those lips that she was so utterly captivated by. In his voice, that voice that seemed to echo around inside her body. In his eyes...green like the trees and so serious she couldn’t help but take everything he said straight to heart.

  She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t need anything. But those words wouldn’t come out. Because right now those words felt like a lie. “Thank you, Alex. I’ll remember that.”

  And then he nodded once and turned and walked out of the house, the honey jar clutched in his large hand.

  His rough hand.

  She turned away from the door, determined not to keep watch over his going. Not to keep looking like a sad puppy watching her owner leave the house.

  She started to put the pasta away, started to gather up the bread and wrap it in some Saran Wrap so she could store it. And she wondered. She wondered if more than just his fingers had calluses. If his palms were rough, as well. And what that might feel like against her hand. Against her skin.

  Against her bare back...

  She gasped, tore a chunk off the loaf of bread and stuffed it into her mouth, as though the distraction of eating might do something to turn the tide of her thoughts.

  She pressed her palms flat against the counter and lowered her head, looking to the side, seeing that big old pile of mail. It made her throat feel tight. Filled her with a sense of dread. She didn’t make any sense. There was something so desperately wrong with her. So incredibly off. That she couldn’t open her mail. That Alex was making her feel dizzy and off balance.

  Like she had questions about things only he could answer. Like what rough hands might feel like against soft, naked skin. His hands. Her skin.

  She lifted her hands, pressed balled-up fists to her eyes, took a moment to catch her breath.

  That thinking was just crazy. And it had nothing to do with what she wanted out of life. Life was short. They had just been talking about that. And she knew what she wanted to do with hers. Wanted to fashion this ranch into something that could be hers. That could be hers and maybe even Asher’s. Yes, she knew that harboring fantasies of marrying the guy was a little bit nuts when they’d never even been on a date.

  But it wasn’t like she thought too deeply about that. It wasn’t actually about the future. It was about now. Because going into the coffee shop and seeing him every morning was a bright spot. Because it made life feel normal, and a little bit warmer. It made her feel not so alone.

  It also kept her from needing.

  And to a degree, it kept her from reality. Alex kept bringing up the fact that Asher didn’t know she hated coffee.

  Was her excuse for keeping that from him really what she kept telling herself? Really what she kept telling Alex? Or was it an extension of that fantasy situation? The one where she didn’t have to deal with the life she had and got to spin herself stories about the life she maybe could have had.

  About the kind of food she might have enjoyed if she hadn’t grown up on canned goods because of a sick mother and an inept father who didn’t know how to do anything beyond use a can opener. Because she had then been left with a brother who had to work constantly to keep them afloat, and who wasn’t any better at cooking than their old man had been.

  Because all she’d ever known were rough, practical men, and something about Asher seemed different, and that felt... Well, sometimes it felt like eating a spoonful of straight honey. Good.

  And maybe it didn’t have a place in her life, but part of her wanted it anyway. Part of her wanted him to fit. Wanted to make herself fit. So she could have a different life than one marred by hardship and tragedy.

  Alex’s rough hands, easy smile and dirty mouth didn’t have a place in that.

  He was too much a part of all of this. Too much a part of Jason and the ranch and a life she already knew about. Sadness. Loneliness.

  She took a deep breath. She didn’t even know why she was thinking of him in these terms. Yes, there was something when he touched her. Something that felt a lot like temptation. The kind of temptation she had never felt before, wanted before, faced before.

  But she didn’t especially understand what she was supposed to do with that, or why her brain was taking it seriously at all. Why she kept trying to compare and contrast Alex—as if she wanted remotely the same thing with Alex as she did with Asher. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  She scrubbed her eyes, trying to alleviate the stinging sensation behind her lids.

  Today had been a good day. It really had been. She had shown Alex the bees and he had maybe even understood a little about what she was doing here, about her ability to take care of herself.

  About the fact that she didn’t need him.

  And
if he didn’t believe it, maybe it would just serve as a reminder to herself.

  It would have to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “SO, EXPLAIN TO ME again exactly what you’re doing on the Campbell ranch?”

  Alex had been expecting the question from his half brother Finn, but he hadn’t expected Liam to care what was going on at all. Mostly because ranching wasn’t really Liam’s forte, in spite of the fact that he had thrown himself fully into the Laughing Irish operation a few months back, like the rest of them had.

  Alex had the feeling Liam was just here because he didn’t know what the hell else to do with himself. Not because he had any particular love for the spread. Or for the work.

  But now that they were in the barn, the milking machines hooked up to the cows, Liam seemed chatty about all things rural.

  “Well, I just placed a large order of bison,” Alex said.

  “Bison?” Liam asked. “What the hell?”

  Alex turned to look at his older brother—his older brother who hadn’t been taller than him in quite some time. They weren’t all that far apart in age, but for years, Liam had been bigger, stronger. And then Alex had caught up. Caught up, but never exceeded. The two of them were both over six feet now, and could look each other right in the eye. And of the two of them, Alex had more experience with an AK.

  “It’s a logical solution to Clara’s cash flow issues,” he explained.

  “I thought there was a payout from the military when a family member was killed.”

  Alex lifted a brow. “Did you look into that when I enlisted?”

  “Hell no.” Liam shook his head emphatically. “I bet Mom did, though.”

  Ouch. And damn. And probably true.

  The mention of their mother killed the conversation for a moment. He and Liam didn’t have a lot in common. Not really. But they did have their terrible upbringing to bond them.

  Though, in truth, it hadn’t really done much to bring them closer. In fact, it had done a pretty damn good job of driving them apart. Because both of them had left home the minute it was possible, and hadn’t looked back. Still, they’d seen each other off and on over the years, even if they hadn’t exactly been each other’s confidants. And they gravitated toward doing things together now they were back in each other’s lives. Still, that was drinking and talking smack. It wasn’t really heart-to-heart stuff.