Page 55 of Last Chance Cowboy
“Yeah. How long does that take? She doesn’t need to be you.”
“If I’m going to do something, I’m not going to go halfway,” Zane said.
If one thing was true about him, it was that.
“All right. What’s on your docket for the day?” Codyturned and began to pick through the wood. He threw a dead chunk off to the side and picked up a nice-looking log and chucked it into the back of his truck.
Zane followed suit.
“We’re going camping.”
“Camping? Overnight?” There was that intensity again. Pointed, and definitely not neutral.
“Yes. I’m going to make her figure out a shelter, a fire. Also, I want to get her out at night so that we can work on using the stars. She also needs to figure out how to use a compass, and I’m going to work with her on that today as we hike away from the ranch.”
“I don’t even know how to ask you this question,” Cody said. “Mainly because I’ve never had to.” Cody looked like he was in pain for a moment, closing his eyes briefly before he continued. “Do you like her?”
Do you like her?
The question was so weird. It harkened back to a time when things had been different. When things had been innocent, and feelings had been something that just appeared. Not something that he had to do battle with, fight back, slay like they were deadly dragons. Back when you might pull a girl’s hair if you wanted her attention.
To childish days, which he could barely remember, not apart from pain and loss and the horrible truth that the world was an ugly place.
“Do Ilikeher?Fuck, Cody.”
“You spend a lot of time with her. It’s a pretty reasonable question.”
“I’m the one who found her. I’m the one who saw her curled up like a baby at the foot of that hill. I want to make sure that she’s safe. That’s it.”
It wasn’t it. And he had a feeling Cody knew that, which was why he was asking. Cody wasn’t an idiot.
“Yeah. I know that. But she went to the bakery every day before that.”
“You know me,” Zane said. “Think about what you know about me, and the way that I am. It doesn’t matter whether I like her or not. I’m not going to do anything about it.”
Because there was no point denying it. Like. It was the wrong word. It was a weird word. But he knew what he was saying.
Did Zane want to fuck Cara? Hell yeah. Though even that characterization made him uncomfortable. He thought back to when she had put her hand on his elbow on the trail, worried that she had been mean to him.
Maybe it wasn’t the wrong word, but it was a word that didn’t fully encompass what he felt.
And so he came back tolike.
“You’re allowed to be happy,” Cody said.
“I’m pretty happy,” Zane responded, grabbing a large chunk of wood and heaving it into the back of the truck. “I mean, on a sliding scale of the kind of happy that I ever am.”
“I just mean, it would be completely reasonable for you to have a relationship.”
“Not interested. Thanks. That’s kind of my point. You can trust me. I’m not going to do anything to mess this up. To mess up what you have with Marlowe, to mess up Cara and her bakery, and I just flat out wouldn’t do anything… She’s like ten years younger than me.”
“I know,” Cody said.
“It’s not my thing.”
“Yeah. Well. Good talk.” Cody was being sarcastic, and Zane could tell, but it had been a pretty damned deep talk as far as Zane was concerned.
They didn’t discuss things like this. Not ever. It wasn’t their relationship. Hell, it wasn’t Zane’s relationship with anybody.
