Page 98 of Last Chance Cowboy
It felt amazing. Like an honor. Truly.
They didn’t have shampoo, but still, he dipped her back in the water, scrubbed her scalp gently, washing her hair in the river, the attention he paid to her making her eyes well up.
Everything with him was like being on the edge of a knife. Brilliant and sharp, far too much. Far too much to take in.
When they were finished, he wrapped her up in his arms and carried her back toward the house. It was so private up here. Quiet. They didn’t have to worry about anybody intruding on them.
The idea of sleeping in his bed made her giddy. Of sharing a dinner with him, in his house.
He made spaghetti with ground beef, and they ate on hiscouch with their feet up on his coffee table. Then they went to bed. He took her again, and again. She wouldn’t say that she got a very good night’s sleep, but she had a wonderful time.
They both woke up early, and he wrapped her in a blanket and settled her on the couch while he cooked breakfast.
“This is nice,” she said. “Us trading back-and-forth like this.”
“I have manners. I think. If I think back far enough.”
“Were your grandparents very old-fashioned?”
She never knew if she was supposed to ask about his past. But she wanted to know more about him. As much as she could.
It included the time he had spent with his grandparents.
“Yeah. They were. I didn’t mind it, though. It was nice to have structure. It was nice to feel like somebody cared about me. They made me go to church every Sunday, and I didn’t especially like it.”
“Really?”
“Always an itchy suit, and I didn’t really want to hear what God had to say. I was kind of mad at him.”
“I can understand why.”
“Yeah. I think my beef with him is valid.”
He said it in the present tense. Like he was still fighting with God.
But then, how could you make sense of something like that? She couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way.
“And how did they… How did they handle all of that? I mean, it seems to me that they lost a lot, too. Their daughter. It seems like it would’ve been hard for them to reconcile their faith with that, too.”
“My grandma used to say that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. That’s in the Bible. That was what she said. Bad things happened to good people. Even if you’re good. Though I was wondering if maybe I wasn’t good.”
“Sorry. This is sort of heavy to be talking about before our first cup of coffee.”
“I guess. Or not. My life is kind of heavy, and if you want to talk about it…”
He didn’t have anyone else to talk about it with. She really realized that then. He hadn’t told anyone about his family, and that meant he didn’t really get to talk about it. It sounded like his grandparents had been good people, that they had taken care of him. But it also sounded like they were the type of people who found comfort in platitudes. She didn’t think it was right to be judgmental about how somebody handled a loss like that, but it was also easy to see how that could feel like putting a pin in it and never really digging deep.
“Yeah. I’m happy to talk about it. Maybe happy is the wrong word. But I am… Thank you for sharing with me. It isn’t too heavy for me.”
He smiled, slowly. “How about you spend the night tonight too?”
Chapter Seventeen
It was early when she woke up, the overhead light shining bright, the light outside was barely gray. Zane was still asleep so she wasn’t sure why the light was on.
She stirred, and he wrapped his arm around her waist. “I have an idea.”
“Do you?”
