Page 37 of When the Sun Rises
Tucker didn’t respond, and when I pulled my eyes away from the mother–daughter pair before me, I found those magnetic eyes on me—brows pinched together like he was deep in thought over something.
“Why don’t you name her?”
I blinked at that. “Me?”
Tucker nodded. “You.”
My eyes bounced over his face, searching for any hint of hesitation or a glimmer that he hadn’t meant what he’d just said, but I found nothing. Just the persistent broody expression Tucker always seemed to wear. When we both continued to stare at each other for another minute or two, I finally turned back to the little filly in question.
It didn’t take me long to come up with a name.
“What about Golden Rebirth? We can call her Goldie.”
Tucker didn’t even hesitate. “That’s perfect.”
I could feel him sidling up beside me in the doorway, and I wondered if he felt it too. The powerful energy that hung in the air around us. Birth was always a magical thing, regardless of how many times you watched it. But there was something different about Goldie’s birth. Something that shifted all the pieces inside me. Maybe it shifted them for Tucker, too.
Maybe this was the moment of rebirth for us both.
CHAPTER TWENTY
TUCKER
Jackson smelled so good—like open air and the pasture andman. He smelled like soft, warm dreams and early mornings with a cup of coffee and a future I knew I should be able to see, but I was blind. Nighttime had gouged out my eyes long ago so I could only see my past and the false visions she provided me. But I could hear the future Jackson offered me.
I could hear it in the gentle lilt of his voice as he quietly spoke to Goldie and Holland through the window of their stall door. It was whispered in every longing look he’d sent me for the past two weeks, and it screamed in the ever-shortening but never closed distance between our hands on the dinner table every night. His green-brown eyes spoke of tender kisses trailed along my shoulders as my alarm each morning, and long nights falling in love with every doe-eyed foal born inside these walls. Those plush lips whispered without words about upholding my family legacy by my side, shouldering the burden together of maintaining everything being passed onto me, while building our own traditions. His long fingers told me of gloomy days wiping away every tear I may cry over the man I still missedwith every breath in my lungs, and of sunshine-filled ones where we’d walk hand and hand through the tall grass of the pastures.
And it was all too much. It was a vice around my heart in the worst way possible—claustrophobic and overwhelming to the point it was hard to breathe. How could I ever give this gorgeous man the things he deserved when I was only half a person? I couldn’t offer him my heart because it was a broken, shattered mess no one would want to hold onto. It was black and blue and all jagged edges, and I knew if I tried handing it to him, the rivers of blood that would run between us would be too painful. One of us would end up dropping it. Besides that, it wasn’t whole. Parts of my heart would always belong to Raleigh, and how fair was that?
It wasn’t.
I knew it wasn’t. I was a fucked-up mess of a human, and I didn’t deserve the pure light Jackson Arness shone through my murky nights. He was young. He didn’t understand the consequences of tying himself to a sinking ship like me.
But fuck did I want it.
I wanted to live in the world Jackson could paint me with his bright smiles, drugging kisses, and warm personality. He was the architect of his own future, and probably as some fucking joke from whatever power controlled this world, he thought he could redesign mine right along with his. But I was a broken foundation to build upon, and I’d eventually take us both down. Jackson would recover. He was beautiful. He could have anyone he wanted. But I instinctually knew he’d leave one day because he was too smart to live in the fairy tale he crafted for us, and only one of us would make it out when the story fell away.
I’d barely survived the loss of Raleigh, but Jackson would be the bullet to end it all.
When he turned his head to grin at me with that stupid fucking dimple I loved to see, I realized if he was the one to pull the trigger, I would be happy for it. Because maybe I could come back as the demon to haunt his dreams at night, and that could be our ever-after.
God, I was so fucked up.
But I couldn’t deny the desperation that coursed through my veins for the radiance Jackson provided. Even if I knew I would taint it, I didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.
My eyes roamed over every detail of his face, taking it all in like it would be the last time I’d get to see him this close—and who knew, it could be. My wants and desires for the sandy blond country boy before me had teeth, and I knew they’d leave marks. They’d tear through him if I let them, and I’d been struggling to keep them at bay.
But I was tired, worn down, and all I wanted was the easy comfort I knew this sunshine man would give me, despite the real repercussions he might face. Jackson must have felt the shift because he turned toward me, popping his hip against the door as he watched me back.
“What are you thinking about, Tucker?” His words were low, whispered seductions on the cold air.
“You,” I admitted honestly.
He made an appreciative humming noise, a sultry smirk taking over his carefree grin. “I like knowing I’m on your mind.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, because you’re on mine. All the time.”
