Tangled (Steele Ranch 3)

We weren’t alone. Several others worked nearby, mucking stalls, hefting hay. Patrick, if I remembered his name correctly, was leading a horse outside to spend time in the back pasture. That was my guess based on the fact the animal had no saddle, just a lead.

“Hi,” I replied.

Archer had to work and had left before dawn to head home and get ready for his shift. Lee was leaving for a rodeo in Buffalo, Wyoming, so we’d said goodbye already. I got hot thinking about how we’d said goodbye…on the stairs. This was the first time I’d sought Sutton out while he worked, but I wanted him to know I was leaving the ranch for the day. I’d grown up in Montana; it was important to let others know where you were headed, even in the summertime when the chance of a blizzard was nil.

Now that I was in front of him, I was unsure of myself, which I hated. I never wanted to play poker with him, his expressions were always so well guarded. That made me nervous. While he was always so honest with his actions, even though they were reserved, I felt as if I knew his heart. But when he left me each night, it made me doubt.

And I wasn’t doing that any longer.

“I missed you last night,” I admitted.

He leaned his pitchfork against the side of the stall. “You had Archer and Lee to keep you warm. By the look of you, they took care of you.”

I wasn’t sure how he knew they’d given me a whole slew of orgasms, that I had whisker burn on the insides of my thighs, a hickey on my right breast. My outfit of jeans and a sleeveless blouse didn’t show any of that. Perhaps one of the guys told him, but I didn’t think so. We were open with each other in what we did, but Sutton had missed out. If he wanted to know how they’d taken me, how many times I came, he could have stayed and given me the orgasms himself.

“The key word of that sentence was you. I missed you last night,” I clarified.

His small smile fell, his eyes narrowed. If he was uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. He was really good at hiding his emotions.

I put my hand on the rail, cocked my head. I’d put my hair back in a braid and it slid along my back. “Why won’t you stay with me?”

He took a step back. “It’s better this way.”

“Better for whom?”

Patrick walked past us, tipped his hat to me. I gave him a smile, then turned back to Sutton.

“You.”

“Why?”

“It just is. You’ve got me all day long, Lee and Archer to be with you at night. What else could you want?”

You to tell me your secrets.

It wasn’t to be. This wasn’t the place. We weren’t really alone and if I wanted to have him open up, the stable wasn’t where to do it. If he wouldn’t tell me in the privacy of a bed, then a horse stall wasn’t going to work.

“I’m going to my apartment.”

His eyes widened.

“I just came down to say goodbye.”

“You’re leaving? But I thought—” He closed his eyes for a second, opened them again. Clenched his jaw.

When I thought he’d been emotionless just seconds ago, I’d been wrong. His eyes now were blank. Completely void of the heat, the need, the longing, and perhaps even the love he’d shown me. He hadn’t said the L word, but I’d felt it. But that wasn’t enough.

“Okay.”

Okay?

God, my heart ached for him. The way he shut me out, the way he was able to shutter himself off from even me.

I was going to Missoula for the day with Penny to get my mail, check on a few things. Since she was from North Carolina and hadn’t seen much of the state, she wanted to check out Missoula and I was playing tour guide. But we were going for the day. The day.

Sutton, though, thought I was leaving. For good. That this was me saying goodbye. I wanted to laugh, to roll my eyes at him and tell him that if I were leaving, if I were breaking up with him, I’d say something more than I’m going to my apartment. But the idiot was too blind, too prepared for me to bolt to see the truth.

I wasn’t going to set him straight though. I wanted him to stop me, to take my hand and tell me no. To tell me not to go, that he wanted to be with me, day and night. To tell me why he left me, walked away from sharing me. I might have Lee and Archer, too, like he said, but having three men didn’t mean Sutton only had to give part of himself to me. He still had to give me everything. And he wasn’t.