Page 50 of Forbidden Cowboy

Eliana smiled widely, and dug into her own dish like it was her last meal.

Did she even have taste buds?

Anna excused herself after only a few mouthfuls, saying she was tired. I couldn’t blame her. I stayed at the table, and choked down every last bite, before telling Eliana I’d had a long day and retiring to my room feeling nauseous. Her eyes were still glowing with pride when I left.

The next week passed in a blur. I spent more time thinking about Sierra than I would have liked, helped in no part by my daughter’s insistence on visiting her every day after school. According to the few texts I’d received from Sierra, Beau was doing well, and growing both less confused and stronger by the day. Doctors now believed he would have minimal mental difficulties, and that many of his physical ones were down to having been bedridden for months, and would only require physical therapy to help.

Eliana hadn’t cooked since the last time, partly on my insistence that Anna and Ireallyliked pizza, and partly because she really didn’t like playing the domestic role. She had been eyeing me up, though, and it made me uneasy. Even when we’d been married our sex life had been almost non-existent. Nothing like the two times I’d had with Sierra, and I had no desire to revisit those scenarios with Eliana.

I’d come to the realization that my heart had decided I would either be with Sierra or no one at all, and I resolved to tell her how I felt once she came home. I would tell her I loved her, I would ask her to move in. One day, I would marry her, and maybe we’d have a kid, and Eliana would be stable and take Anna every other weekend, and everything would be alright.

Nine days after Beau woke up, Sierra still wasn’t home. Her room was empty, and it made me slightly concerned for her, knowing she was sleeping on an uncomfortable hospital cot every night.

I stayed up late, crunching numbers, answering emails and absently texting the girl I loved about the video of Beau saying her name with a slur to his voice, but clear enough to be understood. My study felt warmer, just talking to her. It would be so easy, to slip it into conversation, to just text “I love you”, but I didn’t want to do it that way. As I sent a text asking if she wanted me to drop off some more clothes for her, a knock came at the door.

I swiveled in my chair, and Eliana was there. Her presence no longer incited rage in me, but I still felt uncomfortable being alone in a room with her. She was nothing to me. The only reason we were connected was Anna. She never came to see me alone, either.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“I’m okay,” she sighed, “Anna is in bed, and this house of yours is almost creepy at night.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s why we turned half of it into a guest house—it’s weird to have so much space with just Anna and me.”

“You guys don’t get many guests, though,” she pointed out, and I shrugged.

“My parents used to rent the space out as apartments, sometimes to tourists. Wranglers who had nowhere else to go, you know.”

“I remember that,” she said. “There were always people in this house. Your mother used to have a full staff as well, just to keep it presentable.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to live that life,” I said. “The maid coming once a week is more than enough for me, and Anna and I don’t have much need for a personal chef.”

Eliana raised an eyebrow at that.

“If you were to hire any staff, I’d recommend a personal chef. You two are keeping G&H Pizza running on the amount you spend there.”

“Sometimes I cook,” I replied, accusatory.

“What, scrambled eggs?”

“And omelets!”

“An omelet is just an unstirred, folded scrambled egg, Wyatt.”

She had moved closer to me during this, but I was so busy trying to not blurt out how terrible her cooking was that I hadn’t noticed. When she bent over to be face to face with me in my chair, and placed a finger under my chin to tilt my head up, I was caught completely unawares.

“Hey, what’re you—” I started to say, but she cut me off with a kiss.

I tried to escape immediately, to back out of the sheerwrongnessof kissing someone that wasn’t Sierra, but I was caged in by my chair. As Eliana deepened the kiss, and I freaked out internally, I finally managed to slip away, by sliding out of my chair and onto the floor.

I heard a gasp, and turned to look at the door.

Sierra had turned and was already leaving before I could even get to my feet.

“Sierra!” I called, “wait!”

I heard a snort from Eliana, but I didn’t have time for her at that moment. I chased after Sierra, and I heard the door close. I saw from the windows around the door the tail lights of a taxi that must have been waiting disappearing down the drive.

“Let her go, Wyatt,” Eliana said, coming up behind me.