Page 63 of Forbidden Cowboy
“I—Sierra,” he said, and I wiped away enough tears to see his face a little clearer, eyes filled with remorse.
“You’re my best friend, Beau, you always have been!”
He ground his teeth while I wiped up the last of my tears, the mood swing over.Stupid hormones.
“And you’re mine!” He finally said in a rush, “don’t you think it hurt me when you left, not once, buttwice?”
“What?”
“You always made jokes about being the third wheel! But I saw it! It was me!”
“What are you on about?”
Beau sat back in his bed, obviously tired from the act of leaning over to look at my face, or maybe just avoiding my gaze again.
“When we were growing up, it was you and me, against the world. And then I went off to Kindergarten and you cried because I wasn’t home all day.”
“And because you met Wyatt, and didn’t want me anymore.”
“Yeah, but you forced yourself intoeverything, Sierra, every sleepover and game night, every birthday party, you were always there, and I learned to deal with it even when it was annoying to have my sister there. Even when it wasn’t cool to invite you, I still did!”
“You really worried about being seen as cool?”
“Of course! What kid doesn’t? And everything was great, even if other people laughed at us, it was you, me, and Wyatt, the three musketeers! And then we turned eleven.”
“What happened when you were eleven?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Wyatt started getting approached by girls who had crushes on him. I know it was stupidly young, but he was all determined and turned them all down. He was really dramatic about it, too.”
“I don’t remember that,” I said.
“You wouldn’t,” he said with a tired wave of his hand. “You were too busy learning about girly things like painting your nails and puberty, but I saw it all. I thought he might have a crush on someone, but he never told me who. Then he started asking why you weren’t with us as much. By the time you got over yourself and decided you’d rather spend time with us than playing with Barbies, I had realized who he liked. It was you. I felt hurt, okay?”
“If you’re about to tell me you’re in love with him, we’re gonna have an issue,” I said with a laugh, and Beau rolled his eyes.
“Of course, I’m not.” He rolled his eyes again. “But I still felt left out. You two really were my only friends, and suddenly you were helping him muck out stables on weekends while I heaved bales of hay into the hayloft. You were staying for dinner when I had to go home and do homework. You were his stand-in for every awkward double date other members of the football team dragged him on, and I felt left behind.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Beau closed his eyes, sighing again before continuing. “And I got jealous, okay? I saw the way you were starting to look at him, and I knew how he felt about you, and I was young, and stupid. So, I told him he couldn’t date you. I didn’t realize what that meant to him at the time. Maybe I wouldn’t have said it. If I hadn’t, we probably wouldn’t have Anna.”
“Eliana— ”
“Was obviously a vain attempt at getting over you,” he finished. “Yeah.”
“Shit.” I covered my face with my hands, feeling my heart squeeze unhappily.
“You left town after graduation, and I thought it might have something to do with Wyatt, but I couldn’t face the idea that I was the one to have caused it all, however inadvertently.”
“You should have spoken to me,” I said. “We could have talked about this.”
“No, we couldn’t have,” Beau said. “When would we? After Mom and then Dad died? When you got your fancy job with the Larks? Every time I thought I could come clean, something happened. Something that made me think any kind of upheaval would be bad for you. Then I had my accident, and you wereback, for the first time in six years, you werehome, and I couldn’t handle watching you disappear again, not when I knew there was a chance I might not walk the same, I might not move the same, my life might notbethe same. For the first time in years, you looked at me and Wyatt in equal standing. I stopped being afraid I might be left behind, and then you justleftagain. Youleftme when things started looking like they might be better, and I felt lost, Sierra. More lost than when I woke up in a hospital, and months of my life had gone by.”
“Dammit, Sierra.” He stopped and rubbed his eyes like the conversation was exhausting. “You brokemyheart once again. No one knows how to hurt you like a sibling, and you justkepthurting me. So, I decided I wasn’t letting you go again. Wyatt told me you didn’t have your job with the Larks, and I thought there was a chance you might come home. I dragged my useless body up to Denver, and only then did I find out that so much more happened while I was out than I ever could have imagined. I wasn’t really angry at Wyatt. Or you, I guess. I felt like a kid again, incapable of doing anything while my best friend chased my now-pregnant sister. I was never given the opportunity to adjust to the idea. I thought the entire thing had happened and ended, and the idea that Wyatt, after everything, had hurtyoulike that was too much. I acted out of pure emotion.”
My eyes were misty again, and I took my brother’s hand.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said quietly, “and I’m sorry Wyatt hurt you, and I’m so incredibly sorry that you and Anna have been caught in the crossfire of our mess.”