Solid Gold Cowboy by Maisey Yates (books to read for teens TXT) 📕

what to do a while ago. Because she wasn’t taking care of herself. And she hadn’t been.

“Let’s go.”

“Right now? I didn’t even get a drink.”

“You shouldn’t have a drink. Not in your current state. Don’t go using it like medicine.”

She frowned. “Oh please don’t be my Jiminy Cricket. I’m in my own head enough about all this stuff.”

“I am not a damned bug. But I am going to tell you what’s good for you. You’re already milkshakefaced. Let’s leave it at that.” He rounded the bar, and walked over to where she was sitting. She just looked up at him, with big blue doe eyes. Jordan was never doe-eyed. He put his hand low on her back, which made his stomach feel hollow.

He walked her out the front of the bar and closed the door behind them, locking it. “You have any clothes other than the wedding dress?”

“No,” she said. “And all of my clothes are at Dylan’s.”

“Right. Let’s just go to my place.” He sighed. “I’ll get you one of my T-shirts.”

That didn’t do anything to improve his disposition.

They walked down the sidewalk, a healthy distance between them. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. And then when they got to the truck he went to the passenger side and opened the door for her. “Get in.”

She obeyed. And he helped her tuck the wedding dress up into the car.

And as he lifted the mountain of tulle up into the truck, their eyes met. And his stomach hollowed out.

“You’re coming to my wedding, aren’t you?”

“I thought we were situational friends.”

She looked hurt by that. Angry. Well, he was hurt and angry about the whole thing.

“We’re friends,” she said. “The best friend I have and I thought that you would come to my...”

“Yeah,” he said. And even then he knew he was lying. “I’ll come to your wedding. I’ll sit there and stare at you as you walk down the aisle. And I’ll behave myself.”

“Good. Not the behaving yourself. That you’ll be there. You know you’re important to me.”

“Yeah.”

But he couldn’t say what he wanted to. And there was no point to it anyway. So he said nothing. Because he’d been over this with her repeatedly. And there was no point arguing. She had doubts, but she was going to do it.

It was best if she did.

He released his hold on her. Closed the truck door decisively. Then he got in and started the engine. Neither of them spoke.

They drove up the winding road that led to the little ranch that had been in his family since the 1960s. The house itself was still much as it had been back in those early years. He’d updated it, fixed it up with his own hands mostly.

The barn had been expanded. Because his true passion was horses, and while he didn’t much care about having every modern convenience in his house, in his barn was another matter.

“This is it,” he said.

“It’s nice,” she responded.

He pulled up to the front and she sat rooted to the seat.

“You can get out, Jordan.”

She started to unbuckle her seat belt, and before she could make a move to get out, he was exiting the truck, rounding to the other side and opening the door for her.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, swinging her legs around and pushing herself out of the truck, ball of white tulle first.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But it seems like the thing to do when somebody has just run out on their wedding.”

“What am I going to do, Laz? I can’t go back to Sugar Cup. Everybody in town is going to know. Everybody in town must already know.”

“I managed to make it through a Friday night without hearing about it.”

“Great. They are protecting me. Because they hoped I was going to come back. That’s what it has to be. But I wasn’t going to come back. I was never going to come back.”

“Why didn’t you just break up with him before the wedding, Jordan. If that’s what you were feeling?”

“Because I was afraid. And I thought that wanting to be part of his family... I thought that wanting to do it was the same as being in love. But it’s not. And beneath all my wanting to do it, I desperately didn’t want to do it. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“Makes sense to me. I understand.”

“It’s such a mess, Laz. I really made a mess of it.”

She was looking up at him, pleading, and he really couldn’t take it.

“Sleep,” he bit out. “Don’t talk about messes. And don’t think about whether or not you should be cleaning them up. You can’t do anything when you haven’t slept.”

“I should know,” she said. “I’ve spent years not sleeping.”

“Me too. Occupational hazard.”

He led her inside, and ushered her through the house, into his bedroom. He gritted his teeth. Jordan was in his bedroom. And who the hell was he that it made him feel this way? He had spent years having casual sex. The desire was easy. The getting there was easy. The saying goodbye was easy. But the scary thing was that Jordan had said hello one day, in the wee hours of the morning, and he had never even considered saying goodbye. That was the problem. She mattered. And he didn’t really know what to do with someone who mattered quite this much.

Except give her a place to stay.

“I’ll get you a T-shirt.”

He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a gray T-shirt. He almost grabbed a white one, but thought that was a shade too masochistic. Imagining her in nothing but a white T-shirt was enough to destroy him completely. Imagining her in a gray one was only going to render him partially reduced.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’ve got sweatpants too but they’re not going to fit you.” Laz was over six feet, Jordan was maybe five-two. She was a tiny little thing. Tiny, feral and angry, and that was all the things he liked about her.