All I See Is You

34. Pick A Place

Chapter thirty-four

Pick A Place

Hux

Q uinn’s footsteps echoed throughout the living room of the guest house. A fast, yet rhythmic pace as she walked from one side of the room to the other. I stood against the kitchen counter in silence, Rusty’s warm presence at my side—we’d stopped by the bunkhouse to get him on the way back from the whole shitstorm up at her Dad’s.

Crazy how so much had happened and it wasn’t even the afternoon yet.

“What am I going to do?” she asked, her words urgent and high-pitched. She’d been quiet most of the walk back to the guest house, but the moment we’d crossed the threshold and she realized Whit wasn’t here, she’d not stopped fretting. Or pacing. So much pacing it put me on edge, but I didn’t want to tell her to stop. She needed an outlet for her anxiety. Unfortunately, it just spiked my own.

“You really think he’ll sell the ranch?” I asked.

I didn’t know Carl Decker enough to know if he’d just been pissed and drunk and lashing out in the moment, or if he was dead serious.

“Who knows?” Quinn huffed, and a smack echoed through the room, almost like she’d tossed her hands up in the air and let them fall at her sides. “My dad is literally the definition of flying by the seat of his pants . He makes every decision in his life based on how he feels in that moment. So, is there a chance that by tomorrow he’s chilled out and willing to possibly figure something out? Yeah. But it’s also just as likely he’ll be ten beers deep, acting like a pirate as he parties it up in the Caribbean.”

She didn’t even give me the opportunity to respond as she launched into another thought, all the while, pacing, pacing, pacing .

“What am I going to tell the vendors?” Something in her voice broke, and I sensed that this was right around the time when the tears would start to fall. “I mean, we can cancel, but that’s literally thousands and thousands of dollars down the drain.”

I pushed off the counter and followed the sound of her voice. Thankfully, the house was still pretty bare and I had a clear shot from the open kitchen to the living room. “Hey. Darlin’,” I said over the echo of her steps.

She must not have heard me, or been too lost in her thoughts and pacing to notice. My chest constricted, thinking about how much shit she’d gone through in the past twenty-four hours. We both had, but, I don’t know, for some reason, I didn’t care about anything other than that I had her.

I could fight any battle, climb any mountain, deal with any problem as long as I had her.

So right now, I could be her anchor. Her tether. Her lighthouse in the shitstorm that was her life.

Reaching out a hand, I finally made contact with her. She paused long enough for me to find her arm and pull her into me. “Quinn, look at me.”

And just like that, she stilled in my grip.

“You lookin’ at me?” I asked.

A soft, weary laugh escaped her. “I’m sorry, that isn’t funny. Yes, I’m looking at you.”

I cupped the side of her neck in one hand, running my thumb over her cheek. “We’ll get this sorted. I promise.”

“But—”

I cut her off, noting the anxious edge in her voice. “Look, there’s nothin’ we can do right now. Too many unknown variables. And until we sit down with your dad, we ain’t gonna know what exactly's goin’ on. He just found out his fiancé was kissin’ his employee. Hell, she’s probably been cheatin’ on him all along, for all we know. Give him a day to process.”

She blew out a breath, her words little more than a whisper as she asked, “So what are we supposed to do now then?”

“Well, bein’ as you could use a distraction…” I trailed my thumb over her jaw once more, a wave of nerves washing over me as I said, “My parents want to meet you.”

A sharp gasp escaped her and she stilled in my grip. Fuck. What if she didn’t want to meet them? What if that was too much for her today? Too quick. I just…I wanted to distract her from the problem at hand, but what if it only caused more problems for her.

“They know about us?” she asked.

I nodded slowly, blowing out a deep breath. “Yeah, so does most of the rodeo world.”

“What? How? Oh… Oh god. Social media.” She fumbled around for something, and then another gasp escaped her. “Oh my God, I have, like, fifty DMs. People I’ve not talked to in years. Apparently, it’s not just the rodeo world who knows.”

Another soul-weary sigh left my lips. I should’ve known this would happen. It hadn’t been the first time I was in the news or tabloids. I guess being so removed from the rodeo world for so long made me forget just how quick news traveled.

“Yeah,” I huffed. “Walker, I guess, told my dad I broke rodeotok. She thinks you’re pretty, by the way.”

“Wait, who’s Walker?”

“My sister.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah, I’ve mentioned her before, right?”

“You’d only mentioned her name. I assumed she was your brother.”

I chuckled. “She gets that a lot.”

Quinn’s voice was as soft as the press of her hands to my chest. “You want me to meet your family?”

“I do, but if it’s too soon—”

My heart thumped a wild, erratic beat in my chest. I know we were okay, but what if she didn’t want to move as fast as I did? What if she wasn’t ready for this next step?

“No, I want to. You’ve met my dad. I want to meet them.” Her lips brushed softly against mine. “I would love to meet them.”

I slid my hand into her hair and dragged her mouth to mine. I kissed her. Slow, deep, savoring the feel of her in my arms.

She pulled away first, a curse falling from her lips, “Oh shit, what about Whit? I can’t just leave her here.”

“I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Let’s find out what she’s doin’ and we can go from there.”

“Well, what should we do until then?” I didn’t miss the suggestive, sultry note in her words.

Desire sparked like fireworks in my veins. I gripped her hair just a little tighter and kissed her again, before gently biting her lip as I pulled away to say, “A shower would be nice.”

An appreciative hum floated on the air between us as her hands slid up my chest before hooking around my neck. “A shower does sound nice.”

I let her lead me down the hall and into the bathroom where she slowly—so damn slow that I swear to God I was shaking—pulled off my clothes, one piece of fabric at a time.