Bourbon Harmony (Bourbon Canyon #5)

Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Rhys

The last two weeks had gone by in the blink of an eye, thanks to my nights buried in June. The only thing that dimmed my time with her was not having the girls around. I would pick them up tomorrow, and I’d finally get to see them every day. But the tradeoff was June.

Then moments like these made me think... what if?

June and I were in the kitchen of the cabin. I’d just come inside from grilling steaks and she was finishing at the stove. Fried potatoes and asparagus.

“The girls would love this meal.” I inhaled around the band around my chest.

I could picture them setting the table while June finished up the food. We’d all sit down together in the cabin, like we had June’s first night here.

I wanted a quiet night at home with the woman I loved, but she wanted to share her music with the world. Tonight was my last night to be selfish with June .

Once she was finished with the potatoes, we sat and ate.

She took a bite and sighed. “I’m going to miss this on the road.”

“Don’t you have a list of demands that goes ahead of you? Like only green M&M’s, Evian water, and a medium-rare filet mignon waiting for you?”

The corner of her mouth lifted. “I’m partial to green Skittles.”

“Wait.” I flattened my hands on the table. “Who the fuck likes the green Skittles? They should make them all red and purple.”

“We can agree on any color but orange and yellow. And if I wanted to be a diva, I’d ask for Perrier.”

“Not Dom Perignon?”

She grinned. “Maybe when I’m the headliner.”

Once we were done eating and cleaning up, we went to the porch.

She sat on the rocking chair and I took the Adirondack. Her guitar stayed inside. I wanted to hear her new stuff, but I’d wait like the rest of the population. She’d always been private with her music until she wasn’t. Then the more ears the better.

I stretched my legs out. The valley spread before us, emerald green with twinkling blue water from the rain runoff earlier this week. “Are you nervous for the fundraiser?”

“No. Yes?” She crossed a leg but kept rocking the chair. “I’m anxious for a different reason.”

She had to leave right after if she was going to make her appointment in Nashville with that songwriter she admired. “Aren’t you used to that? Do a performance and then take off for the next town? ”

“Yes.” A simple answer. She didn’t elaborate.

Silence settled between us while birdsong filled the air.

“You’re going to be there?” she asked. “At the fundraiser.”

I had planned to, but that was before I’d started sleeping with her each night and daydreaming about a cozy life together. “I don’t know, June.”

The rocking ceased, and a furrow formed in her brow. “You’re not coming?”

Hadn’t I been asking myself that for days? It was time to answer. “It’ll be hard for me.” Harder for her.

She dropped her gaze to the floorboards. “Oh.”

The guilt was building in her eyes, making them a darker brown. She would start second-guessing what we’d done. She might even dwell on how much she’d liked it. I hoped she had, but she couldn’t afford to romanticize it. We’d been fucking. We hadn’t been playing house. Cooking together tonight was just a way to have a date without some smartphone wielder posting about us.

“June... going cold turkey has been the best way for me.” A bitter lie on my tongue. Peeking at her profiles and listening to her songs when no one was around was not cold turkey. “I know we said we’re just messing around, I’m your muse, but it’s brought up a lot of feelings. I’ll have to detox.”

She winced, and yeah, I felt that. A shitty choice of words but necessary. “I see.”

“I’ll send money with the girls to donate. I’m sure Wren will bring them.” If she’d been in a bachelorette auction, I’d have sent my life’s saving with the girls. Whatever would keep June with me forever. But she was priceless.

I’d need the time to fortify myself. For when news broke that she was dating another singer. Or some fucking hockey player. She might not have a Lucy trying to set her up with assholes, but they’d flock to June. She was a beautiful songbird and they were... cocks.

More than anything, she couldn’t change her mind. It might be arrogant to think my presence would do that, but I couldn’t risk it. Guitar lessons with my girls while I said hi and bye to her were different than being in the audience where she could see me. Where she could witness all the fucking love in the world shine from my eyes. Where she might see how goddamn proud I was of her, but also that she was my world. I’d never move on. I had my kids to raise and that would be enough. I was support, not an obstacle.

She started rocking again, slowly, sadness filling her expression and breaking my goddamn heart.

“Hey.” I scooted out of my chair and dropped to my knees. I pivoted in front of her and slid my hands up her thighs. “I don’t want to be a downer. I’d love to be there.” But she couldn’t have me around. I couldn’t see the indecision on her face again, like at my dad’s funeral. She didn’t need to be in that position. “But I am glad we’ll be parting on better terms than we did before.”

She rested her hands on top of mine. “I didn’t like the thought that you hated me.”

Quite the opposite. “I’d never hate you.”

“I know that now. I see a lot more now than I did.” She stroked the back of her fingers across my cheek, rubbing them down my beard. “I’ve wished you there at all my big performances. You’re the first one I wanted to call when I got good news, and the only face I looked for in the crowd.” She ran her bottom lip through her teeth. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“No,” I said roughly. “I wanted you out there, getting the cheers and screams that you deserve.”

She cupped my face and ran her thumb over the scar on my lip. “I missed you at the Opry.”

I buried my head in her stomach so she couldn’t see my face. I’d missed her too. I’d missed telling her how amazing she was. How proud I was of her. I’d missed being to the side of the stage and catching her in my arms like we’d talked about.

“I was so goddamn proud of you.” She’d never know the full truth. How her performance had nearly made my heart burst out of my damn chest. My fingers dug into the soft flesh of her thighs. I loosened my grip and my hand brushed the hem of her shorts. I tugged down. My heart was going to explode anyway if I didn’t release some emotion.

She rolled her hips up, giving me room to pull her shorts off all the way. I dragged her underwear down with them too.

“I wanted to be there when you walked off the stage.” I kissed one of her thighs. “I wanted to kiss that big smile on your face.” I pressed my mouth to her other thigh. “I wanted to celebrate with you that night.”

“I thought of you the whole night.” She tangled her fingers in my hair as I laid kisses higher, getting close to the pussy my mouth watered for.

I lifted one of her feet and set it on the edge of the seat. Then the other. I pushed her knees to the side. There it was. Her sweet pussy. Wet and glistening for me. Our chemistry could never be denied, but our dreams were too different.

I charted a path with my mouth toward her slick center and I settled in.

She groaned and I tugged her closer to my mouth. I circled her clit with my tongue the way she liked.

When her needy moans got stronger, I pushed two fingers inside of her.

“Oh god, Rhys.” Her ass was at the edge of the chair and she’d put her feet on my shoulders.

I pumped in and out of her, looking up her body to her hooded eyes and her flushed face. “You’re going to remember this. Every time you’re on stage. Every time you put that microphone close to your mouth, you’re going to feel my lips on you.” It had killed me when I’d thought she’d moved on and forgotten me. I had moved on, but I’d never forgotten her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t.

I put my mouth on her clit and sucked while steadily thrusting in and out. Her walls clamped around my fingers. She was so fucking ready but the urge to come with her washed over me.

I ripped my fly open with my free hand and shoved my pants down. The clasp dug into my flesh, but my erection finally popped out. I rose, pulling her with me.

She twined her arms around me and planted her mouth against mine. I turned and planted my ass on the seat. She straddled me and slid down my length, both of us unwilling to take any more time.

The chair rocked and the back whacked against the cabin, but I didn’t fucking care. I had her for tonight and nothing was stopping me from consuming this woman.

June gripped the carved wooden backrest and rode me. Soon enough, we got into a rhythm with the rocking of the chair and her movements up and down.

I yanked her shirt off, then reclaimed her mouth. Her flavor landed on my tongue and I couldn’t get enough. I put a hand between us. This wasn’t going to take me long and I needed both of us to come together. I couldn’t say why. We had the whole fucking night, but it was going too fast. Forever wouldn’t be enough with June Kerrigan.

I let my finger rest on her clit while she did the rest. Up and down she rode me.

I broke our kiss. “You’re fucking mine. When you leave, I don’t care who you move on with, you’ll always be mine.”

I shouldn’t be saying any of this.

She caressed my face, her eyes glassy and full of desire. “Yes. I’m yours. Always have been.”

Damn fucking right.

Energy shot all the way down my spine and my orgasm hit hard. I twisted my hand around her long ponytail and held her to me as I came, spilling in her. “Mine.”

“Rhys!”

The chair quit slamming into the wall. We’d wedged it so tight against the logs and our pumps had shortened. The place fell quiet around us. The birds had been temporarily silenced with our cries.

She rested her forehead against mine. Our breaths mingled.

Had I gone too far? I’d told her within the span of minutes that I couldn’t be at one single performance, but that she should be forever tied to me. I’d basically ordered her not to move on.

She placed a kiss at the corner of my mouth. “I think we broke the rocking chair and marked up a few logs.”

June

My sisters and Scarlett were sprawled in various chairs on the cabin porch. They’d each brought their own and I was sitting on the rocking chair that had survived Rhys and me having sex. All the pregnant or nursing women—including Autumn, who’d finally told us she was expecting—were drinking Scarlett’s cherry lemonade. Scarlett and I had a splash of bourbon in ours.

I rocked slowly, each movement a reminder of him growling “mine” in my ear.

“So then what?” Wynter wore a troubled frown. “You just go your separate ways again. Then you start dating some pretty boy who’s absolutely awful for you.”

“My exes are pretty,” I agreed. They were good-looking on and off camera. Flawless. None of them had a scar from cleft lip surgery. The ones with beards didn’t let it get a little frizzy each week. None of them had worn flannel.

Summer had her legs stretched out, her hands resting on the rounded portion of her belly, and her head was on the back of her rocking camp chair. “Are you really going to let him let you go again?”

“I don’t want to,” I finally admitted out loud and to real people. “But he’s determined that we’re living two different lives and never shall they intertwine.”

Autumn snorted and pushed herself back and forth on her portable hammock chair. “I think there’s been some intertwining going on.”

“Every day for the past two weeks.” Instead of being boastful, my response was melancholy. It’d been three days without him. I couldn’t bring myself to meet Autumn at the bar tonight. The memory of last Wednesday was too fresh. My determination to figure out how to keep Rhys, with all those stars as my witness, was fading. “I think it’s doable, but he has this thing about letting me go. He’s gotta be a martyr for me. For Wren. For his ex-wife. For me again.”

“Seems to be a pattern,” Scarlett murmured from her camp chair. She had on big sunglasses and her hair was bundled on top of her head.

My sisters all nodded. Yes, the pattern was there. Rhys was more comfortable letting go than trying to hang on.

“But why?” Why wasn’t I enough to fight for? “He won’t even try.”

“Tate wouldn’t have pursued me,” Scarlett said. “I know you guys pitched in to bid on him for the fundraiser, but beyond that day that I had with him, if Chance hadn’t wanted him to be with me, Tate would’ve backed off.”

My nephew had been one of Scarlett’s students. She’d mentioned that she had worried about Chance accepting her since she’d been a firm teacher with him when he’d been going through a hard time. But the way my brother loved her was all-consuming. “I don’t think Tate would’ve stayed away for long. ”

She lifted a shoulder and adjusted her sunglasses. “Maybe. We’ll never know, but I guess I’m saying that Rhys has a deep-seated reason too.”

Wynter crossed one leg over the other. “Myles kept leaving me. To be fair, he left situations, but somehow I was involved in them. He was afraid his mom would corrupt or hurt someone because of him.” She ticked a finger in the air. “The first was when he turned eighteen and left Montana entirely.” Another finger. “Then when we were getting close”—a third finger—“and finally when he got in touch with the rest of his family.”

Summer sat up in her chair. “Jonah pushed me away because he didn’t think he could be a good husband and especially not a good father. He was scared.” She smiled and stroked the swell of her stomach. “He’s going to be a better dad because of it.”

We all looked at Autumn. She took a sip from her lemonade. “I guess it’s no secret that Gideon and I were supposed to be divorced months ago. He was an all-or-nothing guy until he ended up with nothing. But he had to lose it all to realize what he really wanted in life.”

“Same with Jonah,” Summer said. “He got a taste of the life he wanted, and when it was gone, he had to decide if he wanted to work for it or retreat into that cabin and become the old Jonah again.”

Except for Tate, my sisters’ spouses had lost it all before realizing what they really wanted. “Rhys has already lost it all. When I leave, he’s going to gut through it. He might miss me, he might still love me, but he’s going to stay right where he’s at.”

“Do you think he loves you?” Summer asked gently.

I ran a finger through the condensation on my glass. “ I don’t know. I’m sure there’s some part of him that will always love me.”

Wynter put a cool hand on my forearm. “But you’re in love with him.”

A burn roared behind my eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever not been in love with him.”

“Then you need to talk to him, Junie,” Autumn said.

I let out a sardonic laugh. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? He’s stubborn and determined and he really believes it’s the right thing for me. It’s all about me with him. All about me. All about his dad. All about the girls. All about Kirstin. All about Wren.”

The breeze ruffled my hair and I stuffed the strands behind my ear. How could he be so generous, so loving, and then hurt me this way because of it?

“Do you have any idea why?” Scarlett asked. “I mean, it’s admirable that he puts everyone first, but there has to be a reason why.”

Before he’d let me go, he’d committed himself to the ranch. No—to his dad. “He always said that he owed his dad everything. He doesn’t talk much about his mom.”

“That’s weird.” Summer set her glass on the end table. “Didn’t he move here when he was twelve or something?” At my nod, her face scrunched up. “So over a third of his life was spent with this woman and he doesn’t talk about it?”

“She was an aspiring actress, theater mostly, but some screen.” My information didn’t shed light on anything. “That’s honestly about all I know.”

We all fell quiet for several moments. Any weight that was lifted thanks to talking to my sisters was replaced by hopelessness. All of my sisters had gotten through to their partners. My brothers-in-law had let them all in, had shared with them what was really important, and they’d all changed their lives to suit my sisters. All in the name of love, trust, and respect.

If Rhys hadn’t opened up to me by now, I wasn’t sure he would ever do it. And if he didn’t talk to me, if he could let me leave for a second time, then maybe I had to accept that I wasn’t the one for him.