Delivery to the Farmhouse (Havenwood Cowboys Romance #4)

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

I woke up jittery. It was as though every step I took had a trigger in it, making me lift my foot the minute it touched the ground. Colton’s smile, his voice, were the first things to creep into my thoughts, and he stayed right there as I got dressed, brushed my teeth and hair, and threw on some mascara.

When my phone buzzed with a text from him, it was the snap of a mousetrap. I squealed in excitement and dove across the bed for the device.

Colton: Good morning, beautiful. You ready to see Mount Rushmore?

This was one of those times when I wished I was cleverer. That I could come up with something cute and snappy to reply to him.

Alas, no cute, snappy comebacks made themselves known. So I just typed a reply.

Me: Only if you’re ready to let me drive your truck.

There. See what he made of that.

Colton: Not happening.

Me: How’s your hand?

Colton: Healed. Overnight. It was miraculous.

Me: So’s my driving.

I slipped my toiletry bag into my suitcase and zipped up the side. He didn’t reply for several seconds—and I grinned. It was an itchy kind of delightful to see just how far I could push him before he finally gave in.

I decided to ease up. For now.

Me: I’ll tell you what I’m ready for.

Colton: What’s that?

Your lips. On mine.

I typed out the words only to delete them before the phone decided to play tricks on me and send it anyway. I tapped out a safer reply.

Me: Breakfast. Meet me in the lobby?

Colton: I’ll be the one wearing a cowboy hat.

Me: What if there’s more than one of you? How will I know it’s you?

Colton: Then I’m the one with bruised knuckles.

Called it.

Me: Ha! I knew you weren’t really healed.

Three little dots appeared and then disappeared before his reply came.

Colton: I’ll beat you to the waffle machine.

Challenge accepted.

Leaving my suitcase on the rumpled bed, ensuring my room key was in my back pocket, I darted out the door and into the hall, only to collide with Colton as he passed my room. His arm swept around me, and he crashed into the wall. It was the rabbit chase from C-A-L Ranch all over again.

“Gotcha,” I said.

“Why, Miss Natalie, you are like a runaway train this morning.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Holden.”

I grinned at him.

He grinned right back. And sadly, he lowered his arm and allowed me to step away from him.

Colton’s blond hair tumbled into his eyes from beneath his hat. He wore a black t-shirt, jeans, and the boots he’d worn yesterday.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“So good. You?”

“Dandy.”

We walked together toward the elevator. My anticipation hiked as the doors opened and the box revealed itself to be empty.

An empty elevator was filled with so many possibilities. Was Colton as aware of that fact? Of this tension between us? Or was it just me?

I couldn’t be the only one feeling this insane desire between us.

He was here. I was here. What were we waiting for?

We stood shoulder to shoulder. I watched the little lights flicker until we arrived at the lobby. Too soon, the doors opened once more, and I took a step toward the door .

Colton shot out a hand, stopping me.

“Hang on,” he said.

The doors closed once more.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I keep thinking about last night,” he said. “I think…” He squeezed his eyes shut.

And since neither of us pushed any buttons, the elevator doors opened once more.

Colton growled and shook his head. “I’m never going to get this out if we’re fighting the door this whole time.”

Taking my hand, he yanked me out of the elevator. Instead of making our way toward the lobby and the scents of sausage and syrup, he tugged me out the main doors and into the warm morning.

He released me and rested his arm against one of the pillars supporting the awning overhead.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“No,” he growled. “Not okay.”

“Your hand?”

He examined it and threw it to his side. “No, I wasn’t fair to you last night.”

“It’s okay,” I said, but he rounded on me, taking me by the arms.

I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t want to hear him apologize for what happened to be one of my favorite parts of this trip so far. If I could see the underside of my brain, every angle would flash to that moment with him last night.

Just like it’d been doing since.

“I wasn’t fair to you,” he said. “I wanted to do what was right—but I think I missed the mark completely.”

So…did he regret pressing me to the bed? Or was he talking about something else?

“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His brow hardened. “I hurt you. ”

My mind swept back through our interactions. The restaurant. His protective gestures. Punching my would-be enemy. Drawing me a bath. Indulging in an ice fight and pinning me to the bed.

Not once in any of those interactions had I gotten hurt.

“You did?”

“Didn’t I?” he asked.

If anything, confusion creased his expression. It was sweet. Had this been eating at him all night?

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Colton, I’m fine.”

“No,” he said, taking me by surprise. “It didn’t look that way to me.”

“I am, though.”

“I gave you mixed signals. I pulled back when you told me to go for it. I just…”

Realization dawned. Was he talking about not kissing me?

A little storm erupted in my stomach. I’d had a plan in mind. I was going to wait until we were at the national monument. I was going to drop a few obvious hints about how that was the perfect place to initiate a little physical contact.

I…

…wasn’t going to wait that long to get what I wanted after all.

Because if he’d been thinking about how he should have kissed me all night long? So had I.

“My guard was down. You were so beautiful. We were in the moment, and I got carried away. I never should have…”

I stopped him with a finger to his lips. Colton’s eyes widened, and I stepped closer, pushing him back until he hit the column.

“Are you saying you wish you’d kissed me?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

I trapped my lip in my teeth. “It’s not too late, you know. I can get another ice bucket. We can recreate the moment. You can…”

His hand slid to my waist. The touch was like the moment in the live-action Cinderella when Ella is face-to-face with the prince on the dance floor and then he moves in with nothing more than his hand.

Her breath catches. Her eyes widen. And the entire ballroom (and audience) waits in anticipation for what he’ll do next.

Yeah, I was there.

The air thickened, the molecules turning smoky. My heart hung on his next move.

“I should have kissed you,” he said.

His pupils dilated. And then time stopped. The earth no longer rotated. Every natural cycle was thrown off of its regular motion and pattern because Colton Holden’s eyes closed to half-mast. His attention zoned in on my mouth.

I trembled as I placed my hands on his shoulders and pressed my chest against his.

“Natalie, I was so wrong,” he said, bringing his mouth closer so I felt his breath stroke my lips.

“About what?”

“About doing the right thing. About leaving you last night without following through. Nothing has felt more right than this.”

And then Colton lowered his mouth to mine. The kiss was instantly pressing, urgent, and hungry as if it served to answer a need neither of us knew we had.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a kiss pour into me like his did. It was as though he was making up for lost time, as though he had more to say that words could never cover. And every press of his lips awakened something new in me, like every stroke flicked on a light in a room I didn’t know I had. A room I was desperate to explore.

His arms crushed me to him, and his mouth parted, deepening. I answered the call, keeping pace and stroking his stubble with my fingertips. I wanted him closer.

Gripping the front of his shirt, I tiptoed, not wanting to miss a moment of this.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed before his lips slowed, but he didn’t pull back. Not yet. His kiss changed its direction, his lips trailing down my jaw as his hands cradled me in close.

Someone honked behind Colton. His lips broke free, but I didn’t miss the smile streaking over them.

“You’re not falling for that, are you?” I said.

“No way.”

His lips returned to mine, and I slid my hand up the back of his neck, raking my fingers through his hair and disrupting the hat on his head. Its brim tipped forward, knocking into my forehead.

Colton reared back, smirking, and readjusted his hat. “My apologies.”

“Watch where you put that thing.”

I guided him back to me for another long kiss. By the time we broke apart this time, traces of him lingered on my lips, and I wondered if mine looked as swollen as his did.

Totally worth it.

“Well, good morning,” Colton said, looping both hands around my waist and staring down at me as though we were caught in a dance to music only we could hear.

“Glad you finally came to your senses,” I said.

He laughed, pulling me to his chest. We stood in between the columns, holding one another, not wanting to let go.

“At some point, we’re going to have to get that breakfast we talked about,” he said, pressing his cheek to mine.

“Might be a good idea. Why don’t you let go and give me a head start?”

“No way.”

“You afraid I’ll beat you to the waffle machine?”

“No, ma’am. I’m just not ready to move on from this moment just yet.”

Eventually, one of us pulled back. One of us reacted to the other, but it seemed from that minute on, every move we made to reenter the hotel was a tandem kind of thing, like one of those bikes you couldn’t ride without being in sync with the other person.

My steps weren’t complete unless he took them with me.

I wanted to bask in the newfound connection—and in the memory of that kiss. Honestly, when had I ever been kissed like that before?

Colton was unlike anyone I’d ever known. It was like he did everything from the heart. Even his worries that he’d hurt me by not kissing me when I’d told him to had been entirely heartfelt.

Which may have been the cause for the reservation I couldn’t seem to let go of.

Even though I’d opened the floodgate on my heart, allowing myself to try again, I still had a few uncertainties on retainer.

Was this too fast? Too soon?

Sure, Colton was as attractive as all get out. He was quirky and funny, he had a quiet confidence and concern for my well-being that I found dead sexy, and I couldn’t help the way my senses came to life every time he was around.

But could this possibly be any different than the last time? Could I risk my heart on him?

The other qualm I had with letting him get close to me was the fact that I wasn’t planning on staying in Bridgewater. After breakfast, we hit the road, making for South Dakota. (He didn’t let me drive. I decided to let him have his peculiar preference for driving.)

And the more miles we crossed, the more certain I was that I wanted more of this.

More travel.

More leaving my life behind.

I tracked the miles we crossed and the sights we saw in a notebook to be added to my binder once we got back home. Those fat red lines on my proverbial map were making an all-new design of my life, and there wasn’t any way to erase them. There was no way I could go back to Bridgewater and want the quiet, simple life I knew Colton did .

He was so worried about my safety. My well-being. Shouldn’t I be the same for him?

I was. I cared about him. More than I realized, from the way he held my hand while he drove, tapping his foot and singing in time to the music coming from his radio.

He was so carefree, and yet so careful all at once. I didn’t want to hurt him, either.

Which meant I couldn’t indulge in taking this relationship any farther than I already had. It wasn’t fair to him.

That thought shredded my heart a little more the farther we went.

I’d never seen countryside like this before. The roads on the way to Mount Rushmore were twisty and rugged, coursing through mountain terrain and beautiful forests. That much had been similar to Yellowstone National Park. But the boulders were something I hadn’t seen before.

“Won’t be long now,” Colton said, navigating the mountain road’s sharp curve. Pine trees lined both sides of the road, and several signs indicated a few different caves we could explore if we wanted.

“You never told me what the problem with Bryce is,” I said as he slowed behind a long line of cars heading in the same direction we were.

“It’s just his personality about everything,” Colton said, draping his wrist on the steering wheel. “Even though Luke is the oldest, Bryce has the kind of personality that tends to take charge. He likes to have his hand in all the pies.”

“When you started farming…”

“It was Bryce’s farm,” Colton said. “He’d been the one to make the initial investment in the land and the equipment. I added cows to it later, but Holden Farms was his baby. So asking him to give me sole ownership of it now feels like I’m being arrogant. Like…”

“Like you think you can do it better without him.”

“Something like that.”

The procession of cars continued to crawl along the road, taking things slow. A turn off with a sign mentioned Crazy Horse Memorial, but since it wasn’t yet finished, we decided not to stop and see that one. Another sign mentioned sixteen miles to Mount Rushmore.

“What’s your real reasoning for wanting to buy him out?” I asked.

“Because it’s hard to manage while he’s running his sprinkler business, and his ice skating rink, and now these townhouses, which he’s going to need help marketing once they’re finished. He’s going to hire managers and whatnot for the complex, which he claims will then take care of itself, but I have my doubts.”

“You sound like you didn’t want to do the townhouses.”

“I didn’t,” Colton said, “but I’m in the bad habit of going along with what he wants, and I’m trying to break that. He seems to think that because we’re partners in farming, we need to be partners in all of these other ventures.”

“And you don’t want that.”

“No,” Colton said. “I like farming. I want to stick to farming. I can’t handle multiple projects like he can. I don’t want to. It’s just too much stress, and I don’t want that.”

The lineup of cars in front of us thinned out, the cars increasing their speed. Colton hung back, keeping ample distance between us and the bumper in front of us.

“Did Luke offer any helpful suggestions for how to approach the conversation with Bryce?” I asked, resting my hand on the armrest just inside the door.

Colton scowled out the windshield. “Not really. Luke isn’t the greatest at communication. I just thought maybe since he’d resolved a problem with Bryce once before that he might have an idea that I wasn’t thinking of.”

“You know what I think?”

Colton gave a questioning grunt that sounded like, “Hm?”

“I think you should invite him out to dinner or something and just tell him how much you’ve loved working with him. But point out how with both of you moving on with your lives, it might be time to consider doing things a little differently.”

“He’s moving on,” Colton said. “Am I?”

He slid a glance toward me, and that look—and the question accompanying it—made a blaze of my insides.

Thoughts of our kiss radiated through my mind all over again. With that look, I was ready for him to pull over and go for a replay.

“Someday you will be,” I said, deciding not to answer the implication of his question even though I totally got what he was implying.

Was he moving on with me ?