Delivery to the Farmhouse (Havenwood Cowboys Romance #4)

Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

W hat was Jensen doing here? Wasn’t he supposed to be back east going to dental school?

This man didn’t steal my heart. He’d held it freely, a ready gift I’d all but handed to him—unpackaged, unfettered, complete, and entire. And just when I’d thought he was preparing a place to store it and keep it always, instead, he’d drop-kicked it across the Rockies.

I’d heard of people having out of body experiences, but only after suffering traumatic injuries or something like that. But I could swear I was standing at a distance, watching myself gape at him, watching myself brace for impact.

My heart was in my ears. My lungs were in my neck. I had feet—yet I couldn’t get them to move. Nothing was where it should have been.

Colton seemed to sense my disconnect. He stepped closer and wrapped his hand around my waist, keeping me upright.

“Post office is that way,” he said to Jensen. There was an edge to his voice. “You’re at the wrong door.”

God bless this man .

My shock was kicking in. I leaned my back against his chest and placed my hand on his.

Jensen didn’t miss the gesture. His gaze flicked down, taking in our hands. His throat worked through a swallow, and then that stubborn streak I’d seen him possess like the night he rode his four-wheeler across town to see me—the first night he’d told me he loved me—reared its head.

“I know my way around,” he said. “Probably better than you do.”

Oh, no he didn’t. He did not get to destroy my dreams, crush my still-beating heart beneath his truck tires, and think we could go right back where we were before.

If that was even what he was doing here.

I considered asking what he was doing here, but he didn’t deserve that courtesy. It would only make it look like I cared.

Which I didn’t.

I wanted him gone. I never wanted to see him again.

“I thought maybe we could talk,” Jensen said.

Colton tightened his hold around my waist, wrapping both arms around me this time, and leaned in, resting his cheek against mine.

“That’s cute, but I already got someone to talk to," he said as though Jensen had directed his statement toward him instead of me.

Jensen’s glare deepened. He watched me for several more seconds. I lifted my chin and said nothing, wanting him to take this hint since it was the last thing I’d ever give him.

With a sniff, Jensen stalked away from the fence. He passed us, glowering the entire time. I couldn’t take my eyes from him with every retreating step he took—and the glare in my expression was one-hundred percent involuntary. Natural.

Deserved.

“Guess I’ll go,” Jensen said, stopping as he crossed paths with me. “Can I call you later? ”

“I think we said all there is to say,” I told him, lifting my chin. “Last Christmas. Remember?”

A flash of pain crossed over his eyes, but I refused to let it affect me. How dare he act all hurt after what he did?

I didn’t wait to make sure he left. I pried myself free from Colton’s embrace and stormed—not back to his pickup, but down the street. My apartment wasn’t far, and I wasn’t ready to be confined in a vehicle right now.

Soon, the Eriksons’ house came into view. Wrenching the keys from my pocket, I fiddled with them, working them into the lock. The key caught several times, and a large hand stopped mine. With far more patience than I possessed in this moment, Colton worked the key in the lock, turning the handle.

The air inside was cool, and I took a few of the steps leading immediately down into my apartment.

“You want me to go?” he asked, pausing at the top of those stairs.

I climbed back up to where he stood, snatched his hand, and pulled him down behind me. My hands shook so hard I dropped my keys when we reached the living room. It was full of boxes, just like I’d left them. My ukulele case was propped against the wall, right where I’d left it as well.

I made for the keys, only to kick them under the coffee table. My mind was a disjointed mess. I bent for them a second time, but Colton got to them first.

“Let me,” he said.

So I did. His hands were far steadier than mine, and he picked them up with ease.

The apartment was dark and too quiet. I couldn’t think. Was this why I’d felt so unsure about returning to town? I didn’t need Jensen showing up out of nowhere wanting to talk .

What did he possibly have to say? What was he even doing back in Bridgewater?

I didn’t care. I didn’t want to know. I’d moved on and accepted the fact that he was gone. Why did he have to return and stir things up now?

Did he decide not to go to school after all?

Did he get kicked out or something?

What was going on?

I slammed the door on those questions. I couldn’t go there because finding out the answers meant accepting his request, and I wasn’t going to give that man any leeway whatsoever.

He could keep his secrets. He could stuff them where the sun didn’t shine.

“You okay?” Colton’s voice was strong and quiet, just like him.

He looked too tall to be in my little apartment. He hadn’t moved far from the couch. His hands were in his pockets, and he watched me.

Dazed, I met his gaze, and I couldn’t suppress the emotional exhaustion any longer. I wilted like a three-day-old lily.

Colton was there before I crumpled. His arms caught me, holding me to his firm chest.

“I’ve got you, darlin’.”

“I’d never had anyone call me that before,” I said, clinging to him, inhaling the traces of wind in his skin and that other smell that was just Colton.

Something in his body chemistry, something no one else could smell like.

“I’ve never called anyone that before,” he said. “Do you want to lay down?”

“Yes.”

Without another word, he scooped me into his arms. I wasn’t sure whether it was because I was home—or because it felt like home in his arms—but I nestled into him, hugging my fists beneath my chin.

He didn’t turn on the light, but he laid me down on the bed. Gently, he removed my shoes, and I should have been mortified because I’d been wearing them for a long time, and who knew what my feet would smell like? But if they were bad, he didn’t show it.

Moving gently, he managed to pull down the blankets and tuck me into them, pulling the blankets up to my neck.

“You get some rest now.”

I caught his arm. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

His glossy eyes reflected the hall light behind him. “I’ll be here. I’ll just rest on your couch out there.”

“Stay with me. Please. I don’t want to be alone.”

I knew it was irrational. He’d left his truck parked back at the post office. It was full of our bags. Full of the water bottles we’d used and the empty packages from our snacks that we hadn’t yet cleaned out after our trip.

He rubbed a hand behind his neck and peered around my room. “Sure thing. I’ll go get a chair.”

“No,” I said, pushing back toward the wall.

His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

I tugged on his hand. “Stay. With me. I want you to hold me. Just hold me.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Please,” I said.

I couldn’t explain this emptiness inside of me, but something was breaking. I was unraveling.

The heartache I’d seen in Kyler’s eyes was raging back through me with full force.

I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted his warmth, his comfort. I wanted him with me.

Colton lowered himself onto the bed, stretching his long legs on top of the blanket while I was burrowed beneath it. His strong arms cradled around me, and I gravitated toward him like a magnet.

It wasn’t the intimacy itself, but the physical contact, the all-out need to be close to him. Psychological and soothing and filling in all of my empty spaces. His body was warm. He wrapped his arms around me, and I burrowed against his chest.

I released the dam on my emotions. I cried.

Tears wet my pillow. I clung to his shirt, and sobbed, feeling all the emotion that had built up for the past several hours—the past several days—expelling from me. Colton rubbed my back, offering soothing sounds and his warm, calming strength.

He stroked my hair. He rubbed my back.

“I’ve got you,” he said, his arms wrapping me tightly to his chest. “I’ve got you.”

I wasn’t sure how long I cried for, but eventually the emotion ran its course, and I laughed when he reached for the box of tissues on the nightstand behind him and handed them to me. I wiped my cheeks and flipped my pillow to its other side, nestling right back in next to him.

“I’m sorry he hurt you,” he said, resting his chin on my hair, holding me to his chest.

“I can’t believe he showed up.”

“What happened?” he asked, his voice rumbling at a low growl in his chest. “Who was he?”

This surprised me. I didn’t think I needed to elaborate on the he . Colton knew who Jensen was, didn’t he?

It reminded me of Kyler asking me whether I was really from Bridgewater or not.

“I thought you knew. I thought word spread fast around here.”

“I’m out of the loop, I guess. Don’t give much place for gossip in my line of work.”

And yet, he sensed the tension of the situation and came in clutch anyway. Be still my beating heart.

“That was Jensen Cummings. We dated last year, and I thought he was going to ask me to marry him.”

If this news bothered Colton, he didn’t show it. His arms kept their steady hold around me. His heart kept its constant thrum against my ear .

“That’s who you were talking about with Kyler.”

“Yeah.”

“But?”

“But he left for dental school instead. He didn’t even tell me he’d applied or been accepted. He’d been dropping all these hints about the future changing, making me think he was going to include me in those changes. And then on Christmas Eve, when I thought he was going to pop the question, he stabbed me in the heart instead. He was like, ‘I’m leaving. I wanted to have the best goodbye we could.’”

Like his leaving wasn’t going to completely shatter my entire life.

“What a coward,” Colton said.

“He was. Is.”

“And he had the nerve to show up again without telling you? That’s the first you’ve seen of him since he left?”

“Yes,” I said, my heart pinching in my chest. “He has my email. My phone number. He could have had the decency to give me a heads up, at the very least.”

“You deserve better than that.”

He stroked circles on my back.

“Thank you.”

My eyelids got heavy. I drifted off to sleep and when I woke up, Colton was still there, sleeping on the bed beside me. He’d moved to his back, with his hand resting on his chest.

He’d stayed. He’d stayed .

Sunshine poured in through my window, and I blinked the dregs of sleep from my eyes, staring at him, watching his chest rise and fall and realizing just how cozy we were on my twin-sized bed.

I didn’t want to move. But I did need to relieve myself.

Carefully, I climbed over him. He stirred, rolling to take up the space I vacated.

When I returned, he was sitting up. His hair stuck up at the back, and he lifted his arms in a stretch .

“Morning,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how long you wanted me to stay, but it looks like we fell asleep.”

“Looks like we did.” I hugged my arms around me, still feeling empty. I checked my phone, but there were no updates.

“I’m glad you stayed,” I said.

Colton rose and stretched his back, angling forward to reach his hands toward the floor. “People will talk.”

“Does that bother you?” I asked, feeling only the tiniest bit guilty.

Because he was right—in a town like Bridgewater, the fact that Colton Holden spent the night at my apartment was going to spread like germs. It made me wonder about the Eriksons. Were they still gone? So far, I hadn’t heard much going on above us.

He met my gaze without wavering. “No. I stopped caring about what people in this town think a long time ago.”

“There’s a story there,” I said, my curiosity piquing.

I’d never heard anything wayward about Colton. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to do anything that would incite rumors or make people talk.

I thought that of his brother, Bryce. Even Dawson’s return to Bridgewater had sparked rumors about all the girls he’d been with during his time on the circuit. But Colton?

Then again, he didn’t grow up here like I did. His family grew up in Burley, and he only farmed in the fields—though I wasn’t exactly sure where his farms were.

“There is,” he said. “Her name was Samantha. It might sound stupid, but I never actually had many interactions with her in person.”

“You met her online?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s from Idaho Falls. But we hit it off, and our chats were great. I eventually agreed to meet her. In Pocatello, actually. We met halfway. Then she started coming to Bridgewater. People were nosy like always, but when we broke up, the rumor mill started up. ”

“That’s awful.”

“Yes, and no. And that’s what I mean. It’s not like any one huge thing happened to make me this way. It’s just…I decided not to let what anyone around here thought matter because in the end, they all had it wrong. The only people who really knew why Samantha and I broke up were the two of us.”

“And what did happen?”

He nudged me with his shoulder. “Are you jealous, Natalie?”

“Jealousy and curiosity aren’t the same thing.”

“She and I clicked more online than we did in person,” he said. “And she didn’t kiss like you.”

I startled at that, and heat pooled in my cheeks. “Thanks? I think?”

“I hope that was okay to say. The truth is, I’ve never had anyone kiss me like you do.”

He planted a kiss on my cheek and then crossed to the bathroom.

I didn’t really care if people talked, either. Nothing had happened between us last night—other than my heart tipping treacherously closer to the point of no return.

Maybe word would spread to Jensen—and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, either. Maybe he’d get the hint and stop trying to worm his way back into my life.

“Want something to eat?” I offered when he came back out again.

I sat on my couch, feeling this strange push and pull of being both riled by Jensen and heartened by Colton standing up for me last night, that he’d held me while I’d cried over another man, and I’d fallen asleep in his arms.

I could get used to that. To coming home to him, to spending every night in his arms.

“I’ve got to head out,” he said, running his hands through his hair and glancing toward the stairs that led up to my one and only exit. “I need to move my truck. I’ll bring your bag back. ”

“Oh, right,” I said.

I still couldn’t believe we’d left his pickup right there near the post office. At least it was at more of a back road than anything.

I followed him up and back outside again. He gave me a little wave and then increased his pace, stalking down the sidewalk in the post office’s direction.

Colton was gone for only a handful of minutes. I waited out on the street, waving to Steve and to the Ambroses who were out shooting hoops on their driveway.

Soon enough, a familiar red truck turned the corner and inched its way toward the Eriksons’. Colton pulled up and hopped out, looking disheveled and dreamy.

He lifted a hand to greet Steve. Caught off-guard, the oldest Ambrose boy swooped in and stole the ball from him, rising on his toes and shooting for the basket between their houses.

“Sorry!” Colton called, grimacing and giving me a “whoopsie!” kind of expression.

I laughed. My feelings for him swelled, as did my uncertainty.

Because the more time I stood here on the street, the more time passed as he handed me my suitcase, the more a sour feeling sank into my stomach.

Something felt off. I didn’t want to be here.

I wasn’t ready to be home, especially not if Jensen was back in town.

Colton had his usual happy-go-lucky expression on his face, so I couldn’t tell, but did he regret staying with me?

I should regret it, too, but I didn’t. No, regret wasn’t the reason for the unease making a sewer of my stomach.

“Thanks,” I said, taking my bag from him. “For everything.”

“You bet. Maybe I’ll see you on the site later?” He attempted a smile, but it had an edge to it.

Something was bothering him, too. Did he regret what had happened ?

“I should be there,” I said, pressing my lips. I couldn’t manage a smile, either.

He turned toward his truck. Then he seemed to rethink it, and he came back to me.

His footfalls and my thundering heart pounding in my ears were the only sounds as he crossed the drive toward me, cradled my cheek, and placed a soft kiss on my mouth.

The sound of the ball being dribbled stopped. One of the boys across the street let out a whoop. When he pulled away, Colton didn’t pay him any mind. His attention was fixed on me.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, pulsing.

I lingered on the sidewalk, watching him swagger to his pickup. Every step away felt like he took something of me with him. Something I’d never get back.

And I couldn’t figure out why that threw me off course. Why did that kiss feel more like he was saying goodbye?