Oh, fuck no, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Wrinkles hey, worries her bottom lip—desserts with lemon. Damn Hendrixx, you know more about Blake than you do about me,” Mal joked her smile smart and knowing.
“Do fucking not,” I argued, feeling my cheeks heating.
“Oh yeah? What is my favourite dessert?” she challenged, her arms crossing over her chest.
“You like … um … fuck Mal, how the fuck do I know!” I shouted, flinging my arms in the air.
“You don’t because you don’t care what I eat when I am upset or that my eyes shine when I am happy. You do, however, know about Blake because she means more to you than anyone ever has. What I don’t understand is why you aren’t telling her all this? Her age can’t be an issue now, so why the dancing around your feelings for her. It’s obvious she feels the same way, or she wouldn’t have run off to your mum. I bet everything I have in my handbag she is up there right now, making donuts and biting on her bottom lip.”
My head dropped, breaking eye contact with Mal. I didn’t like the thought that Blake was right at that moment, upset. I didn’t like it either that I was probably responsible despite not understanding exactly what I had done wrong that made her run from me in the first place.
“Yeah, you might be,” I reluctantly conceded.
“Why did you kiss her, Drixx?” Mal asked softly, her hand on my arm. “Honesty only,” she rushed to add, pre-empting my usual, smartarse replies to questions that normally made me uncomfortable.
“Because there was no other choice. Years of yearning, wondering what she tastes like, what her lips would feel like on mine, how her moans would sound when my tongue first touched hers. The feel of her hands on me not because she was behind me on a horse or because work required it, but because she craves to touch me just as much as I do her. But …” I could hear the longing in my voice, the rasp of need, the honesty.
I fucking wanted Blake more than I wanted to live.
“It’s Blake. And you are worried how your family and the men on the Triple H are going to accept you two being in a romantic relationship after years of them seeing you in a brotherly role.”
I literally gaped at Mallory. Her insight into what was going around in my head just a little too spot-on. If I was being honest, I used Blake’s and my age difference as a cover for the real reason. Mallory hit the mark on my reluctance going forward in pursuing Blake. She was like the farm’s princess, and everyone adored her. I knew there were going to be protests and even some resentment when I made my move on Blake. She had more than fifty big brothers wanting to keep her safe, my brothers included.
Only not me. Nothing I felt for Blake was brotherly.
The fight in front of me didn’t worry me. Noxx and Nixx knew what I felt, Eddy and some of the workers I was close to did as well. Gossip from the locals didn’t worry me, what did was how Blake would think of the whispers and pointing.
We didn’t share blood, and she didn’t call my parents Mum or Dad. Hell, even after her dad died, Blake insisted she continue living in the cottage she shared with her father. Aged fourteen, she lived alone, granted my brothers and I took turns checking on her all night, but she didn’t come to live in the main house, live with us as if she were a blood relation.
I honestly didn’t give a fuck about anyone else’s opinion except Blake’s. And my mum’s.
“No wonder Mack was happy when you moved in with Tim permanently. Your uncanny ability to know what is going on in someone’s head is rather unnerving,” I said, instead of agreeing with her assessment of the situation.
“Well, it’s a gift Drixxie, much like you dodging the obvious.” Mallory smiled at me before she wrapped her arms around my waist, her head tilting back so she could look me in the eyes.
“You know when I interrupted you two tonight, I witnessed something that tells me you don’t have anything to worry about, my friend.”
“Oh?”
“Yep, Blake had the same look on her face I see on Mack’s whenever Noxx is around and the same one I see in the mirror whenever I think about Tim. She might be young, but love doesn’t have age limits. Trust me, don’t wait too long because otherwise, you will be missing out on so much memory-making. Go with your gut and follow your heart, fuck expectations, and what other people think.”
“You’re quite the poet tonight, Rogers, you are wasted in real estate,” I declared, pulling her closer for a hug.
“Don’t I know it,” she joked back, making me laugh.
Had I not hugged Mallory right then, instead kept my eyes on the small cottage, I would have noticed the small figure standing on her front porch hidden in the shadows watching two friends hug and jumping to the wrong conclusion.
***
“Eddy, where the hell is Blake!” I yelled out from my perch on the tractor.
“How the hell do I know, I have been out here baling hay with you all day,” Eddy shouted back at me giving me a ‘duh’ glare.
Since five a.m. this morning, Eddy and I, as well as three farm hands, had been out in the Lucerne crop cutting and baling without so much as a break. Mum came by and brought out breakfast and lunch, but there had been no sign of my cowgirl.
This wasn’t normal, not for Blake. She couldn’t go more than an hour without pissing me off, coming to see what I was up to, ask if she could ride Lancelot or
