Her head gently cocked to the side. “How soon?”

“Two weeks.”

Chapter Nineteen – Aspen

The bomb Owen dropped while sitting across from me took my mind off the enormous vehicle he bought for me parked in his driveway and the fact that my dad was undergoing surgery tomorrow morning to put a stint in his artery.

Did I expect to break into tears? Not in the slightest. But that’s exactly what happened when the news sank in.

It was too much. His leaving, my life, everything. I was spiraling out of control in a tornado of emotion I couldn’t end.

“Baby, come here,” he murmured as he tugged me toward his lap and cradled me against him. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could stay or take you with me.”

I couldn’t understand my gibberish as I blubbered against Owen.

“Fuck. Cricket, what can I do? How can I make it better? Tell me what to do.”

Instead of words, I gripped him tighter. My arms clenched around his neck as I tucked my face against the dip between his shoulder and neck and drenched him with my tears.

Time slipped by as I released all my feelings from the steel cage they’d been trapped in. By the time I sniffed back my last sob, the sun had long fallen behind the mountain range.

“Better?” Owen asked, gently stroking my back.

“Um… yeah.” My throat was parched, leaving my voice hoarse and scratchy. “I… I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s okay. You have a lot going on. Can I get you anything? Have you eaten?”

I hadn’t. And after shaking my head, Owen set me on the couch and jumped up, heading toward the kitchen. In a few short minutes, he returned with a steaming bowl of mac and cheese. After taking the first bite, I knew it was exactly what I needed.

“Thank you,” I mumbled around my second spoonful.

While I ate, Owen asked about my dad, the surgery, and the farm. It was nice to speak candidly about everything. With my family, I felt like I had to tiptoe around my fears or insecurities.

As I finished my last bite of pasta, I remembered something one of our lead ranch hands mentioned when he returned to the farm. “Oh, they let me know today that your house is scheduled to be demolished next Wednesday. With it being condemned, it was up to the town to decide the date. Did you and your mom want to go by before or anything?”

I was worried about Owen’s reaction, but as he smiled softly, I knew I shouldn’t have been. He’d been through so much in that house. His family nearly crumbled at the hands of his despicable father within the walls of the building.

“I’ll ask my mom, but I think we’re both ready to move on now.”

“I worried if things were still rough between you two, but she mentioned you guys have been chatting more frequently.”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he perched against the wall. “It’s a work in progress, but things are getting better. I… held a lot of resentment toward her, when it was never her fault for what happened to me. I can’t imagine the horror she lived through. That bastard is still interrupting things in her life.”

As he continued to talk, I noticed he began rubbing an area of his arm covered in tattoos. It was something I noticed him do before, but I thought little about it until now. It happened whenever he spoke about his father.

Curiosity got the best of me as I yawned. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked, stopping the movement with his hand still wrapped around his forearm.

“Rub your arm. I… um… noticed you do it when you talk about your father.”

Owen’s gaze traveled out the window for a moment, then returned to me. Holding out his hand, he asked me to join him. “Come with me.”

He seemed both distracted and wary as he grasped my hand and guided me toward the bathroom. Wordlessly, he started the shower and began stripping off his clothes. I didn’t think I’d see a more gorgeous man for the rest of eternity.

He stepped into the shower and closed the door behind himself, leaving me standing there fully dressed as the billows of steam started pouring from the top of the shower door. “Owen? Is everything okay?”

“Join me.”

I’d taken a quick shower before leaving the farm, wanting to rid myself of the smells and sweat, but I didn’t hesitate to yank my clothes off and step into the spray.

Owen’s body arced in the mist, only his head falling forward into the water as his arms stretched out, his hands braced on the tiled walls. His massive back filled the space, and as I stepped up behind him, I wrapped my arms around his trim waist.

“Talk to me,” I urged quietly. I wanted to be that comfort for him like he had been for me.

He turned around and lifted me over to the bench, where he settled me on his lap, raising his intricately tattooed arm up for my inspection.

“Touch it,” he whispered, his eyes locked on mine, but I sensed he was mentally elsewhere.

Hesitantly, I ran my index finger across the mountain ranges and shaded trees. There were colorful birds and orange trees that stood out against the darkness on his skin. But beneath it all, I felt what he’d been hiding. Rigid scars marred his skin.

“Those were from my dad. He threw me against the coffee table when I was twelve, and the glass top shattered. That was the first time mom had to stitch me up herself, because he refused to let us go to the hospital.” Owen guffawed. “That was the same year he decided to start making wine. The idiot thought he’d have the fixings that year. When they sprouted nothing, he took it out on me.”

“Owen,” I whispered, running my fingers along the jagged marks, landing on a beautiful set of orange-leaved trees.

“Do you know what those are?” he asked me.

I leaned closer, but they weren’t like anything I recognized. “No, I don’t.”

With two fingers, Owen lifted my chin until my gaze was back on his. He leaned forward, our lips brushing in the softest caress. My nipples pebbled as his hand slid down my neck and between my breasts. Owen grazed his fingertip against the hardened peak, and I jolted in his lap at the contact.

“It’s an aspen tree. In Greek, it means shield.”

Dazed from his kisses, I pulled back and looked down at his arm. “It’s…. You got a tree with my name?”

“I got it because it was a way to keep you with me, always.”

“I… don’t understand. I thought….”

Owen placed both hands on either side of my neck, rubbing small circles with his thumbs.

“You were the only peace I ever found in this town. Not baseball. Not school. Not my mom. You. Anytime I was around you, everything else went silent inside me.”

“Then why were you always trying to one-up me in everything? The fairs, school, the farm, all of it. It was like a never-ending battle we had.”

“Because it kept your attention on me. I didn’t care what I had to do to get it; I just needed it.”

I rested my hands on his chest, just above his battering heart. “I thought you hated me.”