Southern Comfort - Natasha Madison Page 0,43

away from it.” She looks at me. “Almost like you up and leaving the rodeo circuit. That was how I felt about modeling. I was doing it because my mother made me, and then I finally stood up and said no more.”

“It must have been hard to just walk away,” I say, knowing full well how it felt losing that little piece of me. “A piece of me was gone. It was just weird.”

“But you loved doing the rodeo, right?” she asks, and I nod. “I hated fucking modeling. I hated everything about it. Getting on jets and living out of your suitcase and the cattiness about it. One girl I know ate only an apple for the whole week.” She throws her hands in the air. “Seven days with one apple. Luckily, I had a great metabolism, but that didn’t keep my mother from trying to pinch fat on my body. Well, when she did that, it was always a bad month.”

“Do you still talk to your mother?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

“No.” She grabs a grape and tosses it into her mouth. “When I finished my last runway, I expected her to be there. Expected her to be somewhat proud of the fact that I had the career I did, but instead, she tried to punish me by staying away. In the end, she punished herself because I’ve never been happier.” She shrugs and eats more grapes. “I mean, I guess you can say my mother is the reason that I settled with Dominic.”

“How is that?” I listen to her telling her story about how miserable her life was, and I want to make sure she never feels that way again.

“I don’t know what love is,” she says, and my heart and stomach hurt for her. “If you’ve never had love in your life, how do you know what it feels like?” She shrugs. “It’s like I know I’ll never be a mother.”

“I get that feeling,” I say. “I’ll never get married,” I finally admit to her, and she looks at me. “It’s just not for me.”

She laughs. “Cowboy Casey on the loose.” I shake my head. “Adding notches to your bedpost.”

I look down and then look up. “Hardly.”

“You’re not lying,” she says softly. I grab a water bottle and take a drink, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Whatever this thing is.” I point at her and then at me. “The one thing I can tell you is that I will never lie to you.”

“Thank you,” she says softly. “I think that is one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me.” She looks down and then she looks up again, and I see the tears in her eyes. “This can’t go anywhere,” she says. “I’m here until it’s safe, and then I’m leaving.” I want to ignore the crushing in my chest. I want to ignore the fact that my stomach now burns, knowing she’ll eventually leave. I don’t answer her. Instead, I look off into the trees and pretend my heart didn’t just break.

Chapter Seventeen

Olivia

I hear an alarm in the distance, and my eyes finally open. I feel him leave my side and turn to look over my shoulder at him. It’s still dark outside. “What time is it?”

“Five thirty,” he mumbles. “Go back to sleep.”

“It’s five thirty?” I ask him and lean up on the couch, not believing him as he gets up and goes to the bathroom. It’s the second night that I’ve slept on the couch with him. Yesterday, I spent the day on the couch bored out of my mind. I tried to work, but when I finally got my computer out and the emails started coming in, my head started spinning. Kallie looked over at me, and she took my computer from me. She then went as far as telling Casey about it, and all he did was glare at me and fold his arms over his chest. Needless to say, that night we sat in the almost dark, and we made out. God, the man could kiss like no one’s business. He kissed me breathless, yet I didn’t want to stop. Even when my eyes got heavy, and I knew I would be falling asleep, I went back in for one more kiss. It was always one more kiss until I fell asleep without a care in the world.

I turn over and throw the covers off when he walks out of the bedroom dressed in his Levi’s. “What