condom. She’d put a piece of plywood over the toilet so it made a little shelf. I grabbed a tissue and wiped my hands off. That was about all I could do.
I wished I could be with her in my house, but being in the RV with her was more important. She’d hidden this part of her life from everyone. I refused to be just another person to her.
I went back in and shooed Daisy out. I swear the dog slapped me with her tail as she passed.
“I’m not going to score any points with that dog, kicking her out.”
“She’ll get over it.” As I closed the door, she looked past me into the shadowed RV. The yard light cast enough of a glow to see the interior. “Or maybe not. We usually share body heat.”
“I’m sharing your heat tonight,” I said as I crawled in beside her naked body. Good. She hadn’t put her shirt and underwear back on.
“You’re staying the night? Our feet hang off the end.”
“Yep. But I have two more condoms, so . . .”
She chuckled and snuggled into me. “I’ve never had anyone over.”
“Believe it or not, me neither.” She looked back at me and I shrugged. “If I wasn’t feeling it, it seemed, I dunno, douchey to have sex in the house I never plan to leave.” I let out a sigh. “Never mind. There was my college girlfriend, but she and I slept in my old bedroom upstairs.”
“I’d heard you two were serious.”
“Yeah. I guess.” I thought back to those days. How hopeful I’d been to have someone to share my passion and my life with. Only to defend it every time we’d talked about the future. “I think I was more serious about the idea of her than her.” That sounded worse than I’d thought it would.
“It’s easy to do. How do you think I put up with Marshall for so long?”
“I want to drive to Miles City and key his flashy car. But, yeah. If someone doesn’t understand our life, it’s not like there’s a future.” I hugged her to me. I’d come home late most nights the last six weeks and she’d been watching Netflix or reheating leftovers. “I’m to blame too.”
“How so?”
“I assumed we’d marry and she’d move here and we’d be happy forever. But she was going to school for architecture. It wasn’t like she could move to King’s Creek and get a good job. It’d pretty much be career suicide before she even started. When she finally got that through to me, I realized we were done. She didn’t take it well.”
“Thought she should be enough to leave the ranch for?”
“Yep.”
She went quiet and I was regretting telling her about my past. I hadn’t been as serious about McKenzie as I’d been about settling down, but it wasn’t cool to talk about another woman right after your first time with someone special.
I was about to apologize when Bristol said, “I like to pretend that was why it didn’t work out between my mom and Pop.”
Whoa. That was heavier than my youthful ignorance.
“I know everyone says that she left because she couldn’t stand Pop, but I think it was being miles from everyone. Pop wooed her to the trailer and knocked her up. She stayed long enough to realize that I was the chain and Pop was the ball, and she couldn’t be just a rancher’s wife or a mom. So she left.”
And left Bristol too. “I know this life isn’t for everyone, but I don’t agree with what she did.”
“She went to LA. Wanted to model or something, Pop said. I don’t think he was lying since that’s where she died.”
I jerked and rolled to my elbow, staring down at Bristol. “She died?”
Bristol nodded like it was old news, and fuck, it probably was. “When I was fourteen. Car accident. Her parents had already passed sometime before that. I don’t know. I never met them.”
“Damn, Bristol. I’m sorry.”
“It . . .” She blew out a gusty sigh. “It helped when I heard, actually. I’d been left behind, but I was still alive. That must mean I was supposed to be where I was. It doesn’t make any sense. It sounds bad when I say it out loud.”
“It makes perfect sense.” It didn’t, but I wasn’t the daughter some woman had abandoned.
“There’s an extra blanket in one of the drawers behind you. I can always turn on the generator and get some heat going.”
“I plan to keep you