Saving You (Love Wanted In Texas Book 2) (10 page)

“WANT TO TELL
me what’s on your mind, Son?” my father asked as we rode along in silence. I shrugged my shoulders and looked off to the west.

“Girl problems?”

I let out a husky laugh. “You could say.”

Stopping his horse, my father cleared his throat. I stopped mine and turned her around so that I was facing my father. “You know, I’ve been your age once before. I kind of know a thing or two about this subject. I am after all married to your mother.”

I let out a small laugh. “You and Mom have the most amazing love I’ve ever seen, Dad. The way she looks at you when you walk into a room.” I shook my head. “The way you look at her when she walks into a room, it’s magical.”

My father smiled. “I do love your mother very much. She’s my life. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.”

My smile faded as I looked away. “You’d never hurt her.”

“How do you know that?”

My head turned back quickly as I looked at my father. “What?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Do you think our love is perfect son? That we don’t make mistakes? Hurt each other?”

“I know you would never purposely hurt Mom, Dad. You love her too much.”

My father looked away as he said, “No. I’d never knowingly hurt your mother, but I have hurt her before. Deeply.” His voice was filled with sadness as he turned to me. “There was a time that I thought I might have lost your mother forever. I had two choices. Walk away from her and never risk hurting her again, or stay and fight for our love. If I stayed, I knew I risked the chance of hurting her again, but our love was worth the risk. Love has a way of melting our defenses, Luke. You just have to know when to let those defenses fall.”

I wanted to ask him what he did, but for some reason it didn’t feel right asking.

“It must not have been that bad. She forgave you,” I said quietly.

“She forgave me because she loves me, Luke. She knows how much I love her. No one is perfect, Son. We all make mistakes. Sometimes we hurt the people we love in the process. That doesn’t make us love them any less and that fear of hurting someone shouldn’t stop us from loving them.”

I felt the tears building in my eyes so I looked away. “What if you know the girl you love deserves so much better than you? Deserves so much more than what you can give her.”

“Does she?”

Looking back I asked, “Does she what?”

He dropped his head and stared at me for a good thirty seconds. “Deserve better than you?”

I nodded my head. “I think so, sir.”

“Have you given her the chance to decide that for herself?”

I was about to respond when we heard a horn honking. I looked over my shoulder and saw Gunner driving up in the ranch Jeep. He smiled big when he saw me. Coming to a stop, he jumped out of the Jeep and I quickly jumped off my horse. He walked up to me and pulled me in for a hug as he slapped the hell out of my back.

“Well, son of a bitch. Look who’s home. Miss the ranch that much?” Gunner asked with a huge smile on his face.

Nodding my head and letting out a laugh, I replied, “Yes, sir. Very much so. I needed a weekend home.”

Gunner smiled. “Colt know you’re home?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve already made plans to go out this weekend.”

Gunner placed his hand on my shoulder. “Good. Make sure you talk to him. He seems to have his head in his ass and I’m pretty sure it’s about a girl.”

My father let out a chuckle as I looked over at him. “Must be something in the air,” he said as he started walking off on his horse.

SITTING ON MY
tailgate, I kept my eye on Colt. Taylor had told us that Colt seemed to be drinking a lot in the beginning of the year until his football coach set him straight. One thing I noticed though, he couldn’t keep his eyes off Lauren. I glanced over and saw Lauren sitting on a log laughing at something one of her girlfriends said. She looked up and caught me watching her. She smiled and waved. I waved back and grinned.

Someone bumped my leg and I looked to see Colt standing there. “My dad told you to keep an eye on me or something, Luke?” I smiled and let out a chuckle as I nodded my head. “I know he’s worried about me, but I think he’s more worried about Alex.”

I looked over at Colt. “Alex? Why?”

Colt shrugged. “Probably the same reason we all worry about the girls.”

I followed Colts gaze. “You ever talk to Lauren and get things straightened out?”

Colt lifted the Coke bottle to his lips and shook his head. He took a drink and then laughed. “Nope. She just pretends like we are the best of friends. She isn’t dating anyone, but that’s not very fair of me to be happy about that.”

“How are things with you and Rachel?”

“I broke up with her.” He turned and looked at me. “She wanted us to sleep together.”

I pulled my head back and looked at him. “You broke up with her because she wanted to sleep with you?”

Colt let out a sigh. “No, I broke up with her because I walked in on her fucking another guy. She was pissed at me because I wouldn’t sleep with her. I didn’t want to sleep with her. I mean, I didn’t love her. She deserved to have her first time be with someone who loved her and would cherish that moment.”

I lifted the left side of my mouth into a smile. “So much like your damn daddy, you know that? Romantic bastard.”

Colt laughed and then shook his head. “I guess, maybe it’s because I want my first time to be with someone I love. Someone who I’ll cherish the moment with.”

My smile faded as I looked back out into the crowd. I’d never have that moment back. Lauren was now up and dancing with a few friends while they laughed.

“Yeah, you never get that moment back, Colt. Don’t fuck it up like I did.”

Colt turned and looked at me. I knew he wanted to ask me about it, but he didn’t.

“If you could go back and change that night, would you?” Colt asked. I slowly turned and looked at him.

“In a heartbeat. If I could take away the biggest mistake of my life, I’d do it no questions asked.”

Colt smiled weakly and nodded his head. “Why don’t you just tell her, Luke?”

My heart instantly hurt. “Because she’s moved on.”

Colt looked back out to Lauren. “Why do they have to fuck with our heads and hearts so much?”

I closed my eyes and thought back to me kissing Libby in the rain. Opening my eyes I said, “They probably think the same thing about us.”

ZACH WALKED UP
and took me in his arms. “I’m really going to miss you, Lib.”

I smiled and reached up to kiss him. “I’ll miss you too, Zach.” I stepped back and turned to shut my suitcase. I would be leaving soon to meet Alex and Grace in Austin. Then we were driving to the coast for spring break. The thought of being with Luke all week raced through my mind. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. I hadn’t seen much of Luke at all. Will told me Luke spent most of his time working out or studying. According to Abigail, he spent much of his time fucking her. Any chance she had to talk to me, she was sure to tell me about their hook ups.

I hate her.

I jumped when Zach placed his hands on my shoulders. “Let me relax you, Libby.” His hand slowly moved down my arm to my stomach. “Baby, you seem so tense.”

My stomach clenched at the idea of Zach relaxing me. We had yet to have sex and Zach knew I was a virgin. I appreciated the fact that he was not pushing me. He did, however, manage to give me amazing orgasms with his skillful fingers. I closed my eyes and let out a moan. Zach slipped his hand around and into my panties. “Libby, let me make you come.”

I dropped my head back against him and lifted my leg. “Yes,” I whispered as I let Zach push all thoughts of Luke from my mind.

Zach pulled me closer to him, feeling his hardness press against my body caused me to moan.

“You’re so wet. Fuck you’re so wet.” Zach hissed as his fingers began to move in and out faster. I felt my body begin to quiver. Closing my eyes, I let it go. My orgasm ripped through my body as I felt my insides pulsing against Zach’s fingers. He moved his lips to my ear and whispered, “I can’t wait to make you mine.”

My eyes sprung open and tears began to well up. If only I wanted to be Zach’s. If only my heart didn’t belong to Luke.

SPRING BREAK IN
Port Aransas was beyond crazy. My parents, Alex’s parents, and Grace’s parents had beach houses here. All right next to each other. We had been coming to Port A for as long as I could remember.

Grace had her face buried in her phone as we walked along the beach. “So, what should we do tonight?” I asked Grace.

She shrugged her shoulders as she continued to look at her phone. “I don’t know. Maybe we could …”

Before I could warn Grace to watch out, she ran smack into a guy who had been standing there talking to his friends. Grace stumbled backward, but he grabbed hold of her before she lost her balance.

The smile that spread across his face instantly caused me to smile and Grace to let out a moan she surely didn’t mean to let escape her lips.

“Grace?”

Grace’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Noah?”

Wait. What? They know each other?

Noah’s smile turned to a grin. “At least this time I didn’t knock you down.” Grace giggled. I snapped my head and looked at her. Grace
never
giggled.

“I can’t believe I ran into you again,” Grace said as she bit down on her lower lip.
Holy hell.
Grace was into this guy in a big way. I cleared my throat and they both somehow managed to pull their eyes off each other and over to me.

Smiling, I held out my hand. “Libby Hayes, and you are?”

Noah took my hand and gently shook it. “I’m so sorry, Libby. Um, Noah, this is one of my best friends, Libby. Libby this is Noah. Ah …”

Grace looked back at Noah and then back to me. “We kind of met a couple months ago and I never did get your last name.”

Noah laughed and shook his head as he said, “My last name is Bennet. Grace and I had another run in, except last time I knocked her to the ground. You were with, Alex, that was her name right?”

Grace nodded her head. “Yep. Alex.” Turning to me she said, “It was when Alex and I went to A&M right after Thanksgiving when all that stuff with Will and Alex was going on.”