Page 76 of The Lonely Road

“The military,” he replies.

“The military teaches a man to cook…ah pasta?”

“The military teaches a man nothing about pasta.” He runs a finger down my cheek, his eyes warm as they go over my face. “A lot of evenings alone teach a man about pasta.” He walks to the sink and drains the spaghetti water. “You learn to cook, or you eat bad takeout.”

“Ah!”

I want to know more about those evenings alone—and the ones when he wasn’t.

How many women?

How serious?

Did any of them come close to the thing I think might be happening here?

But something stops me, and I think it’s the set of his back—the way he’s standing at the counter right now that says he’s given me something real, and that’s as far as he goes tonight.

I understand that.

I’m the same way.

And just because I’ve opened myself to him doesn’t mean he has to reciprocate on my timeline.

Some people need more time to trust the frame before they’ll step across the threshold, and pushing only makes them step back, and I have no interest in pushing. I have spent enough of my life managing other people’s comfort at the expense of my own. What I won’t do is manufacture urgency where patience is what’s actually called for.

I let it go.

We eat at the dining table with candles lit as the mountains go dark in the west window and the creek running behind the house and the beadwork catching the low light in the kitchen doorway, and it is—simply, without agenda—a good evening.

That night, when we lie together after we make love, and our breathing has settled, I decide to give him more so he’ll trust me and return the favor, whenever he’s ready.

“I want to take you somewhere.”

He kisses my temple as I rub my cheek on his shoulder. “Where?”

“The Southern Ute Bear Dance. It’s in two weeks. At Ignacio.”

Will he still be here?

He strokes my back with a calloused hand, a slight stiffness entering his body. “What is it?”

I wonder if I’ve made a mistake, but I take the leap. If you don’t take the risk, you won’t get the reward.

“It’s one of our oldest ceremonies. A celebration of spring, of survival, of coming back to yourself after a hard season.” I raise my head to look at him. “Will you come?”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“That’s—” He stops. Starts again. “I’m honored.”

I smile. “You are?”

“Yes. And I understand.”

I frown. “Understand what?”

He holds my gaze. “What it means that you’re asking.”

I am so in love with this man. So completely and utterly in love that my feelings for Griffin, whom I thought was the man, pale in comparison.