would be okay. He wouldn’t try to appease me like a child. I needed him. The minute he saw me walking across the field, the tractor stopped. His eyes locked on me and I started to run. I could feel the wetness on my face from my tears as I ran toward him. He jumped down just before I reached him. Beau caught me as I flung myself into his arms. The silent tears turned into loud sobs for the first time since my mother had told me Grana was gone. He didn’t ask. I’d known he wouldn’t. He would wait until I was ready.
Beau I pulled Ashton into my lap as I sat down under an old oak tree. Her arms tightened around my neck as she sobbed pitifully against my chest. I was scared to ask what was wrong. Instead, I held her and waited. My chest ached so bad with each sob it was difficult to take deep breaths. Sitting here and waiting on her to calm down enough to tell me who I needed to go beat the shit out of for making her cry wasn’t easy. A sob shook her body and I cradled her tighter against me. My heart spasmed with each tremble of her body. Even when we were kids I didn’t like to see her upset. The one time a kid had hurt her feelings on the playground I’d reacted by shoving the kid’s face in the dirt. It had got me two days’ suspension but it’d been worth it. No one bothered her again. They knew better. Her sobs slowly began to ease to soft little whimpers. I gazed down at her as she lifted her head from my sweaty chest. Her big green eyes stared up at me and the tightness in my chest throbbed. If someone had hurt her I would kill them. If Sawyer was the cause of this I would take him down. Cousin or not, no one was allowed to make Ashton cry. “My Grana had a heart attack last night,” she whispered. I hadn’t expected that. “I’m sorry, baby.” “Just hold me, please,” she replied. I’d hold her forever if I could. I gently moved the hair stuck to her tear-soaked face and tucked it behind her ears. She glanced down and tensed as she finally noticed my lack of a shirt. My chest was now soaked not only with sweat but her tears. I started to say something but the words stuck in my throat when her hand moved up to my chest and she began softly wiping the droplets of moisture off of me. I stopped breathing. I knew it was wrong to let her do this but I couldn’t bring myself to care. She shifted in my lap until she was straddling me. I let my hands fall to her waist as she continued touching my chest. My heart started slamming against my ribs so hard I knew she had to feel it. I needed to stop this. “Beau,” she said. I tore my eyes away from her hands on my chest and gazed up at her face. There was a question in her eyes. I could see it. Was this what she needed right now? Was it wrong to let her deal with her pain by doing something that would only cause us more pain later? The tears in her eyes had dried up. Her mouth was slightly open as she took deep, heavy breaths. Ah, hell . “Yes,” I managed as a strangled reply. Her hands left me and I started to take a deep breath to ease my burning oxygen-deprived lungs when I realized why she’d stopped driving me crazy with her innocent caresses. The deep breath lodged in my throat as her top came off. Without taking her eyes off me she dropped the little tank top onto the grass beside her. I had thought nothing could be sexier than Ashton in a bikini and I’d been so wrong. Ashton in a lacy white bra was by far the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. “Ash, baby, what’re you doing?” I asked in a hoarse whisper. I tried forcing myself to look up at her face to gauge what she was thinking but I couldn’t take my eyes off the soft tanned flesh pushed up over the top of her bra. I wanted to pull that lace down so bad and get my first look at her nipples. “Touch me,” she whispered. The fact she was Sawyer’s girl no longer seemed to matter. I couldn’t tell her no. Hell, I couldn’t tell myself no. I traced a line from her