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Once everyone was done eating, George instructed me and Cole to stay seated while the rest of the table was excused. Alex lingered behind, a curious expression on his face, but all it took was one cleared throat from his father for him to disappear. Katherine stood at the edge of the room, ears cocked and hands on her hips as she waited for multiple sets of feet to clamber up the stairs. When the sound faded, she took a seat across from us.
“Under no circumstance is it acceptable for the two of you to sleep in bed together.” Her tone was calm but firm.
I hung my head, cheeks burning.
“Really?” Cole said flippantly. “Not even if—“
“Cole,” George interrupted. “You better stop talking right now, or so help me, I’ll—
“Okay, okay!” he replied before his dad could finish. “I’m sorry, but you guys are making a bigger deal out of this than necessary. Nothing happened.”
This was definitely the wrong thing to say, and I winced as a muscle in Katherine’s jaw jumped. While technically correct about nothing happening, Cole being a smart-ass would only get us in more trouble.
“I don’t care what your excuse is,” she snapped. “
Nothing gives you the right to flout house rules.”
“What rule did we break?” There was a challenge in Cole’s question. “The only one you made when Jackie moved in is that the door has to stay open if we’re alone in a bedroom with her. Technically, we weren’t alone.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, appalled by his insolence. A sense of self-preservation kicked in, and I inched to the side of my chair, leaning as far away from Cole as possible. Nobody spoke. It was so unnaturally quiet that I could hear the tick tick tick of the pendulum clock that hung on the wall in the den off the kitchen.
“You think the presence of your eleven-year-old sister makes this okay?” Katherine asked after a long, uncomfortable beat. Her voice vibrated with barely restrained anger. “I cannot begin to explain how inappropriate that is.”
“Jesus, Mom,” Cole groaned. “It wasn’t like that.”
“It. Doesn’t. Matter.” Katherine paused, a vein throbbing in her temple. It looked like she was trying to rein in an onslaught of violent thoughts. “Your father and I mishandled things by not explicitly stating additional rules, but that was because we thought you were mature enough to understand anything beyond that was implied. We won’t be making that mistake again. The two of you are grounded until further notice.”
“You can’t ground me.” Cole leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms with a look so defiant it made my blood pressure spike. “I’m an adult.”
“Your behavior suggests otherwise,” George cut in before Katherine could explode. “Regardless, you live under our roof.”
Cole was going to keep arguing. I could tell by the way his brows snapped together and he drew in a breath, so I elbowed him in the ribs to prevent further stupidity. His head turned sharply to face me, but I begged him with my eyes to please shut up.
He must have received the message, because his shoulders slumped. “Fine, but please—don’t take this out on Jackie. We were out late, and she fell asleep in the truck on the way home, so I carried her up to bed.”
Or not. I sighed but refrained from banging my head against the table in frustration.
“If that was all that happened, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Katherine replied through clenched teeth. “You seem to be forgetting the part where you climbed into bed with her.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep!” Cole exclaimed. “Don’t crucify us for something that was an accident. My shoes were still on, for Christ’s sake!”
My nails dug tiny crescent moons into the flesh of my palms before I forced myself to relax. I should have been thankful to Cole for trying to take the blame. Even though I’d been drowsy, I remembered asking him to stay with me, and that made us equally responsible. It was truly a sweet gesture, but judging by the expressions on his parents’ faces, Cole was only digging us a deeper hole.
“Cole?” I said in a small voice. “Please stop talking.”
This time, thankfully, he did.
George spent the next five minutes outlining our punishment, but I tuned out since his speech basically boiled down to chores, house arrest, and more chores. It wasn’t until he warned that if anything like this were to happen again, drastic measures would be taken, that I snapped back in.
“What kind of drastic measures?” Cole asked warily.
Katherine massaged her temples. “Look, honey, it’s the last thing I want to do, but if you and Jackie need to be separated, your brother and Haley have more than enough room.”
The little amount of dinner I’d managed to eat rose in my throat at her words. If I wasn’t mistaken, it sounded like she was threatening to send Cole away, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Katherine, George,” I said, making direct eye contact with them when I spoke their names. Under the table, I wiped my clammy palms against my thighs. “I’m so sorry about what happened last night. By ignoring your rule, Cole and I stepped over a line that never should have been crossed. It was irresponsible and disrespectful, and I give you my word it will never happen again.”
“Thank you, Jackie,” George said with a tight smile. “We appreciate the apology and your promise.”
I nodded, knowing it was one I meant to keep.
***
I didn’t know which part of my task was worse.
The first thing that came to mind was the stench of manure. Along with permeating the air, the pungent smell always clung to my skin until I took a scalding shower where I could drench myself in soap.
That being said, drowning in my own sweat was a close second. I hated the way it trickled down my brow and back and soaked through my shirt.
Learning I wasn’t as fit as I thought was irritating too. While there were many benefits to running, upper body strength wasn’t one of them. As I lifted the final pitchfork of horse droppings and dumped it in a wheelbarrow, arms trembling with effort, I couldn’t help but feel humbled by exhaustion.
My punishment for being caught with Cole included multiple unpleasant aspects, but this—the daily mucking out of the horse stalls—was by far the most torturous.
After spreading a new layer of pine shavings across the floor, I collapsed on the bench outside the tack room and closed my eyes. When I really thought about it, the worst part of this entire situation wasn’t the lingering odor, feeling sticky, or the burning in my arms. It wasn’t even being grounded and losing precious study time to chores. What bothered me the most was the pit that took up residence in my stomach Sunday night and hadn’t left since.
Katherine’s threat to send Cole away weighed heavily on me. What if she followed through? Imagining him being forced to pack up the art studio and leave the ranch because of my actions made me nauseous, and for the next few days, I could barely look in his direction, let alone spend time with him. It wasn’t the potential separation that upset me. Most people my age didn’t share a home with their significant other. As Savannah had so bluntly put it, our living situation was weird. What bothered me was that my presence had already exacerbated issues in his relationship with Alex, so the last thing I wanted was to be responsible for driving a wedge between Cole and his parents.
The barn door creaked open. It was probably Nathan escaping to the loft as usual, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. The wound his words inflicted was still too fresh, so I kept my eyes closed and tracked his progress across the room by listening to his footsteps. When they stopped directly in front of me, I sighed.
“I’d love to kiss you right now,” said a voice that was definitely not Nathan’s, “but you reek.”
Opening my eyes, I found Cole leaning against the opposite wall.
His hands were tucked casually in his front pockets, and he was wearing a pair of red devil horns and a grin to match.
“Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning out the basement?” I asked.