All Chapters of Collide: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

On the way back to the farm with Dani at his side, Levi couldn’t control his curiosity. He knew it was a bad idea to go there but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “So, how long have you known this Zane?” He threw his arm across the back of Dani’s seat and tried to appear casual.She gave him a side eye and smirked. “Oh, I’ve known this Zane for about five years. Why?”Levi squirmed in his seat. “No reason. Just making conversation.” He let a few breaths pass then asked, “He must be a really good friend to run all the way from Dallas to check on Lu just because you called.”“He is,” she agreed, trying to gauge his expression, “and a brilliant neurological diagnostician. I don’t know how I would have gotten through Aunt Lu’s illness without him.”Levi ground his molars until the muscle popped in his jaw. He knew he was being unreasonable about her friendship with the doctor but couldn’t seem to help himself. “Were y’all ever a thing?”“A thing?” Dani didn’t know whether to be irritate

That evening, Levi had just gotten back to the bunkhouse from repairing a pasture fence that one of the bulls had broken through when his phone rang. A smile lit his tired face when he saw the name on the caller ID, Dani. “Hey, darlin’, whatcha doin’?” he asked cheerily as he answered.“I’ve been fighting with contractors all afternoon. How about you?”“Fixin’ fences. Damn bulls broke down another length of fence. I’m gonna need to build brick walls around the pastures if they keep this up.”Dani chuckled and sounded like she was drinking something before she spoke again. “I was thinking…How about I make you dinner? You know, to repay you for teaching me spaghetti. They just finished the electrical in the kitchen today and the new plumbing’s all in.”“I’d like that a lot, but…I thought spaghetti was all you could make now?” Levi hated to question her, and he would never turn down the invitation, but figured he’d better find out if he should eat before he got there, just in case.“You

Dani stared hungrily at Levi as he stripped away his shirt. She saw him watching her sprawled on the big feather bed like she was his prey, and she liked it. She could finally see all those muscles in his wide chest, the band of barbed wire snaking around one hulking bicep and, surprisingly, flames that licked across his right chest and trailed all the way down to the V cut of his abdominals. They seemed to flicker in the light and shadows of the bedroom. She knew there had to be a story to the art but at the moment all she wanted to do was touch it. She needed to touch it. To touch him. Her arms were slightly trembling when she raised them to him in supplication and request. As he saw her arms reach for him, he knew he was lost. In the blink of an eye, his hard body was settled between her thighs making the old iron bed creak in protest. He held himself up on his elbows and his lips quirked up slightly in a grin meeting her own amused expression with the sound but then he resumed his

Dani sat in the dark on the porch unwilling to turn on the light and hear the moths flinging themselves at it in their suicidal dance. She swung herself on the big swing sipping a glass of Moscato as she waited for Levi. She wondered if he really was going to see his mom. She didn’t like doubting him but couldn’t get what Maggie had told her out of her head. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there when she finally saw the lights of Levi’s pickup coming down the lane. She looked at her watch. It was much later than she had expected him. “Hey, baby, ” Levi said, coming up the porch steps seeing her swinging and waiting for him. “Moths at it again?”“Yep. Want a beer?” Before he could say yes or no, she was reaching into the small Yeti cooler at her feet and digging her hand into the ice for one.Levi dropped onto the swing beside her and took the beer from her cold hand. “Now that’s how you greet a man after a long day’s work.” He grinned at her, but she could see the fatig

Eleven years agoIt was a normal Friday night – normal for his family anyway- his dad drunk as usual, bellowing through the house. “Wanda, I told you a million times I hate fish sticks and what’s on my plate? Fucking fish sticks!”“I told you those were for Levi, Roger, not for you.” She stirred a pot on the stove. “Look, I’m making you that spaghetti you like so much. It’s just about done.”Levi winced as he heard the slap and his mother cry out. “Why isn’t it on the fucking table then? Is it too much to ask to have some goddamn dinner on the table when a man gets home from working all goddamn day in the hot sun?” His father took another slug from his bottle. He’d long since given up the pretense of drinking from glasses.“Here, honey, here it is,” Levi’s mother placed two bowls of spaghetti on the table and forced a smile. “Come eat.”Levi crept up the hallway to peek into the dining room as his father weaved his way to the table and sat down heavily, eyeing his dinner. “And why doe