Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
When we reach the truck, he opens my door for me, jaw clenched.
I climb in and watch him circle to the driver’s side, every line of his body humming with barely contained fury.
He slides behind the wheel, starts the engine, and pulls out of the lot without a word.
We drive in silence for a full minute. The town lights fade behind us. The road stretches ahead, dark and familiar.
“Thank you,” I say finally.
He glances at me, confusion cutting through the anger. “For what?”
“For not hitting him.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Wasn’t for lack of desire.”
“I noticed.”
His hands flex on the wheel. “Nobody talks to you like that.”
“He’s always talked to me like that,” I say. “He just used to be subtle about it.”
“Then I should’ve hit him in high school.”
I smile despite myself. “You’re not my personal enforcer, Nash.”
“Too late.”
The words come out before he can catch them.
We both hear them.
We both feel the shift.
The truck rumbles down the dark road. The ranch rises up ahead of us like a promise and a dare. Somewhere out there, old secrets are stirring. Somewhere out there, someone is cutting wire and playing games with our land, our livelihood, our history.
Beside me, Nash Hawthorne is a storm I once loved and then had to survive.
Now I’m asking him to help me weather a different kind of damage.
And the scariest part?
I’m not sure which threat is worse: The careful saboteur stalking our fences— or the way my heart is starting to believe that this fake dating thing might not be fake at all.
EIGHT
NASH
By the time we pull into the driveway, my jaw hurts from clenching. I kill the engine and sit for half a second, fingers tight on the wheel. The porch light glows like a lighthouse, the rest of the ranch spread out behind it in dark shapes and shadows.
“Sorry,” Delaney says quietly.
“For what?”
“For Kyle being the human embodiment of a tax audit.”
A laugh punches out of me despite everything. “You didn’t invite him into existence.”
“Still feel responsible,” she mutters, then looks over at me. “You okay?”
I’m not. I’m wired and half-feral and one smart remark away from putting my fist through something that’s not drywall. But she doesn’t need more weight.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
She hears it, I can tell. She taps the door handle. “Walk me up? Or is your fake boyfriend contract up for the night?”
I shove the keys in my pocket and get out before I can say something stupid. “Come on, Coleman,” I say, circling the truck. “Gotta sell this thing.”
We walk side by side up the path. Crickets screech. A breeze ruffles the leaves in the big oak. The night smells like dust and distant rain.
Her shoulder brushes mine once, twice. It’s not an accident. It’s not quite deliberate.
On the porch, she stops. We’re in that tiny pool of light, everything else fading out. Her eyes look greener at night, somehow, like there’s more depth the darker it gets around them.
“Well,” she says. “This has been the weirdest date I’ve ever been on.”
“High bar?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Silence stretches between us, taut and shimmering.
She studies me, head tipped like she’s trying to line me up with the ghost in her memory. “You coming inside?” she asks.
Two words.
Too many implications.
My mind offers up an image I have no business entertaining—her backing up into that hallway, my hands on either side of her head, her mouth under mine finally, finally, finally.
I shut it down so hard it almost hurts. “Not yet,” I say, voice rougher than I intend. “I need to make a call to Gray. About Stroud.”
Something flickers over her face. Disappointment? Relief? Both?
“Okay,” she says. “Don’t stay out too long. My mom has Jedi-level hearing. If she thinks we’re having a lovers’ quarrel, we’ll be in couples counseling by breakfast.”
“Can’t afford the copay,” I say.
Her mouth curves.
We stand there and don’t move.
Her hand rests on the doorframe, fingers spread. From this close I can see the faint crease on her knuckles from where she grips reins. There’s a tiny scar at the base of her thumb. I remember when she got it—she cut herself on a baling hook and refused stitches.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she whispers.
“What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re memorizing me.”
I swallow. “Maybe I am.”
Her breath catches.
We’re too close now.
The air between us hums. My heart is pounding in my ears, but under it I hear the soft creak of the house settling, the far-off low of a cow, the tiny, important sound of her exhale.
I lean in.
Her eyes drop to my mouth and back up, slow. “Nash…”
“Yeah?”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Most of my best ones are.”
We’re inches apart now. Her hand lifts like she might touch my chest, then hovers mid-air, undecided.
Every muscle in my body is strung tight.
I could close this distance.
I could kiss her.