Page 74 of Smokin' Situation

“While you are a lot,” I teased, tickling her side when she tried to escape. “You’re definitely not too much. Not for me. Leaving you isn’t in my plan; I can tell you that much.”

“Sometimes plans change,” she whispered, her eyelashes fluttering as a tear streaked down her cheek.

She sniffled, reaching up to wipe away another tear, and my heart broke as she finally let me see through the mask she tried to hide behind.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I whispered. She’d heard enough of my trauma and helped me cope with it, and I wanted her to trust me enough to do the same for her.

“You don’t want to hear ab—”

I blanketed my body over hers as I rolled her onto her back, staring into her eyes. “Don’t blow off your own feelings. Because I absolutely want you to talk to me. I want to hear your stories, even if they’re hard. I want toknowyou, Rhey. The real you. Not the one you try to hide behind.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around my neck, her fingers lingering as they traced the outline of my scars. While I’d thought they were disgusting a few months ago, and no woman would want a broken man, she never hesitated to touch me.

“What happened to your parents?” She’d told me about living with her grandmother, but other than Jay’s veiled comments about her losing people, she’d never talked about them.

She shifted beneath me, turning her body to face away from mine, but she was quick to tug me closer, so I curled around her back, my lips against her shoulder as she beganto talk.

“I was twelve when they died. And to be honest, when I had to leave behind my life and move here to live with my grandmother, I hated them. I hated they left us…” her voice trailed off in a broken whisper as she sniffled. “And I hated I had to be strong for Reese, because she fell apart once they were gone.”

While she sounded sad, her voice was clearer as she talked about growing up in a big city, and how it’d seemed like she had the perfect parents and the perfect life…until she didn’t. She broke down again as she talked about the accident, and how their grandmother had shown up in the middle of the night with the police. About Reese’s panic attacks and how she pushed down her own grief to be strong for her sister as they tried to fit into a small town where they didn’t know anyone.

She told me stories about a younger Baker and briefly skimmed over how she dated my brother before they left for college. I chimed in with sarcastic comments about how much of a dumbass he’d been at eighteen and she just laughed as she told me things I knew he’d hate me knowing. It should have been weird that he’d been with her for so long, but I could see how easy it would be to get caught up in something familiar when you were trying to protect your heart.

“It sounds like he was a good friend to you,” I whispered, my fingers toying with the towel covering her stomach. “So, I guess I don’t have to kill him for disrespecting you earlier. Even though I really want to.”

She rolled in my arms, her hand covering my cheek as she scooted up, so our faces were level. “I never once felt about him like I feel about you.”

“I can just cut off his airway a little, make him sweat,” I teased with a little growl, but she shook her head.

Her fingers tangled with mine as she slowly drew my hand to wrap around her throat. “If you’re cutting off anyone’s airway, it better be mine.”

Shaking my head, I tried to resist the urge to squeeze, but her eyes lit up as I applied just a bit of pressure. “Feeling reckless again?”

“Well, someone did promise to make me forget my name,” she whispered, pulling the towel out from between us and throwing a leg over my hip.

She giggled as I pinned her to the bed, kissing her firmly before I slipped inside her warm body, doing my best to give her what she wanted.

While I knew things were still a bit complicated, as long as she was in my arms, the only detail that mattered was us being together.

Annie

Thefrontedgeofthe truck dipped, bouncing back up again on its slow ascent up the pockmarked, deserted road. My eyes widened as I scanned the scenery outside the window at what looked like charred toothpicks protruding out of a sea of ash. The sides of the road that had once been full of lush conifer trees were now a desolate contrast to what they’d been previously. This place had once signified safety to me, especially after what happened to my parents, but now it only represented devastation.

Tripp’s fingers tightened on my knee as he followed at a safe distance behind the Sage Springs fire department pickup truck in front of us, being navigated by Baker. While we’d offered to let Reese ride up with us, she’d opted to stay in the truck with him after meeting us at the ranch. There was still a weird vibe between them, and I knew my sister was hiding something, but I’d been too busy with work and spending time with Tripp to pry answers out of her.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked, the scrape of the calluses on his thumb against my bare skin oddly comforting. “It’s okay if you’re not. If you feel overwhelmed, we can go right back to the ranch and try again another day.”

“I’ll be okay.” My voice was hoarse, but I’d already cried once this morning, so I wasn’t eager to start again. “I need to do this.Weneed to do this, and I’m not letting Reese go through it alone.”

Looking over, we made eye contact, but he quickly refocused his attention on the road, navigating around the dips as the truck in front of us slowed. “Needing to do something doesn’t make it easy.Let us know if you need a break. Not everything has to be done today. This will take a while to sort out.”

But I already knew that, having dealt with the insurance company for the last few weeks. A claims specialist would come out now that the fire department was letting residents get to their lots, but it’d be months until we could start rebuilding. And then, depending on when we started, progress would be determined by the winter weather.

“It could be a year from now before a new cabin is built.”

He shifted the truck into park, turning toward me and pulling my hand into his lap. “You know what my opinion is about that.”

Sighing, I let my head drop forward dramatically. “And I’ve told you repeatedly that moving in together after we’ve only known each other for a month seems a bit reckless.”

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