Page 22 of Unbroken

The tapping continued, and we stared at one another with wide eyes, frozen in place.

“Umm …” I said.

“Wait, there they are,” Eli said in a relieved rush. “They’re over by the cake taking pictures.”

I watched as every eye in the room shifted to the bride and groom. Cassie raised her hand in the air to wave at her guests, then leaned in to kiss her new husband. Nick swept her into his arms, then dipped her dramatically, and everyone exploded into laughter and applause.

The pressure was off and as much as I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, a tiny part of me wished I’d had the chance to find out what it would be like to kiss Eli Carter. Sure, I’d imagined it as a teenager. It was only natural to think about kissing anyone and everyone back then when hormones were high and judgment was low; it had nothing to do withhimspecifically.

Now, spending an evening by his side and the better part of three songs wrapped in his arms, my curiosity about kissing Eli Carter was back and stronger than ever.

FOURTEEN

FIONA

“Wake up, Fiona!”

I was doing my best to ignore whoever it was who thought it was okay to wake me at this early hour.

“Fi-oh-na!” Nope. It was Sunday. I didn’t have to be up early for trail rides.

Something smacked me over the head and I sat up frowning. “Hey! What is wrong with you? It’s my day off.” I threw the pillow back toward my sister who stood in the doorway with a grin.

“It might beyourday off from working with Eli, but there are still ranch chores with your name on them. And if you get up now, we can stop at Carly’s for a dirty chai latte before we hit the supply store.” Shannon clapped her hands. “Come on, sunshine; up and at ’em.”

I flopped back on the bed with a huff. “What’s a dirty chai latte?”

“Well, if you get your butt out of bed and into some clothes, you can find out.”

I stared at the ceiling for a beat of three. “Fine. Gimme twenty minutes.”

“You have ten. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

I laid in bed for a couple more minutes. I could hear Shannon stomping around and I knew she was doing it intentionally to drive me out of bed. It was working. I swung my legs to the side and rolled to a seated position, staring around blearily. My room hasn’t changed since I was a teenager. It’d been labeled the “blue room” by my gran and had always had blue as the primary color. When I was fifteen, I had the wild idea to paint it dark blue with bright pink and yellow accents. I cringed, looking at it now and wishing for a calm spa-like shade of blue, like those cornflowers growing wild along some of the trails.

“Get up, Fi,” I told myself and grabbed clothes before locking myself in the bathroom to get ready. With one minute to spare, I stumbled downstairs and almost ran into Josh. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you had your own place with Zoe now. Does she know you’re here?”

He handed me a banana before taking another for himself. “She does and I’m only here to drop off some supplies and check on Red.” One of our chestnuts, Red, had a shoe come loose and a pebble lodge between his hoof and the shoe the other day, causing him to limp.

“Dustin checked him as soon as we got back. He said it looked like it would heal on its own, but Red’s off trail rides for a week or two.” Dustin Whitlock was the foreman and Josh’s right hand around the ranch. His wife was pregnant with their first child.

“I know. But I wanted to see for myself how he’s doing. Because?—”

“You can’t let anything go because you’re a control freak?” I asked, poking him in the arm as I inhaled the banana he’d given me.

“Something like that,” he said with a grin as Shannon honked her horn.

“Oh, that’s for me, gotta go.” I waved to Josh and jogged down the steps to climb into the truck cab.

“It’s about time,” Shannon admonished, and I shrugged.

“Josh caught me in the kitchen. What was I gonna do, ignore him?”

Shannon leaned over and flicked a banana shred from my shirt. “Uh-huh.”

Parking was easy at this hour—and most folks were sleeping in or had ventured out to church. I shuddered at the thought of having to sit through one of Samuel Carter’s fire and brimstone sermons. The man knew how to lay it on thick and had been known to send some folks walking when he started pointing fingers and calling people out for their bad behavior. Bit like the pot calling the kettle black, in my opinion—but some folks seemed to appreciate his fiery talk. Growing up, we’d attended a different church, assuming our dad could walk away from the ranch long enough to sit through a service.

“Come on, before services get out and Carly’s gets too crowded,” Shannon said as she grabbed my arm and tugged me to the coffee place, which hadn’t been here before my move to Denver.

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