Page 28 of Ash on the Range
“Not the action I was hoping to get today, lil’ guy,” I told him affectionately, plopping him down in his new field next to a doe I thought was his mother.
He took one look at her, glanced back at me and skittered off.
“Guess you got that one wrong, boss,” Luke nudged me quietly as Austin muttered to himself, bullying dust bunnies in a cloud behind us.
“Can’t win ‘em all,” I mused, leaning back against the gate.
Snowball bounded about on the other side, leaping from doe to doe while I splashed water in my face to remove the scentof stinky fawn breath and ruminated on how a red, sweaty face really did improve Austin’s looks after all.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cassie
Red Hart’s yard was packed with people. I didn’t recognize half of them but it seemed like Eve and the rest of the RHR regulars kneweveryone.I wandered at Eve’s side, my vision blitzed out by the stadium sized lights that illuminated the entire ranch from mountain to mountain. For the first time after dark I could see everything. The fields stretched out either side of the ranch, treed foothills disappearing into the sides of the mountains that left the big house to one side of the gully.
A rodeo arena had been set up in the field directly opposite the house just outside the yard where everyone else parked and milled about. I was glad we had a place to stay, because I’d hate to have to move my car any time soon. Vehicles were parked end to end in neat rows where Jude and a handful of ranch hands in high vis neon vests directed traffic as locals piled in from neighboring farms.
Considering how remote Red Hart appeared when I first pulled into the property with Will, it didn’t seem as though there were that many farms about. But the event had boosted the local population into action. Headlights still lined the long drive as I peered about Eve’s shoulder into the distance where I thought the road was further along the few rambling hillocks to the big branded sign bearing all her work.
“They just keep coming,” I muttered in something akin to awe, wrapping my arms around myself.
Eve had insisted I borrow a black top of hers, a one-shouldered stretchy affair shot with silver thread that left my back bare beneath my hair if I took my jacket off—also borrowed—and black. I tried to sneak Will’s hoodie into tonight's wardrobe, but Eve wasn’t having any of it, and stole it away, promising I could have it back at the end of the night. At least I got to wear my own jeans and boots. My hair hung past my shoulders, wild and free because Eve also styled that. By the time she was done I felt less like me and more like a toy doll, Red Hart style. Right up until she whispered, ‘he’ll love it,” in my ear, and walked away.
And when I looked at just-mussed-hair me with the smokey eyes in the mirror, wearing black and silver, with a pair of dangly earrings and peeking a little bare skin as I walked, I had to agree.
Will might actually go a little nuts after the way he touched me today. I swallowed at the memory of our morning make out session on the sofa before everyone else got up that grew hot andheavy pretty fast. My jeans still smelled faintly like him, and I squeezed my thighs together at the memory of how he’d made me come for him again just with a few touches. I swore that man knew my body far too well. I missed him so much, and I hadn't seen him since breakfast when Eve placed two thermoses of coffee in front of my face and a chopping board to one side.
Five loaves of bread followed and I was a sandwich machine from there on in, buttering and stacking bacon and eggs like a pro within seconds. By the time I locked up, Will and half the kitchen was empty, and people milled about outside, getting their jobs for the day before the rodeo started in full. I vaguely recalled his kiss on my cheek before he left, and that mark stayed with me through the day.
I stuck my hands into the jacket cropped at my waist and scanned the crowd for Will’s familiar form but I couldn't spot him. Gage passed us as Eve diverted to talk to someone else she knew, and a fresh cup of hot coffee in a takeaway cup markedBeanie’swas thrust into my hand by a woman with a beaming smile who talked over the top of everyone else.
“Thanks!” I yelled over the crowd. “Is this for Eve?”
"It's yours!" she yelled back, pointing to thick black lettering in a hand I recognized across the top.
For Cassie. Love, Will.
Oh, fuck. That wasn’t a dream after all.
My world stopped while the chaos of the Reed Hart rodeo fluctuated around me in a swirl of color and lights. I stared at those words for heartbeats that took too long, my blood sluggish as they permeated my brain.
He said it back.
I said it first.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I was half asleep when he came in. Actually, scratch that. I’d been fully asleep and I hadn’t meant to say that to him, oranything at all. It’d just kinda of slipped on out because I'd been thinking about it for a while now and…
It was true.
I squeezed my eyes shut, probably marrying all of Eve’s beautiful handiwork, and sucked in a handful of breaths that refused to sink into my lungs or go further than my throat. Something was in the road. My brain, maybe. Or my heart.
Or my soul.
Because that was the sort of limit that Will Kirk hit on me. Soul deep. And I knew it. He was that deeply etched in me and walking away from him at the end of this would hurt like hell. I didn’t just love him.
Ilovedhim.With everything I had.
