Page 4 of Second Chance at Mountain Creek Ranch
“You can go now.”
“I don’t feel right leaving you out here. You shouldn’t be swimming in the river alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. Millie is with me.”
"And a fat lot of good, she was alerting you to my arrival. I can just imagine how helpful she’ll be if you lost your footing and went under the water.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’d feel better if you got out before I left.”
“I’m sure you would,” she scoffs.
“You can either get out on your own, or I can come in there after you.” The second part of that ultimatum is more tempting than I'd like to admit.
“Fine,” she grumbles. “But if I see you looking…”
“You won’t,” I assure her.
I listen to the sound of her wading out of the water. I close my eyes, imagining what it looks like as the water catches the sunlight as it drips off her naked body. I promised I wouldn't look. I didn't promise I wouldn't try to imagine what she looked like getting out of the water in my mind.
"Can you hand me my towel?" Harper asks with a rough edge to her voice. I'd like to think that she's just as effected by my return to her life as hers has been to mine, but I know better. She did what I told her to do when I broke things off with her all those years ago. She moved on. Too bad, I never could.
I open my eyes and see a rolled-up towel attached to Millie’s saddle. I step forward to untie it and hand it back over my shoulder to her.
“Okay,” she says.
I turn around. The towel is wrapped around her, but just barely covering her soft, curvy figure. The cotton fabric ends at the top of her thighs. The memory of her thighs wrapped around my waist as I pushed into her rushes back to me like a punch to the gut.
“Are you just going to stand there? I thought you said that you weren’t going to leave until I got out.”
"Right." I run my hand over the back of my neck. "You aren't going to go back in after I leave, right? I don't want anything to happen to you." Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and I realize how that sounded. "I mean, your brothers will kill me if anything happened to you, and I could have prevented it."
“I’m done swimming.” She presses her lips into a thin line of annoyance. “You won’t need to fear the wrath of my brothers.”
Her wellbeing is what I care about most, and the urge to tell her that I give zero shits about what her brothers would do to me sits on my lips, ready to be spoken. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I had my chance with Harper. She asked me to come with her when she left for college, but I knew even then that we both wanted different things in life. That's why I broke things off with her. My life was set in stone here. I didn't want her to change her plans for me and wake up one and resent me for holding her back.
"I'll leave you to the care of Millie then." I back away and head off.
I rev the engine needing to put as much space between Harper and me as I can. A moment longer and who knows what I would have admitted, to make her mine again.
3
HARPER
I can’t believe Travis caught me skinny dipping in the river. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t even hear the engine of his ATV. And Millie was no help giving me zero warning that he was coming.
He looked so good, though. It was probably a good thing that I was in the cold water when he came by. It managed to control my burning sexual desires for him. The way his jeans fit so snuggly on his ass as he stood there with his back to me. I could barely keep my eyes off of it. Or how the cotton of his shirt stretched across the defined muscles in his back. It was no wonder I had the Freudian slip and made that comment implying he would be seeing me naked soon. Honestly, the thought of him so close and me naked in the water thrilled me, but that was nothing compared to the penetrating look he gave me when I stood a foot away from him wrapped in only a towel. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and yet somehow, it’s like there hasn’t been any time lost between us since. The urge at that moment to drop the towel was strong, and if he hadn't have walked away when he did, both of our afternoons would have ended very differently.
I have to remind myself it’s all in my head. Travis was the one that dumped me. He moved on a long time ago, and I need to as well. But that seems nearly impossible when every time I turn around, he's right there.
I look up from draining the spaghetti noodles in the kitchen sink and see Travis walking towards the house with two of my brothers. They are laughing about something. For a panicked moment, I think he's telling them about this afternoon, but my brothers wouldn't have found that compromising situation funny.
They walk in, stomping their feet on the rug just inside the door. It sounds like a herd of buffalo is charging in with the amount of noise they're all making. Landon and Jameson walk in without hardly acknowledging Willow and me as we make dinner. Travis pauses in the doorway, and I swear I feel his eyes on me, but when I turn to look at him, he's looking at Willow as she pulls out the homemade garlic knots from the oven.
Jealousy flares up inside me. It’s wild and uncontrollable. I have no right to feel the way I do, but I can’t help it. When it comes to Travis, my heart always seems to win the power struggle over my brain.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him, my tone harsher than I would have liked it.
