Page 8 of Grey
“I’ve honestly never been so happy to see someone in my life, trust me.”
She dropped his hand when they’d stepped across the river, and he used the flashlight to light the path in front of them, a bit bummed to not still be holding her hand.
He could sense she was nervous, embarrassed even, by what had happened, and he wanted to set her at ease, but he didn’t know what to say that would make her feel better.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Have you been in Little River long?”
“Just a couple days,” she said. “I work at the library.”
“No kidding? I haven’t been there in ages. The last time I stopped in, I was looking for a book about goats.”
“Why?”
“I take care of the livestock on the farm, and we’ve got a goat named Daisy. She’s quite the troublemaker but she’s cute, which is probably a good thing.”
Tatum chuckled. “That’s pretty cool. Did you go to school to learn how to care for them?”
“Nope. I’ve been working at the farm for a long while now, and I just learned as I went. We don’t have a lot—a few cows, a coop of chickens, plus Daisy. We grow our own feed for the animals and try to make the farm as sustainable for us as possible.”
“How many of you are there?”
“At the big farmhouse, it’s me and my three best friends—Crew, Avi, and Ford. Crew just met his forever-girl Zara, so she’s living there now too. Off-season we work at our friend Dexter’s construction company, and he and his son have homes on the same dirt road as our farm.”
“That’s really cool,” she said. “What about your family?”
If only he could tell her that he was a stallion shifter and would never see his family again, because exile was forever and that part of his life was closed. His mind spun as he tried to think about how to describe what happened. “My dad worked for a guy who was a real asshole, pardon my French, and my older brother was planning to work for him too. I didn’t want anything to do with them, and when I pushed back against my dad’s plans for the family to all work for him, they gave me an ultimatum and I left. A friend of the family knew Dexter and he offered me a place to stay and a job and I’ve been here ever since. How about you?”
The farmhouse came into view and she stopped, staring silently at it.
Then she turned to look at him. “It’s a long story and I’m actually really exhausted.”
“No worries,” he said. “Let me grab my keys and I’ll run you home.”
“Thanks, Grey.”
They walked up to the farmhouse where he opened the front door and grabbed his keys from the hook on the wall. As he jogged down the steps to the yard, he saw Crew but waved him off. His friend nodded and turned on his heels, heading the other way. He didn’t want to get into an explanation right now when Tatum was tired.
He opened the truck door for her, and when she was settled and he was behind the wheel, she put her address in the GPS and he drove her home.
“I’m sorry if I’m being weird,” she said when he stopped in front of the cabin she was renting.
“You had a rough day,” he said, putting the truck into park and getting out. He walked her to the front door, and under the front porch light, he could see her more clearly now. She was beautiful, petite and curved, with kissable, full lips and long hair tied back in a braid.
“Yeah, but I just feel so dang foolish.” She chewed her bottom lip and then shook her head.
“It could happen to anyone, trust me. In the dark, all the trees look the same.”
He realized that the reason he’d felt so compelled to be in town was because she was there. His stallion knew their soulmate was close. How freaking cool was that?
“Thanks for being so kind. And thank you for rescuing me.”
He rocked back on his heels. “I’d like to take you out to dinner. How about tonight?”
It was after midnight, so it was Sunday now, and while he really didn’t want to leave so he could get to know her, she looked like she was about to drop from exhaustion.
She hesitated, but then said, “Okay. What time?”
“Six?”
