Page 4 of Huckleberry Hill
“How did you get here? It’s an hour and a half drive from the Spokane airport.”
“Cab.”
He raised his brows. “You got a cab to drive you all the way out here in the middle of the night?”
“I have the power of persuasion,” I joked.
More like power of the pathetic.
I’d spilled the truth to a complete stranger. Luckily there still were understanding and empathetic people in this world because not only did the cabbie say he would drive me, but he’d also turned the meter off and given me a flat rate like a car service would’ve done.
“Huh,” he stated. “Okay then.”
I went into the kitchen and got myself a glass of water. I drank half of it and then put the glass into the sink.
“You good?” Declan asked.
“I’m good.”
“Get into bed,” he said. “I’ll hit the lights.”
“Thanks.”
I climbed into the bed of a near total stranger, wondering why I felt more comfortable around him than the man I’d been dating for the last two years.
Not wanting to examine that feeling too closely, I shut my eyes and willed myself to relax.
The cabin went dark, and I exhaled a long, deep breath.
After a few minutes of silence, Declan called out, “Whenever I can’t sleep, I count sheep.”
“You do not,” I said with a laugh.
“I do,” he insisted. “I count blacknose sheep.”
I closed my eyes and tried as he’d suggested. But every now and again, a picture of a shirtless Declan hauling a bale of hay or riding a horse entered my brain.
Soon, it was just a never-ending stream of Declan doing manly cowboy things and glistening in the sun.
I rolled over and pressed my face into his pillow. The sheets were clean, but Declan had been sleeping in them long enough that his scent was on them. Sandalwood and something else. Something that was uniquely him. Something I couldn’t place.
“I’m doomed,” I whispered.
There was a hot cowboy who was completely my type sleeping one room over.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Two
The Ranch
* * *
The coffee pot gurgled, and my eyes flickered open. I held in a moan.
Jet lag combined with a lack of sleep and garnished with a heaping dose of anger had me feeling like a bread truck had hit me. Not just hit me—but run over me, backed up, and done it again for good measure.
But it was a new day. The world had kept on turning. And instead of waking up in the room I shared with my sister in New York, I’d woken up in a wrangler’s bed.
