23
J uly screams its way into Resurrection with celebratory fireworks over Main Street. The Montgomerys host a fourth of July BBQ at the ranch, and it’s packed.
Thanks to me.
Still, that doesn’t mean I will let it drop.
Maybe it’s simply she’s a scorned guest. Maybe she has a grudge to pick.
But why the hell would this woman waste her time giving these cowboys grief?
Both Charlie and Davis have reached out to her via social media, offering her a free stay and a chance to make it up to her, but their messages have gone unanswered.
It’s a mystery I want to figure out, something that feels important, but I don’t know why.
I don’t know a lot of things.
Like what I’m doing with Charlie.
Where we’ll end up should be obvious. A goodbye at the end of summer. One last kiss before I leave for California. No matter if I want more. No matter that every day I spend at the ranch consists of him and him alone. Every thought, every kiss, is him.
Heaven.
Charlie and I have been using the sunrise as an excuse for me to stay over the last two weeks. Endlessly talking late into the night, then falling asleep, Charlie’s strong arm anchoring me to his side. As for the sunrise, we still haven’t seen it yet.
We’re too busy in bed.
Sex, good sex.
Too good of sex, in fact.
Charlie’s need for me has my heart both stuttering and stopping.
I’ve never felt so alive.
After swallowing down my medication and grabbing a pair of gardening gloves and my phone, I exit my cottage for the front porch.
Between Charlie wearing me out in bed, and my job, I’ve been a neglectful plant mama. I kneel beside a gigantic bag of potting soil. It’s time to replant these beautiful blooms Charlie brought me. They’re outgrowing their space and need a refresh.
My hand sinks into the soft soil. The familiar, silky sensation is as calming as one of Charlie’s hugs. I can’t help checking the sun in the sky. The lower it gets, the more my heart bounces in anticipation of seeing Charlie.
A bright pop from my phone has me smiling.
I prop it up against the pot and accept the FaceTime call from Max.
“Hi!” I sing cheerfully.
Max’s blue eyes narrow. “You’re in a good mood.”
“I’m always in a good mood,” I tell my scowling brother. “I’m planting flowers. Sunflowers.” I wave the phone at the bright plants and reposition it. “Charlie brought them for me.”
“That’s nice of him.” My brother sounds suspicious.
“It was.” I scoop up dark soil and layer it in the pot. “The ranch is something else, Max. It’s beautiful here. If you haven’t seen a Montana sky, then you’re not living.”
“Better than the city?”
“Oh, yes,” I agree. “Better than the city.”
Much better.
“This farm. Where’s it at?”
I snort. “Ranch. And nice try.”
At the rumble of an engine, my eyes dart to the road. Coming up the ridge in his pickup truck is Charlie.
My heart rate speeds up, watching as Charlie drives across the ranch.
His dusty cowboy hat casts shadows across his strong jaw, the ends of his dark brown hair curling at his nape.
One muscled arm hangs out the window of his truck.
Face contemplative or scowling, he always looks like he’s searching for something out on his ranch. What that is, I don’t know.
We’ve left our secrets in the dust.
“Is that him?” Max’s voice crackles. “Are you looking at him?”
I tear my gaze away from Charlie.
I stick my tongue out at Max. “If you must know, yes.”
“What’s he like?”
“Oh,” I breathe. How can I accurately describe the living dream that is Charlie Montgomery? “He’s quiet. A cowboy. He’s got blue eyes and a dark beard and he’s got me doing things I’ve never done before. And he ...” I trail off, a furious flush heating my cheeks when I realize I’ve been rambling.
Max chuckles. “Sounds like quite a cowboy.” He narrows his gaze, his smile fading. “He’s your boss, right?”
“He is,” I say slowly, uncertain where he’s going with this.
“Does he know?”
“Know what?”
“Ruby.”
“Why are you so involved in my love life?”
“Is that what it is. Love?” There’s a bite in my brother’s voice.
I flinch. Max may be a thousand miles away, but he’ll always be my overprotective big brother who beat the shit out of Kyle Hoke in third grade for calling me Frankenheart. The last thing I need is Max thinking I’m in love.
Love.
I sit back on my heels, tucking a lock of stray hair behind my ears. “No ...it’s ...”
Once again, my gaze finds Charlie, his truck disappearing over the ridge.
I don’t know what I’m doing with him. We’re blurring lines all over the place and I like it.
I love spending all my days and every moment with him.
Because when I’m in his bed, his strong arm wrapped around me as he kisses his way down my body, I don’t feel so lonely.
I feel free.
If I thought I had any willpower when it comes to a man in jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat, I’m sorely mistaken.
Strike that.
This man.
Are we going too far or is it just far enough?
“So, he doesn’t know about your SVT.” A statement, not a question.
I turn my attention back to Max. “I haven’t told anyone,” I admit.
“Rubes. Don’t you think someone should know?” Max’s voice is a growl of frustration. “You’re alone out there on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. What if something happens?”
Shards of glass line my stomach. Max’s words have me flashing back to the night after the Neon Grizzly.
We shut the bar down, went wild.
Too wild.
Before I passed out in front of Charlie, I felt it coming, a rush of adrenaline from my orgasm, and then my heart crashed. It was a bad combination—sex, dancing, alcohol—and it backfired.
I can’t risk that again. Can’t risk Charlie asking questions.
Since that night, slow and steady is the way to go.
“Nothing’s happened,” I lie, pushing a big hunk of hair out of my eyes. “I still have Zooms with Doctor Lee. I’m taking my medication. I’m okay, Max.”
“What about him? This Charlie guy, this cowboy, does he feel the same way you do?”
I sit back on my heels, letting the gardening gloves slide from my hands. This isn’t the conversation I want to have with my brother.
Resurrection is my escape, but clearly, I can’t run far enough away from my brother’s worry.
“Even if you tell him, you’ll get hurt. He’ll get hurt. You’ll both get hurt.”
I glare at the screen, ignoring the ache in my heart. “We aren’t anything. Besides, he’s not in it. I promise you, when I leave, he won’t even miss me.”
“Ruby.” Max sighs. He looks up and waves as the bell chimes. His smile is sad. “Everyone who knows you misses you.”
I swallow.
“You can’t stay there forever,” he reminds me.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Liar . The whisper in my head coils around me, has me trying to pretend I haven’t been imagining myself living in Resurrection.
Having a garden, getting a house, meeting my neighbors, running a flower shop downtown.
This town is like a soul revival, and I’ll never be the same.
I don’t have that restless feeling I had back in Indiana, in any of the cities I’ve stopped at on this road.
Here, with Charlie, it feels like home.
Deliriously so.
Maybe it’s my fault.
Maybe I have this misplaced daydream I’ve had all my life. Positivity. Happiness. Gratitude. Even in the face of death, I’m content to play an idealist, where Max and my father are realists. Alarmists.
Fear doesn’t solve anything, and the longer I’m in Resurrection, the more I realize something deep in my heart.
Without fear, you have freedom. Fearlessness. No restraints. Every doubt I’ve carried my whole life, I’ve left in the dust here in this wild Montana earth. I’ve grabbed onto my life with both hands.
Because of Charlie.
And I don’t want to give it up.
“There’s a study.” Max’s strained voice has me freezing and my sunny mood comes crashing down like a crumbling wall. “At Stanford University. For SVT. It’s new, but it could be something good, Rubes.”
I know all about studies. Clinical trials waiting to see what works. Pills to calm the heart. Surgeries to stop syncope. More monitors and more hospitals and more doctors. No, thank you.
“It starts next month.”
“I still have two months here, Max.”
“It might be too late, Rubes.”
His words are like a slap in the face. Hot tears hit my eyes.
All I hear is Don’t, Ruby. Don’t hope. Don’t dare. Don’t live. Don’t love .
I meet Max’s gaze on the screen and manage a dry laugh. “Too late, huh? For me or the study?
“Damn it,” Max hisses, his face contrite. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He inhales a hard breath. “Tell me. What’s been your sunflower today?”
I sigh and reach for the phone. He’s trying to apologize, to change the subject, but I don’t have the energy for it. “I don’t want to do this, Max.”
Suddenly, I hate this game.
I hate my heart.
“Ruby—”
With shaking hands, I end the call.
Maybe Max is right.
Maybe I’m in too deep.
I’m an asshole for lying to Charlie.
I should leave.
A tear slips down my face.
Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.
Maybe all I am is a thorn.