30
A bright yellow sticky note peeks out from the window on my Chevy. I pull it off and read:
You’re as handsome as the sunset, Country Boy.
Grinning, I tuck it under the brim of my cowboy hat with the rest of the notes I’ve collected.
Love notes. Love songs. All from Reese.
Ever since her session with the therapist last week, she’s been writing lyrics on sticky notes and scattering them across the ranch. Wyatt found one on his boot. Dakota on her front door.
It’s like she’s come alive in front of my eyes.
And I feel the same damn way.
You’re a good man, Ford.
Reese’s words echo in my head. It feels like the gears have shifted. It feels like I’m forgiving myself—something I haven’t done since I left baseball.
How long have I been living in slow motion, never caring for anything but my brothers or myself?
Telling her made me feel raw, vulnerable. But hell, if that wasn’t what I needed. I wasn’t talking to a therapist. I was telling Reese.
My girl.
I could have lied, but I told her the truth.
Reese listening and understanding was like the calm after a storm.
The way her pretty face was filled with sweetness, not pity.
She’s a damn good woman.
And for the first time in a long time, I want to keep a woman. I want Reese.
We’ve shared everything. I can’t remember the last time I trusted a person aside from my brothers. She is a home I’ve never had. Not down in Georgia, not with Savannah. Not even with my brothers. Reese breathed her own kind of life into me with her first high-heeled stomp onto the ranch. Strutted her way into my fucking heart.
Suddenly temporary feels like bullshit. Feels like the biggest bullshit lie I’ve told myself.
The two-way radio crackles on my hip.
“ Ford, we got a cow in distress out on Old Mill’s Farm. Need you to go check it out. Make sure it’s not a calf. ”
“Fuck.” I sigh. “Always the goddamn cows.” Into the receiver, I say, “Roger that. I’ll load up Eephus.”
I head for the barn and outfit Eephus for the twenty-minute ride there and back. As I settle a saddle on his back, I lift my eyes to the early morning sky. A summer storm advisory has been in effect all week. The air is thick and humid as dark storm clouds muscle their way over the horizon.
I don’t like it.
“You wanna get roped, Country Boy?”
I laugh as Reese tugs me back by my belt loops. When I spin around, my eyes slide over her toned legs and cowboy boots. In her milkmaid sundress, she’s the prettiest country girl I’ve ever seen.
She lifts her radio. “Heard you got a cow call.”
“Headin’ out. Should be back in twenty minutes.”
Before I realize her intention, she nods at Eephus. “I want to go with you.”
I frown. “Reese.”
“What if you need help?”
“With what, my patience?”
She moves closer, smiling that little siren’s smile. I feel my willpower die a slow death.
“Please, Ford, I want go.” Standing on tiptoes, she nuzzles my cheek. Her breath is warm against my neck. “Please.”
My blood roars to life. I crush my mouth to hers, not giving a shit who sees. Everything I want is Reese. I inhale the sexy little gasp that pops out of her mouth.
“I can’t be without you,” she whispers against my lips.
I manage to tear my mouth from hers for a split second. Grip her fingers at my fly. “That your plan to win every argument?”
She bats her lashes. “So you’re telling me I won?”
“Fine.” It’s fucking ridiculous how fast I cave. How hard my cock is.
“Good,” she says smugly.
I slap Eephus on the rump. “We can take the UTV.”
“No.” Her hesitant eyes move to Eephus. “I want to be brave, Ford.”
“Baby, you don’t have to do this.” Now that I know her story, forcing Reese to get on a horse is the last thing I want to do. I’m proud of her, though. She’s down to one bangle on each wrist. She’s taking her meds daily. She’s got this. And when she doesn’t, I’ll be there.
Her eyes soften. “I can if I’m with you.”
I swallow. A bloom of pride fills my chest. Each day she trusts me more and more. It scares me shitless.
I give her a grin. “Let’s do it then.”
We finish loading up, and as I’m securing a canteen to the saddlebags, Charlie appears. A yellow sticky note pokes out of his shirt pocket. Between his out-of-town trips and ranch work, it’s been easy to avoid my brother for the last week.
“Storm’s coming,” Charlie says.
“You got a radio,” I say. “Could’ve said that there.”
Thinning her lips, Reese throws a sharp elbow in my side.
“Came to talk to Reese.” Charlie grunts, clears his throat. “Reese, I’m sorry for last week. There’s no excuse for the way I talked to you.”
A smile teases Reese lips. “Thank you, Charlie. I appreciate it.”
Scrubbing a hand down his beard, Charlie turns to me, his face contrite. “Ford.”
“Gotta get.” I swing myself up on Eephus and hold out a hand to Reese. My brother can sweat for another week. “C’mon, Birdie.”
Fear crosses her face, but then she steadies her breath and sticks out a hand.
Our palms meet, and the jolt of connection is so damn electric it ripples through my veins.
My girl .
With a grin, I swing her up into my lap. Prettiest passenger I’ve ever had. With a sharp hyah I nudge Eephus into a trot and we head toward Old Mill’s Farm.
From its hiding spot in the brush, the trapped calf bellows at me. Two babies and their mother watch me from afar.
I dismount Eephus and help Reese down. “I gave that calf a shot last week, and she’s still pissed at me.”
“She’s got it out for you, Ford,” Reese says solemnly.
“Yeah, well, feeling’s mutual. May calves—bastards, all of them.”
We’re ten miles from Runaway Ranch, prairie in all directions. Meadow Mountain looms in the distance, dark and imposing. The lowing of cattle drifts across the plains as I eye the ominous black cloud creeping closer. Worry curdles my gut. I have to work fast.
When I near the calf, I see she’s tangled in twine or string. It’s snarled around her feet and winds through tangled in the brush and around trees, making it hard for her to move. I pull my knife from my hip pocket but every time I attempt to cut the twine, she bleats and writhes, pulling the knots even tighter.
“Get over here, Birdie.” I move around the cow.
“See?” Reese says triumphantly. “You do need my help.”
“Take this.” I hand her a bag of apple slices, a cow’s kryptonite. “Distract her while I cut.”
“Here, pretty girl,” Reese croons, distracting the calf. She giggles as the calf strains at the rope, trying to follow her.
I make quick work, slicing at each knot until the calf is free.
Then, like it’s been yanked, the calf lurches at Reese. The abrupt motion sends Reese backward onto her butt. She sits there in the snarl of weeds and laughs as the calf noses her shoulder.
“Greedy, aren’t we?” She passes the calf the rest of the apple.
Awestruck, I stare at her. She’s a filthy mess, her boots muddy and her dress torn, but goddamn, she’s insanely beautiful.
“Get outta here, you little bastard.” I slap the calf’s rump, sending her out of the brush and onto the prairie to join her mother. I go to Reese, helping her stand. “You okay?”
She wobbles and flashes a smile so bright my heart skips. “Never better.” Gaze drifting, she scours the prairie. “Is this land yours?”
“It’s for sale,” I say, nodding at a crooked metal sign ten yards from us. “Thirty acres that back up to Runaway Ranch.”
Cattle mill around us. Thunder rumbles in the distance.
Reese closes her eyes, extends her arms and inhales. “It feels like a dream out here. Like the perfect country song.”
I stare at Reese. Her long strands of blonde hair dance in the wind. In this moment, it all seems so simple.
“What if I bought it?” I ask.
Her eyes flash open. “What?” she asks, and then she screams it to the sky. “What!”
“The land.” My heart hammers hard and heavy. Emotions well up inside of me. “I can see it. A baseball field. A Georgia mansion. Land like I always wanted.”
With Reese, I don’t want to avoid the world. She’s reintroducing it to me one day at a time. I feel like I can fucking do anything, be anything. I ache to pick up a baseball. To do something better with my life. And maybe this is it.
“Yes.” She grasps my hands and squeezes. “Yes, Ford.”
I pull her into my arms, laughing. “It’s a fucking dream.”
But saying it out loud doesn’t feel like it. Not anymore.
Reese’s grin falters. She’s stares at something over my shoulder.
I glance behind me, my eyes widening in panic.
“Fuck.” The storm cloud now has a tail. The sky is an ugly, almost evil, green color.
Reese’s hand flies to her mouth. “Is that bad?”
“Yeah, it’s real fuckin’ bad.”
She stares as if entranced. My stomach tightens as she takes a step toward the dark tail.
It scares me how fearless she is.
“Reese, baby, we gotta ride.” I snag her hand and run toward Eephus, moving faster than any pitch I could ever whip out.
The minute we remount, the sky unleashes. An unholy roar fills the air. A monster rising from the earth to devour us.
Reese screams.
“Hold on to me,” I order, whipping the reins.
She twists around so she’s facing me and burrows into my arms.
All I can do is ride like hell. We’re on the prairie. There’s no shelter and making it back to the ranch is impossible.
We have to outrun it.