Midnight Surrounds Us (Wisper Dreams #5)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

RYE

Eight Months Ago

Aubrey George was an angel on Earth, destined to walk among us mere mortals, disguised as an ordinary, middle-aged woman.

She was anything but ordinary.

It was always how I’d seen her, even when I was a kid, although, she’d gone by Aubrey Abbott then. Maybe it was because she was sweet to me, but back then, she was the beautiful angel in love with my brother’s best friend.

And then she married him. She became Aubrey George, had Tommy George’s kids, and everybody grew up.

I grew up, and since probably the age of fifteen, when I learned what it meant to really want someone, I’d looked for ways to thank her for her kindnesses to me when I was small and overlooked by a family too busy to notice me, but it had always been clear that she was unavailable. First because I was too young and she was married, and then because she wasn’t anymore and that fact seemed to have defeated her.

But she wasn’t off limits now.

Tommy had been gone almost ten years, lost tragically in a military training exercise gone wrong overseas, and I’d watched from the background, catching heartbreaking glimpses of her when I came to town, as she and her boys navigated that loss. But she had come through it gracefully and strong, like the resolute battler I’d always known she was.

Her boys… not so much. Benji and Micah George were known in my neck of the woods as infamous troublemakers. Nothing too serious. Just your normal teenage antics, but they hadn’t been smart about it and got caught way too often, drinking when they were underage, pranking their classmates, or starting forest fires. They’d probably forgotten, but I’d found them both puking behind a bar over in Pinedale when they were seventeen. They were shitfaced, couldn’t drive, and wanted their mommy. I drove them home, dropped them off a block away, and then sat in my truck when they fell in a pile at their front door and Aubrey came running out of the house to take care of them.

Now, standing across the street from Your Local Bookie, Aubrey’s small bookstore in downtown Wisper, Wyoming, I watched her through her big front window as she chatted with a customer.

I’d planned to talk to her, just to check in, see how she was. Actually, what I wanted to do was ask her out. Our short conversations now and again over the years had barely been enough to sustain me, but I’d always felt like an intruder in her life. Just a kid from her younger years. An acquaintance.

But to me, she was a hell of a lot more than that. She had no way of knowing she was the end goal for me. When I made a big decision, I thought about what she’d think. When I went on a date or hooked up with a woman, Aubrey was there.

It had always been her face I saw.

It was stupid. I knew that, but I couldn’t help it. The sound of her warm voice and her goodness had been etched onto my heart with a permanent marker at a young age when I fell off my horse and she was there to pick me up. She’d smiled at me and swiped the dirt from my face with a soft brush of her fingers, and nothing I’d done since had made her golden ink fade.

I never fell off a horse again. It became my mission in this life to never look weak in front of Aubrey. Not that she would have noticed if I did.

Her hair was all long, billowy waves, not blond exactly, but more a true strawberry blond. In the shade, the color looked ordinary but in the sun was like a Georgia peach, tinged with pink.

Those lustrous locks had been the stars of my dreams lately. My visits to Wisper had lessened over the years as I got older and work at my family’s ranch got busier, and it had probably been a good thing so I could let this stupid obsession go.

But I couldn’t.

And now that I was back in town to help my uncle at his Main Street store a block away from Aubrey’s, my fascination bloomed back to life.

She seemed different now. Something had changed for her.

Her husband’s last name had always been like a dark cloud around her that obscured the moon and snuffed out her light, but today as I watched her, I realized it had disappeared.

She was the bright, wild, happy woman I’d had stars in my eyes for half my life.

Across the street, she laughed at something her customer said, tipped her head back, and her hair fell in loose waves down her back.

God, she was beautiful. And now I needed to know why she looked different, why she seemed lighter and happier.

I needed to know like I needed oxygen in my lungs. They seized in my chest when she collected herself and looked out her window.

Right at me.

She cocked her head, probably silently questioning why I was standing outside her world, looking in, and I held my breath.

I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to restart my heart. Maybe she could, ’cause when she looked at me, it felt like the muscle had short circuited.

Don’t be a baby. Man up and go get your girl.

Aubrey’s customer said her goodbyes and waved as she left Your Local Bookie, and I jogged across Main Street. I nodded to the woman leaving, took off my hat, and grabbed the door before it slapped shut.

“Hey there, Aubrey.”

She heard my voice and spun to face me. “Ryder.” She touched her hand to her stomach, below her breasts. “You scared me. I didn’t hear you come in. How are you? How’s your family?”

“Apologies, ma’am,” I said with a smirk. “Family’s fine. All’s well. I’m here in town helpin’ at my uncle’s store. Devo Mescal’s stuck workin’ there this week and?—”

“Yeah, I know all about it. She and your uncle can’t seem to coexist, so some judge made them trade places.”

“Right,” I said. “Anyway, I thought while I’m here, maybe I could take you out for some caffeine.”

She laughed, but when the expression on my face didn’t budge, she pressed her lips together. She took in my appearance: my worn jeans, black T-shirt with my uncle’s store’s logo on the front, and my messy hat hair. “Uh, no, thank you.”

Whoa. Really?

“Just like that? You ain’t even gonna consider me?”

“Rye, I’m not goin’ on a date with you. That’s what you’re askin’, right? You’re too young for me. Isn’t there a pretty cowgirl or some young woman home from college you can take out?”

“Just how old do you think I am?”

She shrugged.

“I’m thirty-four, not twenty-four. I got no interest in college kids.”

She scoffed and set her hands on her hips, but I didn’t miss the way her eyes scanned Main Street. Was she scared of what people might say?

“Well, in a month, I’ll be forty-seven. So you see, too old for you.”

I shook my head. “You’re wrong about that.”

“Whether I’m right or wrong, I’m still sayin’ no.”

“Okay, that’s fair. I respect your answer. But when I leave here, don’t you go kickin’ yourself in the ass.” I looked at her hand still on her hip, trying to see behind it to her lush backside.

“Rye!”

“What? I can’t appreciate a beautiful woman?”

She blushed, and her eyes dipped down to my jeans too. I knew what she was looking for. I had to resist the urge to turn so she could catch a gander.

I smiled. Actually, it was more a grin, because that little slip of her gaze was a sure sign that, even though she was telling me no, she’d be thinking about my ass long after I left. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught her daydreaming about it.

She snapped her eyes to mine. “Why would I kick my own ass?”

“For lettin’ me walk away, even though I know you like to watch me go.”

Her mouth popped open and she gasped. “You got some nerve, kid.”

You got no idea, woman.

“‘Kid’?” I chuckled and set my hat back on my head, and Aubrey bit the inside of her cheek. Her pink lips pursed, and she narrowed her eyes. So at least she was beginning to consider me. “Seriously, don’t beat yourself up too much.”

“And why would I do that?”

I tipped my hat in her direction and winked. “’Cause I’m unforgettable.”

When I turned to leave, I heard her breathy huff of indignation, but I didn’t need eyes in the back of my head to know there was a twinkle in her eye now and that both her eyes were glued to the seat of my jeans.

Now, I just needed to let her stew in the idea of me and her awhile. I’d be back. No way would I give up on Aubrey. I’d waited a lifetime already; a few more months wouldn’t deter me.

But first, I needed to have something to offer her. Problem was, I didn’t have shit.

Squat, zilch, nada.

But that was about to change.