Chapter 5
Everleigh
“This has to be some kind of record for you,” Macy says approvingly, hands on her hips as she assesses the impressive amount of work we’ve accomplished these past two hours.
Although my living room is still filled with boxes, they’re more organized now.
My kitchen is completely unpacked and put away—aside from pizza boxes and empty cinnamon roll pan on the counter.
The couch is clear and my bedroom closet is fully organized.
There’s even a set of sheets tumbling in the dryer so I’ll actually be able to sleep in my bed tonight.
“I’d say thank you for all the help, but I know you have an ulterior motive,” I rib, folding a towel from the pile of clean laundry on my couch.
Because I haven’t come up with a good reason to get out of taking photos for the ranch’s new website, I have less than twelve hours to get over the camera issues I’ve had for almost a year.
It wouldn’t feel so dauting if I hadn’t nearly had a panic attack moving my Nikon case from the garage to my bedroom closet before Macy came over.
“If I want you awake before dawn and it doesn’t involve severe weather, I know what I need to do.”
I turn my back to Macy, hopeful she doesn’t catch my falling expression at the mention of my former life.
The way my stomach flips makes me feel like throwing up.
Guilt that I haven’t told my best friend why I moved home so suddenly last summer engulfs me.
We used to tell each other everything. But to be fair, I haven’t been fully honest with anyone in a long time.
Wyatt knows more about Oklahoma than most—especially since he likely spotted the photos I left out on my coffee table a few weeks back—but there’s a lot I’ve kept hidden even from him.
Some secrets are best left buried deep, where they can’t hurt anyone anymore.
“I don’t want to pressure you, Ev, but I’m here if you want to talk about it. I know we grew apart a little these past couple of years. Part of that is my fault. I was so busy with school and clinicals. But we’re both in Emerald Creek now. I want you to know that I’m here for you, no matter what.”
Okay, so she did catch the way my face screwed up. Time to change the subject.
“How many animals do you want me to—”
A loud knock on the door startles me, but I manage to swallow the little scream just as footsteps echo from the garage door.
Stormy, who came out of hiding less than ten minutes ago, shoots down the hall toward the bedroom.
Poor thing probably thinks the alpaca is back.
But it’s not Birdie—just one tall, dark, handsome sheriff in his uniform and Stetson.
It should be illegal for any man to look that fucking good. God, I’m so screwed.
“Sorry I’m late,” he announces, holding up two of Grandma Jean’s largest to-go Styrofoam cups in his hands.
“Are those We Got Cows?” Macy asks, her eyes widening with her smile.
“They are.” Wyatt flicks his gaze to mine. He winks at me, and dammit if my nipples don’t instantly pebble. “With extra cows.”
That familiar heat tangles in my belly again.
Which is stupid. Wyatt knows my ice cream order.
I’ve only texted him about an ice cream emergency a dozen times since I moved back home.
It’s the same request every time. I need to get this stupid, traitorous body under control.
Tonight, after everyone leaves, I’ll take care of things myself.
Thanks to Macy’s organizational skills, I know where to locate fresh batteries.
“Thanks to me, we even have spoons,” Macy calls from the kitchen.
I try to make some retort about the one spoon I found yesterday, but the words are too lodged in my throat to escape.
“Where’s this bookshelf?” Wyatt asks, weaving through the box-lined path into the living area to offer me one of the cups.
“In my bedroom,” I say, pointing down the hall before I take the sweet treat from him. “You didn’t bring Thor?”
“He’s at home with Flynn,” he says.
“Our brother is home again?” Macy calls from the kitchen.
“Just for a couple of days,” Wyatt answers. He looks back at me. “You know Flynn.”
Flynn, a smokejumper who has a harder time sitting still than I ever have, is the middle Knight sibling.
His visits are never planned, and he never stays home long.
He doesn’t even have a home base, which is why he crashes with Wyatt when he does make the rare appearance.
I don’t know what secrets he’s keeping, but I suspect it must be something big.
A runner can always spot another runner.
“Two visits in the same summer? Are you sure it’s really our brother?
” Macy asks, passing Wyatt in the living room as he heads toward the bedroom.
She hands me a spoon. After I shove aside the remaining unfolded towels, I join her on the couch to enjoy the ice cream I realize I’ve most definitely been craving.
“I’m surprised he’s not out on the town, charming some poor girl out of her panties,” I add.
“The night’s still young.” Macy rolls her eyes as she dips her spoon into her cup.
For a few blissful minutes, we enjoy our ice cream in silence. I focus on the sweet frosting flavor mixed in, the crunch of the cookies, the way the sprinkles feel against my tongue. Anything but Wyatt Knight in my bedroom.
I gulp a swallow, realizing I still have the shirt he loaned me that night. Shit. Where did I put that?
Macy’s phone pings, and she pulls it from her pocket. Her carefree expression morphs into her serious veterinarian face as she suddenly stands. “Sorry, I gotta go.”
“Everything okay?”
“I’m on call,” she says apologetically as Wyatt reappears in my living room. “Colic emergency.”
“You need assistance?” Wyatt offers.
Damn my fluttering heart. That man would give the shirt off his back—oh wait, he already did that.
I quietly push to my feet, intent on finding said shirt so I can hide it from him.
It has nothing to do with me wanting to wear it again and everything to do with how embarrassing it would be to admit I kept it for a few weeks.
At least, that’s the lie that feels most convincing.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “You stay here and help Everleigh so she doesn’t have an excuse to bail on me tomorrow morning.”
Wyatt salutes her.
I want to be offended, but if Macy only knew how much truth her words held, she’d probably lock the two of us inside my house until it was fully unpacked.
Instead, I take her half-eaten ice cream from her and carry it to my freezer for safe keeping.
Because I can’t promise not to eat it later, I don’t.
Only when Wyatt asks me for a screwdriver does it hit me that the two of us are very alone.
“I think the tools are still out in the garage,” I say.
“I’ll take a look,” he says, moving around me. His woodsy, country scent drifts to me, scrambling my brain for several seconds after he walks by. Has he always smelled this good? Yes. He smells exactly the way his shirt smelled the morning I woke up in it.
Shit.
The shirt.
I hurry to my bedroom, hoping I stashed it somewhere safe. But for the life of me, I don’t know if it ended up in my closet, a dresser drawer, or in the laundry. I’m on my hands and knees searching the closet when I hear Wyatt’s heavy footsteps.
“Hey Ev, I was wondering—what are you doing?” he asks, chuckling.
“I dropped an earring.” I don’t wear earrings. But Wyatt doesn’t know that.
“In your closet?”
“It rolled in here.”
Wyatt clears his throat, and I catch a glimpse of his cowboy boots turning away from me, toward the bookshelf that is still in pieces.
I search a minute more until I’m thoroughly convinced the shirt is not in my closet and then crawl out backwards.
But when I go to stand, my butt backs into a hard wall of muscle.
I start to wobble as I realize not just who’s behind me, but what.
Holy tornadoes, is that a gun in his pants? Because if it’s not…
“Whoa, careful there.” Wyatt’s hands clamp my elbows as I straighten, his heated breath teasing my neck. I lean back against him without thinking, my back pressing into his chest. That is most definitely not a gun.
My eyes fall closed as I imagine his lips brushing my neck. My nipples tingle so hard they fucking ache. If he just slid those hands forward, he could capture my breasts in his calloused palms.
“Ev?” Wyatt says, his voice low and deep.
“Hmm?”
“You good now?”
Shit. I shake away the forbidden fantasy, my neck heating to inferno levels as I yank myself free from his hold. Thankfully, the dryer buzzer chooses that moment to save me. “Oh yay! My sheets are dry.”
I hurry out of the room like the chicken I am, nearly tripping on Stormy in the hall. She lets out an objectionable yowl as she trots after me toward the laundry closet near the garage door. The one that sits beside the hall pantry.
“You already had treats,” I tell her, my breathing heavy, as though I’d been chased across the house.
Stormy yowls again, as if lodging a complaint.
“Fine,” I say, opening the pantry door to fish out treats and placate my demanding cat. I’ve been more than generous with treats these past few days because her stress levels have been high from all the chaos. “But don’t think I don’t know that you’re totally milking this moving thing.”
After Stormy struts away, temporarily appeased, I pull the sheets out of my dryer. Hugging the soft, warm wad against my chest, I take a deep breath and head back to the bedroom.