The Wild Between Us (Cowboys of Copper Creek #1)

PROLOGUE

Ivy - Fourteen Years Ago

The creek sang my favorite song tonight—water over stones, cicadas in the cottonwoods, and the distant lowing of cattle settling for sleep. But this time, it felt a lot more like goodbye.

August in Copper Creek had its own rhythm, slow and sweet as molasses, the kind of heat that made the whole world shimmer at the edges like a half-remembered dream.

The air hung thick with honeysuckle and fresh-cut hay, with the promise of summer storms building somewhere beyond the horizon.

It was the kind of night that made you believe in forever, in promises whispered against sweat-dampened skin, in love that could survive anything.

Anything but running away.

"Happy birthday, Ivygirl."

Wyatt's voice rumbled against my ear where I lay tucked against his chest in the bed of his beat-up Ford, nothing but an old quilt between the rusty truck bed and us.

Above us, the Texas sky sprawled endlessly, stars scattered like spilled sugar across black velvet.

I could pick out the constellations he'd taught me over the years—Orion's Belt, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia's Throne.

We'd been coming to this spot since we were kids, first on bikes with playing cards clothespinned to the spokes, then on horseback on his daddy's gentlest mares, and now in his truck that coughed blue smoke and had more rust than paint.

This place existed outside of time—our sanctuary, our whole world condensed into a patch of Texas earth beside running water.

"Technically," I started, tracing lazy circles on his bare chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath sun-bronzed skin, "it won't be my birthday for another seventeen minutes."

His chest rumbled with quiet laughter. "Close enough. Besides, I want to be the first to give you your present."

"Wyatt Blackwood, if you bought me something expensive—"

"Hush." He shifted beneath me, careful not to dislodge me from my spot against his side as he reached for his jeans crumpled near our feet. The movement made the truck bed creak, a familiar sound that would forever after make my heart ache. "It's not what you think."

I pushed myself up on one elbow, holding the quilt to my chest with my free hand, suddenly aware of every place where the night air kissed my bare skin.

The temperature had dropped maybe ten degrees since sunset, leaving the perfect amount of coolness to balance the heat still thrumming between us from what we'd just shared.

An hour ago, he'd laid me back against this same quilt with hands that shook just enough to tell me he was feeling this moment as deeply as I was. "I want to see you," he'd whispered, his voice rough with want. "All of you. Want to memorize you in the moonlight."

And I'd let him, let him worship me with his hands and mouth, let him tell me with his body what words could never quite capture.

He’d been gentle and loving, but Wyatt had never been anything else with me.

He always treated me like I was precious.

Something to treasure. Protect. He’d made sure I was comfortable and warm.

Had taken his time exploring every inch of me, while letting me rediscover every part of him in return.

He had watched for every little reaction, noting what made me gasp or arch into him.

And when he figured out what made me call out his name, he kept going until it felt like the stars in the sky were dancing across my skin.

When he'd moved over me, his eyes had held mine, so full of love and promise that I'd had to close my own against the tears that threatened. He'd whispered my name like a prayer, like a vow, and I'd broken apart in his arms, knowing I was stealing something that wasn't mine to keep.

Now, in the aftermath, with our breathing finally steady and our hearts finding their normal rhythms, he was trying to give me the world, and all I could give him in return was goodbye.

Only he wouldn’t know this was goodbye until he woke up tomorrow morning.

"Just open it." He pulled out a small velvet box, midnight blue in the moonlight, the kind that made my heart stutter and race.

My hands trembled as I took it. The velvet was soft beneath my fingers, expensive-feeling in a way that made me know he'd saved for this, probably skipped lunches and worked extra hours mucking stalls to afford whatever was inside.

The hinge creaked softly. Inside, nestled on white cotton, lay a silver horseshoe pendant on a delicate chain.

It was perfect—not too big, not too small, with tiny diamonds (real or not, I didn't care) dotting the nail holes.

It caught the moonlight, throwing tiny sparkles across the darkness between us like captured stars.

"It's beautiful," I whispered, my throat suddenly tight.

"Turn it over."

I lifted the pendant carefully, tilting it toward the moonlight. On the back, engraved in letters so small I had to squint: Forever - WB

"Wyatt..." My throat closed around his name like a fist.

"I know we're young." He took the necklace from the box with those hands that could gentle a spooked horse or fix a fence or make my whole body sing with just a touch.

His fingers were steady as he unclasped the delicate chain.

"I know everyone says high school love doesn't last. But what we’ve built these last four years—" He moved behind me, gathering my hair to one side with a tenderness that broke my heart.

The chain was cool against my throat as he fastened it, the horseshoe settling into the hollow between my collarbones like it had always belonged there. "Is different. We're different."

His lips brushed the nape of my neck where he'd fastened the clasp, and I shivered despite the warm night.

Each word was a stone added to the weight on my chest. My suitcase was already hidden in the bushes behind our barn, covered with an old tarp and tucked where Daddy wouldn't think to look, even if he noticed I was planning something.

The acceptance letter to the University of Texas with a full scholarship was tucked in my journal, along with the note I'd written and rewritten a dozen times, never getting the words right because there were no right words for this kind of leaving.

"And I'll love you," he continued, turning me to face him, his hands framing my face like I was something precious, something holy, "when we're old and gray and sitting on the porch of that house I'm gonna build you, watching our grandkids play in this same creek."

I couldn't help it—I was crying now, tears sliding hot and fast down my cheeks. He caught them with his thumbs, his face creasing with concern.

"Hey, hey. What's wrong? If you don't like it—"

"I love it," I managed, and it was true. It was perfect. He was perfect. And I was about to destroy everything. "I love you."

"Then why—"

I kissed him instead of answering, pouring everything I couldn't say into the press of my mouth against his.

I kissed him like I was trying to brand the taste of him into my memory—summer wheat and spearmint gum and that underlying something that was just purely Wyatt.

I kissed him like I was drowning and he was air.

I kissed him like it was the last time, because it was.

When we broke apart, both breathing hard, he grinned. It was that same crooked smile that had been making my heart skip since seventh grade. "If that's how you say thank you for jewelry, remind me to buy you something every day."

"You can barely afford gas for this truck," I teased, trying to find normal ground, trying to pretend this wasn't the last conversation we'd ever have as us.

"I'll figure it out. I'd figure anything out for you." His hand came up to play with the pendant where it rested against my skin. "You know that, right? There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

And that was the problem. He would. He'd give up everything—his family's ranch that had been in the Blackwood family for four generations, his future as the heir apparent to the cattle empire his daddy had built, his freedom—if he knew the truth about what happened in my house when my daddy got deep in the bottle.

I knew he’d already noticed things, even if he hadn’t brought it up.

Bruises I explained away. The way I flinched when voices got raised.

How I always had an excuse for why he couldn't come by my house.

Last week, after Daddy had been particularly rough and left marks on my wrist that looked exactly like fingerprints, Wyatt had finally asked point-blank if my father had ever hit me.

The fury in his eyes when I didn't answer fast enough had scared me more than Daddy ever had.

"Tell me about the cattle auction tomorrow," I said, desperate for some normalcy. It was exactly why I hadn’t told him my plans. I wanted our final moments to be just us. Not teary goodbyes or pleas to stay or offers to follow.

Wyatt launched into plans for which heifers to sell, which bloodlines to keep, his voice taking on that passionate tone he got when talking about the ranch. His free hand gestured as he spoke, painting pictures in the air of the future he saw for Blackwood Ranch.

I made agreeable sounds, but my mind was already walking through the next hours.

Wait until he falls asleep, slip out of the truck without waking him, and bike to his house one last time to leave the note where he'd find it.

Then home to grab my suitcase and pray Daddy was passed out enough not to hear me leave.

The Greyhound left at 4:47 a.m. By sunrise, I'd be halfway to a new life, watching Texas roll by through smudged windows, turning into someone who'd never heard of Copper Creek.

"You're not listening," Wyatt said softly, his fingers stilling in my hair.

"I am."

"No, you're somewhere else tonight." He studied me in the moonlight, those green eyes that could shift from soft as spring grass to hard as jade, trying to read the secrets written on my face. "What aren't you telling me, Ivygirl?"