Chapter 25
Tristan
“Now are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Lark asks for the fifteenth time in about an hour.
I shift my gaze to her and grin. “Nope.”
“Ugh, you’re so annoying.”
“Yes, I’ve been told this often.”
“I’ll assume by Sadie and your sisters?” she hedges her bet.
“It makes me think that females are really nuts.”
She slaps my chest. “Watch it, or I’ll show you how nuts I can be.”
“Oh, I haven’t seen it all yet?”
Lark rolls her eyes. “You haven’t seen half. Hell, you haven’t even seen a tenth. You’ve gotten all the good parts so far.”
Yes, I really have. I smile and take her hand in mine. I tell myself it’s because I want to keep her from slapping me again when I say the next thing. “Who knew you had good parts.”
Her jaw drops. “Tristan Stone, you asshat.”
I laugh. “I’m kidding. So far all I see are good parts.”
At that, her mouth turns into a smile. “Aww, that was sweet.”
“What can I say? I’m charming.”
“Yeah, that’s the adjective I’d choose.” She tries to hide the softness in her eyes, but I see it.
I just choose not to say anything about it.
The next day and a half are a chance for us to not worry about anything. No nosy neighbors who might see us. No cameras that might catch us. No prying family members who will never understand what we’re doing or why.
We can just be together, no restrictions, no worries, no expectations.
And the benefits of a bed.
Lark lets out a deep sigh, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Can you at least tell me what we’re doing?”
She can’t help herself, and it’s really fucking cute. “We’re going to deliver the horses, and we’re going to drive to a town close by and have a night to ourselves. Is that okay?”
Her hand slides into mine, and she nods. “Very okay.”
“Good.”
“How long until we’re there?”
I bark a laugh. “You’re as bad as Sadie.”
“Considering I think she’s of high intelligence and wonderful, I’ll take it as a compliment,” Lark says with a smirk.
Arguing that my daughter is not those things doesn’t exactly make me sound good, so I focus more on what I was implying. “I meant the part where she’s annoying on road trips.”
“Oh, well, according to my brothers, I’m annoying when I don’t know something. Really, this is your own doing,” she informs me.
“How is that?”
“Let’s see. You won’t tell me where we’re going.” She ticks the first one off on her free hand. “You won’t tell me how far away it is.” Next one. “You won’t say what we’re doing when we’re in said place.” She sighs heavily. “And you’re allowing my imagination to run wild, so this is your penance.”
“I see.”
She looks around. “Oh, are we in Utah? Or maybe Arizona? Shit. I should’ve paid more attention!”
“You’ve been too busy yapping about random things.”
Lark snorts. “Yeah, like being taken against my will and crossing state lines.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Against your will, huh?”
“That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”
“Why don’t we call the cops then?” I taunt her a little. “Maybe Jimmy can come arrest me.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
“I almost forgot you and your friends have a thing about cuffs,” I say, remembering our night at the bar.
However, that also reminds me about how much I’d like to explore having her bound up, just for me.
“I do not. If you recall, that was Suzanne,” Lark corrects.
“And what about you? Would you like me to tie you up?”
She grins at me, mischief in her eyes. “Maybe, cowboy.”
“I’m very good with rope.”
“I bet you are.”
God, I love the banter between us. The way it’s so easy and natural makes my heart swell.
I’ve never had a relationship like this before. Where we can laugh, talk, and just be a little stupid at times.
I loved my wife with all my heart, but we were young, and so was our love in a lot of ways.
We didn’t have a playful marriage. My mother got sick a week after we were married, and it changed everything in our lives.
Then Emmy Jo got pregnant with Sadie soon after that.
A few months after giving birth, she was diagnosed with cancer.
Emmy Jo smiled up until the end of her life, but it never really reached her eyes.
With Lark, her entire face lights up. She’s like the sun, blinding as she rises, and you just want to bask in it. She takes the clouds and pushes them aside, allowing the rays to peek through.
It’s hard to look away from.
Even harder to stay away from.
“All right, do you really want to know where we’re going?” I ask.
She bounces in her seat and squeezes my hand. “Yes!”
“Good. You’ll find out when we get there.”
“I hate you.”
“You don’t,” I tell her.
“No, I really do.”
“Well, I am your sworn enemy.”
“This is a fact.”
Only we don’t do anything that enemies do. In fact, we’re doing the opposite of that. Although, if we were caught leaving town, I probably would’ve made a joke that I was kidnapping her to get to her family.
They would’ve bought it.
“You’re mine as well,” I remind her.
“Also true, but do you take all your enemy conquests away on sex trips?” Lark asks.
I could answer sarcastically, allow the jokes and quips to continue. Instead, I tell her the truth.
“No, sweetheart, you’re the only one.”
Lark leans across the table. We’re in Arizona, right outside of the Grand Canyon. “Do you feel weird?”
“Weird?”
She nods. “Yeah, like we’re doing something we shouldn’t?”
“Not really. We’re at dinner—are we not allowed to eat?”
“You know what I mean,” Lark says with an eye roll.
I do, but it’s so much more fun to irritate her. “We’re not doing anything weird or odd. No one here knows us.”
“I’m aware of that, Tristan. We’re in another state. Still, I feel like we’re going to get caught.”
I lean in, taking her hand in mine. “Then stop being weird and looking like we’re doing something wrong.”
She huffs.
I smile.
She rolls her eyes again.
I grin wider.
She runs her tongue along her teeth and then smiles at me. “I really wish I hated you, but instead, I want to climb across the table and kiss you.”
“I like the second option.”
“I don’t doubt that. I’d watch it, though, Stone—I am going to be sleeping with you later, and I have ways to make you pay.”
And I’ll gladly take any of them since I get her all to myself tonight.
Tonight, we’re staying at a yurt outside of the Grand Canyon. I was able to find one that was going to give us the best of both worlds. We have privacy and a bed, and we can still enjoy the stars and nature the way we do every time we’re together.
“I look forward to it,” I say as I rub my thumb against her palm.
“Sadist.”
“Only for you.”
Lark laughs, and then the waiter arrives with our food. We spend the next hour talking about anything and everything—Sadie, the horse sale I had today, the new horse she’s training, and our families.
“I didn’t know your dad was struggling. I guess I just assumed you took over the ranch because it made more sense to settle in,” Lark says between bites.
“Pop thinks it’s the second part, but it was really because we kept finding him doing things that didn’t make sense.”
“Like what?”
“For one, he put the goats out in the horse pasture and told us he moved the horses. When we asked him why he brought the goats out, he said he didn’t.
Then he painted half the barn, out of nowhere.
The barn had just been repainted less than a year ago.
He wanted to buy this insanely expensive stud, for no real reason.
That was when he sort of realized things were slipping for him.
He also liked the idea of getting to spend time with Sadie, so it wasn’t a big fight. Was it that way with your brother?”
I know a few years ago, Ryan became the full owner of the farm.
“Kind of.” She places her fork down. “My dad is still completely fine—it was more that he wanted Ryan to have some stake in the ranch.”
“Did your brother not want it?” I ask.
I never really understood the dynamic of her family. Not that I know all that much about it beyond what Mary Lou said in passing.
“I think he wanted it, but he never felt like he deserved it. Deacon really loves the ranch, not that Ryan doesn’t, but it’s a different kind of love.
Deacon views the land as a living thing, something he wants to work with.
Ryan saw it as potential and a way to make money by using its assets,” Lark explains and then looks away.
“I don’t know, it’s been a rough road for the Gatlin boys, and I’m pretty much just along for the ride. ”
“Did you want it?”
Her big green eyes look up at me, wonder shining in them. “I did. I do, but it’s not for me.”
“Why the hell not?”
She laughs almost as though it’s obvious. “I’m a girl.”
“That’s horseshit.”
I don’t know much about her brothers and their intelligence, but I know something about Lark. She’s driven, she’s smart, and she sees the land the same way Deacon does. She knows the horses and is more than capable of running a ranch if she wanted.
“Maybe, but it’s reality too. Do you think your dad would’ve left the farm to your sisters over you?” she asks.
My knee-jerk reaction is to say yes, that he would, but…I don’t know it’s the truth. I lean back in my seat, hating that I can’t tell her he would without pause.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
She smiles and takes a sip of her wine. “I appreciate that you answered honestly. The truth is, I’m the youngest, and I’m a girl.
Carter wouldn’t want it, so that was an easy one to hop over.
Mav, my other brother, wouldn’t get it over me, which is two, but the other two do want it.
Maybe not for the same reasons I do, but they have them, and they’re boys and older.
” She shrugs. “That’s just the way it is. I’m just a girl.”
“You’re not just anything, Lark Gatlin. You’re a hell of a lot more and we both know it. You would run circles around your brothers if you owned the ranch.”
“Well, we’ll never know if that’s true, but…” Her eyes warm as they look at me. “For you saying that, I really want to kiss you.”
I stand, coming around the table and squatting down so we’re face-to-face. “I’m right here.”
She grins and takes my face in her hands and kisses me, and I swear my heart expands ten times.