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Then she’s off toward her house, bounce in her step as she climbs the porch. The front door opens and there’s Ford—still in his uniform, shocked and doing a double take as she walks by. She pauses to give him a hug before disappearing down a hall.

I wave but don’t wait, not sure I’ll be able to keep my emotions in check if he tries talking to me.

When I get home, there’s a text from him.If you were standing in front of me, I’d be looking at you like you’re worth it.

Even I can’t ignore the way butterflies flutter in my stomach with one thousand tiny wings.

I respond the only way I know how:Then I guess you’d also be in the lake.

Twenty-One

“Sothisisadate with forty-two-year-old Ford Callahan?” He drops the tailgate of his truck parked in a spot surrounded by at least a hundred acres of cornfields. “Pretty sure this was how the date went where you robbed me of my virgin morals.”

Ford chuckles.

“You definitely led that heist.” Very true. “And I’d like to think I’ve improved slightly with age.” He pulls two blankets out of a bag and lays them across the bed of the truck. Out of the back seat, he grabs two pillows, placing them where the bed hits the cab, and a small speaker. The horizon line is painted with every shade of orange, yellow, and pink that only seems to exist when the sun sets.

I did not give Ford the satisfaction of gaping at him when he picked me up, but now that he’s preoccupied by turning the bed of his truck into some kind of love nest—complete with a string of lights he’s plugging into a portable battery pack—I treat myself to a good old-fashioned eye fuck.

Ford was good looking when we were young, but it’s as if he grew into himself. He’s in jeans and a T-shirt with a shacket over it and unbuttoned. The cuffs of his sleeves are rolled up, hitting his forearms midway. His neck is sexy at the collar, his wrists are sexy out the sleeves. Ford is a cop that boxes for sport and he looks it; I’d happily eat every piece of him with a fork. However, his body could be a soft potato because tonight it’s his face that has me salivating every time I look at him. The perpetual five-o’clock shadow is gone; he’s shaved smooth. The scar on his jaw is more visible as are his dimples and every curve of his lips and angle of his jaw.

His eyes, of course, are his patented shade of bright blue.

“You staring at me, Scotty?” he asks, with a smug smirk as he sets a cooler on the tailgate.

“Recording content for a mental porno I’m producing, actually.”

He booms out a laugh, vibrating my chest through my sweater, and pulls out a bottle of wine, working the cork free with a corkscrew and a swiftpop!before pouringa glass and handing it to me. He corks the bottle and grabs a bottle of Coca-Cola—made of glass—out of the cooler. He pops the top and takes a sip. The way his lips wrap around the mouth of the bottle and the column of his throat moves with his swallow turns my mind into a playground only the most devout perverts would survive. It may be ancient history, but I know what Ford Callahan can do with that mouth.

“So,” I say, blowing out a breath, leaning against a taillight of his truck. “What are we doing here?”

He sets his bottle down on the tailgate. “Birding.”

I snort a laugh, untouched wine sloshing in my glass. Around the rows and rows of corn, there’s a thick line of trees . . . and not a single bird in the sky.

“They didn’t get the invite.”

Another grin and he pulls out a shotgun, laughing when my eyes widen. “They will.”

“Are we hunting? The hell kind of birding requires a gun?”

“My favorite kind. Plug your ears.” Before I can set the glass of wine down, he points the gun into the air and fires once. A loudboom!stops my heart and makes me jump, swashing wine over the rim of my glass.

I jam my palms against my ears to try to stop the ringing.

He grins. “Here it comes.”

And it does.

A chaotic chatter followed by a gentle rustle before seemingly thousands of birds lift from the trees like a mass exodus into the sky. Together, they look like a gigantic puff of dark smoke drifting in perfect harmony up into the air. There’s a sudden shift—an ebb and a flow of movements that has them stretch away from one another like putty before snapping back together. They don’t stop—creating fluid and swirling shapes, a huge flock making art in the sky. They fan out then suck back in, as if drawn together by magic or magnets. Thousands of little pieces moving as one. A performance for no one, yet here we are witnessing it.

It goes on for minutes—like an act in a show—and we’re silent as our eyes chase them across the sky with open-mouthed smiles on our faces.

If heaven has a sky, I bet these birds fill it.

As abruptly as it starts, the descent happens; they land in trees and vanish from sight somewhere on the horizon, murmuring chatters fading before it’s silent again. Like they were never even ever there at all.

I’m breathless and speechless and in complete awe.