Page 27

Finding the notebook I’m looking for, I open the dark blue cover and flip through several pages of handwritten lists before I get to the page where I’d last written something down.
Touch his tattoos.
Tracing my fingers over the words like they’re the real thing, I feel that damnable flush start to creep back into my cheeks. I’ve never been a blusher. Never been easily rattled or shaken. Ranch life isn’t for the faint of heart—that’s what my mother always says—and I pride myself on the fact that I’ve always been rock solid. Blushing and daydreaming about boys are not things I do... but put me in front of one gorgeous, tattooed man the size of a bull and I can’t seem to stop wondering what it would be like to touch him.
Maybe even kiss him.
Pulling a pen from the spiral of the notebook, I click it open and write it down.
Kiss him.
Reading what I just wrote, a flight of butterflies lifts off in my stomach, starting to swirl and bounce around in my gut until I’m dizzy and slightly sick to my stomach because I hardly know him. Scratch that—I don’t know him.
Like, at all.
Save for the fact that he’s easily the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life and that he’s Damien’s brother, I don’t know anything about him.
You know he sleeps naked.
“Oh, no,” I say out loud. “I am not having this conversation with you.”
Why not?
“Because you’re my brother and that would be weird.”
We talked about Kelsey Hanover.
“And three years later, I’m still traumatized.” Laughing, I shake my head. “No thank you. I’d rather—”
Somewhere between the barn and the house, I hear the heavy slam of a truck door, the sound of it jolting me out of my one-sided conversation. Thinking it’s my parents, home from Helena ahead of schedule, I hastily bury my laptop under the fresh hay on Two-tone’s stall floor and stand, brushing the seat of my jeans clean on my way out, mentally preparing myself for the litany of questions my father is bound to have about our long-term houseguest.
Halfway through the barn, I recognize the truck parked about a dozen yards away. It’s not my father’s—it’s Brock Morris’s.
The butterflies in my stomach turn to lead and take a nosedive.
Stopping, midstride, I move back, deeper into the shadows of the barn and watch while Abbey comes out onto the porch, to greet him. I can hear them talking. He’s asking her if I’m around and she’s telling him she hasn’t seen me all day. The quick glance she flicks at the barn where I’m hiding tells me she knows exactly where I am and that she’s covering for me, rather than tell him where to find me.
Even thoughtless, careless Abbey knows that Brock Morris is someone I avoid at all costs.
Not for long—if you don’t figure something out, and fast, you’re going to spend the rest of your life staring at his smug—
“Well, how about you then?” Brock says while pulling his pristine, dark brown Stetson off his head. “You want to go for a ride into town with me? We can stop at the diner and grab a milkshake.”
No.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m striding through the shadowy barn and into the sun so fast, I’m temporarily blinded by the sudden change in light. “You looking for me?” I call out while I keep moving toward them. When he hears my voice, Brock turns, the corner of his mouth kicked up in a smirk. Damien’s brother gave me a look just like it earlier this morning and I couldn’t decide it I wanted to kiss him or slap him silly. I have no such dilemma when it comes to Brock Morris.
Kissing him never even enters my mind.
“There you are, Kaitydid,” Brock says, that smirk widening into a full-fledged grin when he sees me standing a few feet away. Flicking a quick look at the barn behind me, the grin hardens just a bit. “You in there hiding from me?”
“Yes.” I say it plainly. There is no love lost between Brock and me and I won’t pretend that there is, now that our fathers have finally settled on terms that will see us married.
Brock laughs at my answer but I can hear it. See it in the tight flex of his jaw—I pissed him off.
“Go on back in the house, Abbey.” I lift my gaze to give her a reassuring smile. “Mom called—she and Dad are about twenty miles out and she wants someone to pull that blue-ribbon casserole she made last week out of the freezer.” A complete and total lie but I tell it without guilt. Anything to get her out of here and away from Brock.
She hesitates for a few seconds, giving me a barely noticeable headshake while Brock and I watch each other like we’re waiting for the other to crack first. Before I can reissue my direction for her to go back in the house, I watch while she flicks her gaze over the top of my head and her shoulders instantly relax.