Page 13 of Ash on the Range (Red Hart Ranch #6)

Cassie

“Where are we going?” I asked for the fifteenth time this hour in the Red Hart version of Are we there yet , but Will just smiled and kept driving up the range.

He’d been the same when I found him already waiting for me before dawn over an hour before when I turned up, dressed to—well, not impress, but for comfort and to, okay, so a little bit to impress.

Jeans and boots meant I could tackle most things, but the V-neck white tee I knew he loved sat snug on my hips and clung to every other curve I had, and there were plenty of those.

He’d already packed a lunch too, basket and all, rug tucked under one arm and half held out ready to go despite that I set a four a.m alarm and hauled my sleepy behind out of my cozy, snuggly bed to ensure I’d beat him into the big house kitchen after last night's intimacy.

Spoilers: I didn’t.

I asked him what our plan for the day was back then, too, but he refused to answer me in the big house just as he held his silence now. His hand wrapped around mine offered a gentle squeeze, and he flicked the volume up on Florida Georgia Line’s Cruise.

Smiling, I took the hint and leaned back in my seat.

“Fine, be secret keeper, then,” I muttered, getting my faux grouchy on.

I avoided my brother this morning, as well as most everyone else by keeping Will Kirk hours, and that put me in a good mood.

Maybe I should take the hint and become an early bird like him.

Not that being a seven o’clock riser ever counted as a tardy hours person, but still…

at Red Hart, seven labeled me as practically a layabout.

The kitchen was empty when I came downstairs each morning, and I got to help clean up after everyone had left.

I didn’t usually mind, because it left me with a sort of peace before I started work for the day, and the chatter in the yard and fields outside stayed there.

But now that I knew a bit more about Will’s hours, I kind of liked them.

A sense of sadness washed over me. I’d lose that when I went back to college after myself enforced break and Will went back to…

whatever came next for him. I couldn’t help wondering if that would be it for us, if he would go one way and I would go mine, and our lives might never collide again.

If our path stopped there.

I squeezed his hand a little tighter, suddenly desperate to make today a memory I could keep forever if it was one of a limited few, unable to open my mouth and ask.

Unwilling to be that desperate girl who clung to the cowboy who ever stayed anywhere.

Because that’s who Will Kirk was. He didn’t put down roots, and he never stayed with anyone.

I got that sense of him from the get go, back in the rodeo that night.

He lived a fairly spartan existence even then, sleeping in someone else’s trailer, skipping from place to place as the crowds demanded, following the sun. Chasing dreams.

But I also wanted to be the dream he followed.

Selfish, I knew and also that he wouldn’t change.

He wasn’t made of the same stuff that made Travis cling to his mountain, or Eve ache for her Texas man.

Gage, who found who he loved and settled after a lifetime somewhere else.

Jude, the stead forth foreman with his Canadian wife who flitted in and out of his life—they had a unique relationship and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to spend that long away from someone I loved without falling apart.

Loved.

Oh, shit.

I really had fallen for the cowboy with the liquid brown eyes and the heart of gold.

The rodeo rider with wind beneath his feet who never stayed.

My heart squeezed in my chest as I turned my head to look out the window, withdrawing my hand from Will's strong hold.

And my mouth fell open.

“Where are we?”

“North western boundary.” He pulled up, facing my window to the view.

And the view did not do what he showed me. No wonder he insisted I bring Eve's camera with all the lenses. I needed several manuals to understand how the thing operated. Because…

Wow.

If I thought Red Hart was pretty before, and that the mountain was imposing, then I had never understood the concept of beauty until right now.

We’d driven around the side of the mountain to reach this place, through the foothills while I was lost in my head.

Music played in the background but I couldn’t hear the lyrics for the sensory overwhelm before me.

Will gestured to the incredible vista that showcased an outcrop of granite that dropped off at one side from golden grasses and late season wildflowers to a deep sweeping valley that dipped between two mountain ranges.

They seemed to cross at the bottom, though I couldn’t see in the heavily treed area.

Everything was green, spotted with the rare outburst of red or yellow.

He let me look at my fill before he continued on.

A good thing, because I couldn’t speak at all.

“There’s a collapsed track that leads up the ridge line to Walker Roan’s place.

He’s a bit of a recluse. Heard a girl got under his skin, drove up there one season a few months back and never left.

The forgotten mountain man, yeah?” He laughed softly.

“Over that way is the Canadian border. It’s a bit further out, but not as far as you’d think.

Natalie lives out there, and Jude heads out every so often to see her during the season. ” He paused on that thought, pensive.

“I can’t imagine spending that much time apart,” I blurted in the softest way possible, then wished I hadn’t. “I mean?—”

“I know what you mean.” Will didn’t give me a chance to fix my mistake, putting his truck into park and was out of the driver’s seat before I could say anything else.

Maybe he didn’t want to hear it. Not that I’d blame him. The weeks between now and when I returned to college seemed all too short and long at the same time.

I unbuckled my seatbelt with numb fingers, and juggled the camera in my lap, desperate not to break that, too.

A case of lenses slipped between my hands but larger ones caught them, closing around mine to steady everything.

My breath caught as I stared up into Will’s face.

I’d been so lost in my panic that I hadn’t even heard him open the door or realized he stood right next to me.

“Cassie, it’s okay,” he murmured, capturing everything and tucking it into a pile on my lap, surrounded by his safe grip.

“I 'm not gonna leave you alone. Well, maybe while you study, or until you get sick of me hanging out. But other than that…” His head tipped to one side, he studied me with an otherwise expressionless face, and suddenly I couldn't breathe at all. “I can’t think of anything worse than being without you, either.”

“But you ride the circuit and work here, and– and—” I blurted, unable to form either a cohesive thought, or finish anything.

“And you have to study.” He leaned in and took advantage of the fact my mouth was open, kissing me roughly.

When he drew back, softening his touch to a mere brush of lips on lips, I was left with less breath than I started with.

“Fuck, I’ve been aching to do that since I saw you come downstairs in that damn tee and jeans, he grated, swallowing hard.

“I wore it because I remembered you liked it,” I said, my lips still tingling. I wanted to touch them, see if they were as swollen as they felt, but my hands were trapped beneath his. I didn’t want to pull away from his touch either.

“Damn right I did.” He kissed me again, gentler this time, and I managed to breathe afterwards.

“You gonna take some pictures of this place so we have proof that today was about more than me taking the girl I’m falling for on a date without anyone else interrupting us?

” His gaze sliced through me with unimpeded intent.

“Oh.” I couldn't respond to that, didn’t have any other words.

He didn't seem to need one, thankfully, as his hands slipped around my hips. Will tugged me forward, lifting me out of his truck while I strangled the camera equipment.

“I have no idea how to work any of this,” I admitted, placing all the pieces on the picnic blanket he placed on a flat patch that overlooked everything.

Twenty minutes later, we managed to decipher Eve’s handwritten notes on the best lenses for which sorts of shots, though Travis seemed to have crossed out a few and added his own diatribe here and there. I laughed at some, and strained my eyes at others while Will did the honors and set it all up.

“Ta-daa.” He proudly presented it to me.

“Looks good,” I approved, taking the camera from him, and held it up. “Wow, that's kinda heavy. Okay, so promotional shots. Eve gave me a list…”

I delved into that for the next however long it took.

The sun warmed my back as Will sat quietly at my side and by the time I got the hang of clicking away, checking the digital screen and resting the frame, I was sure my legs wouldn’t work the next time I tried to use them.

Actually, I couldn't feel my feet any more at all.

“I’m sorry. That took a whole lot longer than I expected.” I bit my lip. “This probably wasn’t how you wanted to spend time with me.”

Will shrugged, sending me an easy smile. “I’m with you. That makes me happy, honey.”

Butterflies rioted in my stomach as he took the camera from my lowered hands and placed it on the far side of the picnic rug.

That same warm hand came back to catch my jaw, turning my head as he angled his mouth over mine.

Before our lips touched my eyes were already closed.

I sank into his touch, relieved not to have to fight to find time with him at the end of the day when I could barely keep my eyes open.