Page 57 of Fool Me (Timberline Peak #1)

HARLOWE

I hear the crunch of gravel before I see the truck pull up. I call Echo and walk back to where Phantom is parked just as Atlas stops on the shoulder. He’s not in scrubs like I expect him to be. Instead, he’s got on a pair of joggers and a hoodie.

“Very casual, even for you, Doc,” I say when he steps out with a pizza box from Gondoughla. It’s been a year since we shared our first pizza in his office.

And he’s still hot enough to stop me in my tracks.

“I played hooky this afternoon.” That grabs my attention. Atlas added another vet to the practice—a large animal vet that specializes in bovine and equine care. Since Dr. Millie Brooks joined Mountain View, things have been busy.

“And what did you do with your free time?” I ask curiously as he follows me away from the side of the road and into the field where Echo and I have been working together for hours.

“Let me feed you first and then I’ll show you.” There’s a playful chord to his voice that makes me giddy to learn what he’s been up to.

“Very suspicious,” I tease as I sit down on the blanket that’s been our resting spot between our scent detection exercises.

“No mushrooms, but you have your EpiPen, right?”

“Always, but don’t act like you don’t have an extra in your truck right now.”

“What kind of training were you two working on today?” he asks, rubbing Echo’s side as he sits down next to me on the blanket.

“Not the kind we want to talk about while we eat.”

“Noted.” His laughter is deep and the perfect soundtrack to end my day.

I open the pizza box, taking a slice, and he tells me about work—well, the morning that he worked. He’s still being super secretive about his afternoon.

Two big slices down and I’m getting annoyed at how coy he’s being. It’s completely intentional, too.

When he shuts the lid on the pizza box and leans back on his forearms I finally ask, “Okay, City Boy, what the hell did you get up to today?”

“Pull down my pants and I’ll show you.”

“Ha ha, cute.”

He sucks on his cheek, holding back a smile. “I’m not joking.”

“I swear to god if this is a weird ploy to get me to suck your cock in public . . .” My words halt when I inch the edge of his waistband down and I see the Saniderm. “Atlas, what did you do?” It comes out in a whisper.

He lifts his hips and I carefully lower his sweats, trying not to get too distracted by the fact that he’s not wearing any underwear.

“I got another tattoo to remind me of home.” Two flowering clovers twine together, following the curve of his oblique and hip, just below his stomach. Along the stem, are the words, “If you’re there, I’m there.”

“Timberline Peak isn’t home because I grew up here. It’s home because you’re here.”

My eyes are wet and I’m not sure when I started crying. He’s still just as sweet a year later. And after everything, I deserve that, but I don’t for a second take it for granted.

“I love you more every day, Atlas Kane.”

And it’s true.

We’ve been through more in a year than most people deal with in a decade or even a lifetime.

Most of it’s been beyond incredible, but those aren’t the moments that stand out when I think about my love for Atlas.

It’s the mornings he’s held me while I cried in bed because of delays in Canyon’s trial.

It’s me holding him when he comes home drained and drifting after a bad day.

What society might perceive as weakness has made us stronger, made our relationship ironclad.

We fought through the hard shit together and with Canyon sentenced to five years in prison, five years probation, and a permanent restraining order.

I can’t help but feel like there are bright skies ahead for us.

But I know we can handle anything life throws at us.

“Will you take me to get one too?” I ask.

“Of course. What do you want, darling?”

I hold my hand in front of my face, drawing a line across the base of my ring finger and up the inside of it toward my knuckle with my nail. “Your name would look really good right here, and in a matching font to that.”

He takes my hand, flipping it palm up and tugging me until I’m lying on top of him. He flips it again, examining it closely as my heart beats steady against his. I feel the gentle arc he traces to the tips of my toes.

“Or it could go here.” He smooths the pad of his pointer finger up the space between the knuckles on the top of my finger. “Then everyone will know whose ring you’re wearing when you agree to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“I like the way you think.”

“Good, because there are a lot of things I want to be in this life, but your husband is at the top of that list.”

His honesty takes my breath away and I return it with some of my own. “I want that too.”

“Then you’ll get it. You know I can’t say no to you.”

I smirk. “In that case, all this talk about forever has me feeling a certain way.”

“And what way is that?”

I lean forward and bite down on his earlobe. “The kind where we go home and spend the rest of the night in bed.”

To no one’s surprise, he practically leaps up, bringing me with him, and leads me to Phantom. He presses me up against the door and kisses me until I’m so heated it’s a miracle I don’t melt the paint. “Home,” I whisper against his lips, bracing my palms against the hard planes of his chest.

“I love you. Drive safe, Clover.”

He opens the door for Echo to jump in, his smile curling up when he sees the climbing ropes in the back seat. The sunlight glints off the metal clips attached to them when he lifts them.

“You never did show me what you could do with these after our climbing date.”

“No time like the present.”

There’s no more holding on to things or waiting for the right time for us anymore. Not since the car accident. We both know how quickly life can change, and I don’t want to miss out on any of it with him by my side.

“See you at home. I love you.”

He kisses me one more time before pressing the ropes into my stomach. “Go, or we’ll end up in the backseat again.”

I snicker. Many of these nights have ended that way, with Echo in one car and us in the other, too worked up to make it home.

I love our frantic quickies, but tonight I want to take my time, so I take the rope and round the SUV before getting inside and starting it up. He does the same and I wait for him to pull away, before following him back to our house.

But I’d follow this man anywhere.