Page 4 of Grey (Little River Stallions #2)

Grey tossed from one side to the other, then rolled to his back and groaned as he rubbed his eyes. It wasn’t that he wasn’t tired, because he was. But he just couldn’t get comfortable and he couldn’t fall asleep. Frustrated, he grabbed his cell and looked at the screen.

It was only eleven p.m.

He’d only been trying to sleep for an hour, but it felt like a lot longer.

His stallion let out an impatient whinny in his head.

Once more, he wished he could actually speak to his shifter nature, but all he ever got were feelings. And the strangest feeling he had right now was that he needed to be outside.

Giving up after a few more minutes of his bossy stallion urging him to leave the house, he dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, then tucked his phone into his back pocket.

The house was quiet. Grey silently moved through the house and out the front door, nearly running right into Crew, who was still on patrol.

“I heard someone moving around,” Crew said with a low voice. “What’s up?”

“Can’t sleep.” He rubbed his chest. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but my stallion wants me outside.”

Crew hummed but didn’t say anything.

“What?” Grey asked.

“I’m not sure, but if your stallion wants you outside, then that’s where you should be. I can turn the pasture lights on. Do you want to go for a shift and run?”

Grey planted his hands on his hips and looked around. They were underneath one of the motion-sensitive floodlights at the front of the farmhouse, and because of the brightness, all he could see was darkness beyond the spill of light.

“I don’t feel like shifting, I feel like going for a walk.”

“Oh-kay,” Crew said, stretching out the word. He clapped him on the shoulder. “Take a walkie and grab a flashlight, and let me know if you feel anything else, okay?”

Grey nodded and walked into the storage barn to grab a walkie from the charging dock and pick up a flashlight.

The storage barn also happened to have a studio-style apartment up a flight of wooden stairs, which was where Tris had first stayed when she came to work for them as the herd caretaker.

It was empty now since Tris and Khyle had built a home a half mile from the farm, with Dexter and Nancy another half mile down the dirt road.

He’d always imagined living in the farmhouse for the rest of his life, even after he found his soulmate.

The house had plenty of room—at least for now.

Once kids came into the picture, the eight-bedroom house would get filled up fast.

Shaking his thoughts to the present, he switched on the walkie as he left the barn and headed off toward the pasture.

The livestock were in their barn, so the pasture was empty as he walked through it.

He didn’t need the flashlight right now as the moon was bright, but he was glad Crew had mentioned it just in case he needed it.

He paused as he reached the cornfield. They had one hundred acres, and a lot of it was wooded and not cleared for planting.

They liked having the buffer of woods around their property to keep humans from getting too close.

Something pulled at his heart, his stallion’s anxiety morphing into focused determination. He felt something, someone , nearby.

He closed his eyes and focused his hearing, but he didn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary. He couldn’t shake the feeling he needed to go into the woods, so he did, striding to the split-rail fence and placing his hands on the top rail and hefting himself over.

As he made his way into the dark woods, he was certain he was feeling a pull to someone who was in trouble, but he wasn’t sure why his stallion had alerted him to it, or what he’d find when he eventually reached the end of the journey.

“What the hell?” he muttered after an hour of walking in the woods. He hadn’t come across anyone, and he hadn’t picked up any signs of someone around either. But he couldn’t shake the determination of his stallion, so he kept going, muttering to himself about his annoying horse.

He suddenly felt the weird pulling feeling in his chest sharpen, and he picked up the pace, turning on the flashlight to flood the ground in front of him.

Even though he would heal from any injury he might sustain, he didn’t want to be stuck out in the woods with a broken ankle while he waited for his healing nature to kick in.

He picked up a sweet scent, like strawberries and vanilla, and he paused, lifting his head and inhaling slowly. He sorted through the scents of trees and earth and picked up the sweetness again, turning slightly and veering toward the river.

The river didn’t run through their territory, but it skirted the edge of it.

The sound of trickling water reached his ears before his flashlight picked up the riverbank. He stopped and looked around, his flashlight moving slowly from one side of the river to the other. And then he saw something curled up against a tree on the other bank: a person.

Everything inside him quieted profoundly as he made his way across the river.

“Hey! Hey, are you okay?” he called.

The person startled and let out a gasp, and as his flashlight caught the person in its beam, he was stunned.

The beautiful blonde was huddled on herself, her eyes ringed with dark circles and her cheek smudged with dirt.

The moment that his gaze connected with her, he knew exactly why his stallion had been urging him to go into the woods.

His soulmate had been in trouble and needed him.

His stallion surged with joy inside him, and he barely contained the urge to let out a happy whinny.

“How did you find me?” she asked as she slowly unfolded herself and used the tree trunk to help herself to her feet.

“Just lucky,” he said. He turned the flashlight beam toward himself so she could see him in the light.

“I’m Grey. My friends and I own the farm just on the other side of the river.

I couldn’t sleep and had a feeling that I needed to be out in the woods, so I went for a walk and found you. Are you okay?”

“Oh gosh, what time is it? I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I was just scared to keep going in the dark.” She gave him a watery smile and started to cry. “I just wanted to go for a walk.”

He moved to her, the sweet scent of her growing stronger as he closed the distance between them. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Do you live in town? You’re almost two miles from downtown Little River.”

“I do,” she said. She brushed at her wet cheeks. “I feel so stupid. I was following the river and got turned around and then the sun was setting and… thank you for finding me. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m so glad to see you.”

“I’m glad I found you. But you’re not stupid, anyone can get lost in the dark out here.”

He turned the flashlight beam toward the ground so it wasn’t shining in either of their eyes. “If you want to follow me back to the farmhouse, I can drive you to your home.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you so much.”

He offered her his hand as they reached a narrow section of the river that they could cross without getting wet.

She clutched a backpack to her chest with one hand and took his hand with the other.

The instant their hands touched, he was doubly certain she was his soulmate.

He couldn’t believe his soulmate had gotten lost in the woods so close to the farm.

“You have a name, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Tatum.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“I’ve honestly never been so happy to see someone in my life, trust me.”

She dropped his hand when they’d stepped across the river, and he used the flashlight to light the path in front of them, a bit bummed to not still be holding her hand.

He could sense she was nervous, embarrassed even, by what had happened, and he wanted to set her at ease, but he didn’t know what to say that would make her feel better.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Have you been in Little River long?”

“Just a couple days,” she said. “I work at the library.”

“No kidding? I haven’t been there in ages. The last time I stopped in, I was looking for a book about goats.”

“Why?”

“I take care of the livestock on the farm, and we’ve got a goat named Daisy. She’s quite the troublemaker but she’s cute, which is probably a good thing.”

Tatum chuckled. “That’s pretty cool. Did you go to school to learn how to care for them?”

“Nope. I’ve been working at the farm for a long while now, and I just learned as I went. We don’t have a lot—a few cows, a coop of chickens, plus Daisy. We grow our own feed for the animals and try to make the farm as sustainable for us as possible.”

“How many of you are there?”

“At the big farmhouse, it’s me and my three best friends—Crew, Avi, and Ford. Crew just met his forever-girl Zara, so she’s living there now too. Off-season we work at our friend Dexter’s construction company, and he and his son have homes on the same dirt road as our farm.”

“That’s really cool,” she said. “What about your family?”

If only he could tell her that he was a stallion shifter and would never see his family again, because exile was forever and that part of his life was closed.

His mind spun as he tried to think about how to describe what happened.

“My dad worked for a guy who was a real asshole, pardon my French, and my older brother was planning to work for him too. I didn’t want anything to do with them, and when I pushed back against my dad’s plans for the family to all work for him, they gave me an ultimatum and I left.

A friend of the family knew Dexter and he offered me a place to stay and a job and I’ve been here ever since. How about you?”

The farmhouse came into view and she stopped, staring silently at it.

Then she turned to look at him. “It’s a long story and I’m actually really exhausted.”

“No worries,” he said. “Let me grab my keys and I’ll run you home.”

“Thanks, Grey.”

They walked up to the farmhouse where he opened the front door and grabbed his keys from the hook on the wall.

As he jogged down the steps to the yard, he saw Crew but waved him off.

His friend nodded and turned on his heels, heading the other way.

He didn’t want to get into an explanation right now when Tatum was tired.

He opened the truck door for her, and when she was settled and he was behind the wheel, she put her address in the GPS and he drove her home.

“I’m sorry if I’m being weird,” she said when he stopped in front of the cabin she was renting.

“You had a rough day,” he said, putting the truck into park and getting out. He walked her to the front door, and under the front porch light, he could see her more clearly now. She was beautiful, petite and curved, with kissable, full lips and long hair tied back in a braid.

“Yeah, but I just feel so dang foolish.” She chewed her bottom lip and then shook her head.

“It could happen to anyone, trust me. In the dark, all the trees look the same.”

He realized that the reason he’d felt so compelled to be in town was because she was there. His stallion knew their soulmate was close. How freaking cool was that?

“Thanks for being so kind. And thank you for rescuing me.”

He rocked back on his heels. “I’d like to take you out to dinner. How about tonight?”

It was after midnight, so it was Sunday now, and while he really didn’t want to leave so he could get to know her, she looked like she was about to drop from exhaustion.

She hesitated, but then said, “Okay. What time?”

“Six?”

“Sounds good. Thanks again, Grey. See you tonight.”

“Rest well, Tatum.”

He walked back to the truck, his heart soaring.

When she was in the house, he drove back to the farmhouse, smiling to himself.

He’d found her. His soulmate.