Page 8 of Wicked Cowboy

Her voice is light, teasing, but there’s something underneath it, an awareness neither of us bothers to hide anymore.

“Guess it does,” I say.

For a long minute we just sit there, watching the sky. The night hums, still charged from the storm. Her hand rests on the quilt near mine, close enough that the heat from her skin seeps through the fabric.

“This place is different,” she says quietly. “It’s calm.”

“That’s the point.”

“Do you ever leave?”

“Not if I can help it.”

She studies me, head tilted. “So you just stay? Take care of the land, the festivals, the pumpkins?”

“It’s home. Someone’s gotta keep it running.”

“You make it sound like a prison sentence.”

I glance at her. “Sometimes it feels like one.”

The wind shifts, carrying the faint scent of cinnamon from the kitchen window. She tucks the quilt tighter around her shoulders. “You ever think maybe you deserve more?”

Her words find the soft spot I thought I’d buried years ago. “You don’t even know me,” I say.

“Maybe not,” she admits. “But I know the look of someone trying to make peace with ghosts.”

I should laugh it off. Instead, I ask, “And what about you, witchy woman? You running from yours?”

She smiles faintly. “Absolutely.”

That earns a quiet laugh from me, and she looks pleased, like she’s been waiting to hear it. The space between us shrinks.

Lightning flashes far off on the ridge, turning the world silver for a heartbeat. When the light fades, she’s watching me.

“What?” I ask.

“I can see the storm in your eyes,” she says, almost to herself.

I don’t know who moves first. Maybe both of us. One second there’s air, the next there isn’t. Her breath catches as my hand finds her cheek, thumb tracing the line her chin. She doesn’t pull back.

The kiss starts soft, testing, careful, but it lands like thunder. All that quiet I’ve kept locked down breaks wide open. She tastes like coffee and rain and mine.

When we part, the night feels different. Fuller.

She leans her forehead against mine, voice barely above a whisper. “That was—”

“Yeah.” My pulse is still unsteady. “It was.”

We stay there for a moment, neither of us moving. The wind rustles the cottonwoods, and the first true stars burn through the clearing sky.

Finally she smiles, eyes bright. “I should probably go in before your grandmother sees me corrupting her grandson.”

“She’d claim it was her matchmaking,” I say.

She rises, the quilt slipping from her shoulders. I catch it before it hits the step, fingers brushing hers for just a second, enough to set that spark alight again.

“Goodnight, Rhett,” she says, soft but certain.