I gasp, heat flooding my face. And lower.
“What if Rita escapes again?” Boone asks, his fingers squeezing my hip.
“Rita’s not escaping again,” I say with a wavering voice. “I’m installing better locks. And possibly a tracking device.”
“What if there’s an emergency?”
“What kind of emergency?”
“The kind where you need three strong men to help you with something?”
“Isn’t that what 911 is for?”
Rita bleats loudly.
“Even your goat knows you’re not being honest,” Jesse says.
“Rita thinks everyone’s lying. It’s her default setting.”
“Smart goat.” Wyatt steps closer. “She knows this isn’t over.”
“It has to be over. It never even started.”
“Didn’t it?” he asks.
Jesse steps closer on my other side, and I’m trappedbetween them. “So this is it, then,” he says. “Back to being strangers.”
“We were never anything but strangers.”
“Strangers don’t look at each other the way you’re looking at us right now,” Boone says from behind me.
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you’re imagining what we’d look like without our shirts,” Jesse says with a grin.
“Or without anything,” Wyatt adds, his voice rough.
“I am not—” But I am. God help me, I absolutely am.
“Distance means distance,” Wyatt says. “Physical distance. Emotional distance. Complete distance.”
“How much distance are we talking?” Boone asks, pressing closer to my back. “Like, feet? Miles? Different counties?”
“However much it takes,” I say breathlessly.
“That’s not very specific.”
“It doesn’t need to be specific. It just needs to be effective.”
“Effective at what?” Jesse asks. “Keeping us from doing this?” He leans down like he’s going to kiss me, stopping just inches from my mouth.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Or this?” Boone’s hand slides around my waist, pulling me back against him.
“Definitely that.”
Wyatt watches, occasionally looking down and shaking his head.
