As soon as the players and coaches have taken off, I head for the barn. I need my daily ride.
I tack up Blazer quickly, and within minutes, I’m in the saddle and trotting through the first field to the open pastures beyond. With the Bitterroot Forest on my left, I urge Blazer into a gallop. He’s my favorite horse for a reason—we both like to pretend we can fly.
Blazer follows the southern edge of the hundred-acre property, and as we reach a section of the ranch with an open view of our neighbors, my gaze catches on a truck disappearing down the makeshift dirt road at the back of the property. Going that way, he would never pass the main house.
I know that truck doesn’t belong to the Eastons, the family who’s owned the ranch next door for four generations. Chuck Easton’s been having some health issues, and I try to keep an eye on things for them when I can. I pull up on Blazer, watching until the truck disappears out of sight.
A shiver of cold dread shoots down my spine. Something doesn’t feel right about this, and I make a mental note to check back when I have more time.
“Come on boy.” A light tug of the reins, and Blazer turns around, taking me back to Big River.
Time to get to my new job.
* * *
Leleila
I hustle away from the field where I collected my sample of cow dung for Save the Soil. The owners of Big River called and asked for us to take a specimen, but they’re out of town, and I don’t know who’s in charge while they’re away. Most likely, the information wasn’t passed on, and I don’t want to run into another ranch hand convinced I’m trying to steal his cows.
I’ve made it about ten feet when my cell rings. Phillip wants to confirm that I’m okay going to the Galapagos Islands for our honeymoon. He thinks the Galapagos is the sensible thing to do.
I want to tell him it’s supposed to be a honeymoon, not a science project, but I hold my tongue.
“Phillip, the Galapagos is fine. And since we can’t go to Africa next year like we planned on…”
He cuts me off, sounding excited for the first time since I failed my dissertation. “Don’t worry, honey. I have a new idea. One that could still get us to Africa right after the wedding.”
“What? How?”
“I’ll tell you at home.”
Phillip’s always been superhuman in my eyes—brilliant, handsome, and opinionated. He swept me off my feet back in high school biology, and I don’t know that I’ve come down yet. He aced all the tests, and I leaned on him to miraculously pull off an A minus. But more than that, he was there—constant and reliable—when everything in my world felt dangerous and black.
Now, he’s still kicking ass out there in the world of academia, and I don’t know if it matters, but there’s something about being with a hero that feels…lonely.
Like my parents, he never stops trying to heal the planet. At twenty-nine, he’s the youngest tenured professor ever at the University of Montana where he focuses on the fragility of ecosystems. And his latest research is for a paper he hopes will be published in theScientific Ecology Journal’swinter issue. He’s my parents’ ideal man for me, and I’m pretty sure they can’t figure out how I got so lucky.
As Phillip rattles off all the perks of the hotel he found for us in the Galapagos, I cut across the empty lot until I reach Main Street. I walk down the street of our small Old West town of Mountainview and turn into the parking lot of Big Sky Natural Grocer & Ranch Supplies. He continues to talk while I duck inside the Save the Soil suite that’s adjacent to the grocery store and drop off the soil specimen I’d collected.
I’d left my car in the parking lot when I went to collect the soil, but before I drive home to sit by myself, I decide to pay my sister a quick visit.
As I walk the few steps to the grocery store and enter through the front door, I call out a hello to June working the counter over by the bagels.
Through the phone, Phillip says he needs to secure our hotel room today, and I tell him to go ahead and book it. “Just get a nice room,” I say. After all, we only get one honeymoon.
We finally hang up then, and I let out a long breath. From her register, June raises her eyebrows at me in that annoying way she has of expressing her constant disdain for my fiancé. I get it. My younger sister doesn’t like Phillip. We’ve gone around in circles over this for years. And because she doesn’t know the whole story, I cut her slack. I head over to her, tugging my suit jacket down where it keeps riding up on my hips.
Before I can comment on her still-raised eyebrows—
“June, you want the squash put into the far bin, over by the lettuce?”
The low, sexy tone of voice gets my attention.
I shift my stance and swallow as I stare at the attractive, muscular guy holding a carton of squash in his arms.
A tattoo peeks out from the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Just a hint of wings but enough to give me pause.
I raise my head so I can take in all of him.
