“We’re… seeing each other,” I say. My pulse ticks up. My shoulders tense. Here it comes.
“Mmhm.” She watches Beau through the window. Watches him throw a bag into the truck bed with one arm, hat tipped low, jaw set, body moving with that effortless, powerful grace that makes me want to climb him like a damn tree. Then she turns back to me. “He’s young.”
There it is. The quiet little judgment wrapped in a neighborly smile. My spine stiffens. My skin prickles. I can feel myself shrinking, getting ready to apologize, to explain, to justify …
“He is,” I say. Because what else do you say to that?
She pats my arm. “Good for you, honey. Lord knows the men our age aren’t doing shit, anyway.”
I blink. She winks and walks off. Her perfume, something floral and old-fashioned, lingers in the air behind her.
Okay then.
The next stop is the hardware store. Beau needs something for a gate. I stay in the truck with the AC blasting, the cold air hitting my flushed skin, and check my phone.
Mistake.
Tanya has texted me six times.
Martha Gaines just called my MOTHER to say she saw you and Beau at Miller’s
My mother, Ina
She said he was “handling your bags” and I amchoosingto believe she means feed bags
Bobby says congrats btw
Also,apparently Patty took a PHOTO?????
Girl, you are the talk of this town. Call me immediately.
I drop my head against the headrest and close my eyes. “Oh Lord”
When Beau gets back in the truck, he smells like sawdust and himself. That cedar-leather-warm-skin scent that’s basically a drug at this point. He tosses a paper bag in the back seat and looks at me. Studies my face like he’s reading a weather report.
“What happened?”
“Patty took a photo of us.”
He stares. “Of us doing what? Buying de-wormer?”
“Apparently that’s front-page news around here. Tanya says, we’re the talk of the town.”
He’s quiet for a second. His big hand finds my thigh again. Settles. Squeezes. Like he needs to be touching me even just to think.
“Good.”
“How is that GOOD?”
“Because now everyone knows you’re mine.” He puts the truck in reverse, one arm draped over my headrest, his body twisting, the muscles in his neck and shoulder shifting under his skin as he looks over his shoulder. The motion pulls his shirt tight across his chest. I can see the outline of his pecs. The ridge of his collarbone. The thick column of his throat. Even the way this man backs out of a parking space is pornographic. “Save me having to tell ‘em one by one.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. “You’re impossible.”
“You like it.”
I press my thighs together and look out the window. Because yeah. I like it. I like it so much it scares me. And my body …my traitorous, needy, still-throbbing body …is making damn sure I can’t pretend otherwise.
By the time we get back to the ranch, I’ve gotten texts from three women I went to high school with, my old neighbor’s daughter, and a man I dated for two weeks in 2011 who somehow still has my number.
