What is she doing?
She pinches between her shoulder blades and reaches up the sleeve of her shirt. A bunched ball slides down her arm and away from her wrist, black lace dangling from the tip of her finger before she stuffs the undergarment in her pocket.
My mouth parches.
“Morgan, are you coming?” Dean asks.
I pry my eyes away from my unintentional voyeuring. “Yeah,” I say, hoping it doesn’t come out sounding strangled. I will now be thinking aboutthatfor the rest of the day.
I jog ten paces to catch up to him.
“Dude, Madison wouldlovethis place,” he says, gawking at the string of Appaloosas corralled behind a gable barn.
“She would?”
That designer dress and uptalk voice screamed valley girl to me.
“She loooves animals,” he drawls. “Wants a whole herd when we buy a piece of property together someday.”
“You guys are planning tolivetogether?”
The moment it leaves my mouth I scold myself.Quit being so judgmental. Of course the guy plans to live with his girlfriend. She’s perfectly committed as far as he knows.
“Is that so hard to believe?” he asks.
“No, it’s just…”
I should tell him. For three very important reasons: we’re alone, he brought her up, and Hailey won’t have to. I know she asked me not to, but thatlook. I hated seeing her so worked up. There may never be another opportunity like this again, even for her.
I stop before we reach the end of the fence line.
His eyebrows sink together. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Think, Reed. You’ve spent every day with this guy for weeks now. You can figure out what to say to him.
“I…”
“Well?” he presses.
“…was wondering if you could show me the technique for felling one this big?” I ask, turning toward the 150-foot pine that towers over us.
I am such a chicken. I’m not at all prepared to be operating heavy machinery with a heart racketing around in my chest like this, but it was the best thing I could come up with. I hand him the chainsaw for good measure.
“Woah! Reed Morgan asking me for advice?” He grips the handle from my outstretched hand.
“Hard right, remember?” I wink at him.
“Look how far you’ve come, my friend.”
Friend? Finally. Except now I’m a friend who’s keeping a secret.
Judging by the size of these pines, this property has been here for years. A rickety fence with rotting wood stakes the perimeter. It’s going to be impossible not to collapse it with these tree breaks. I crane my neck, sizing up the skyscraper before me. Maybe asking for help wasn’t the worst idea; I’m not sure where to even begin.
He stalks the circumference with me. “You need to evaluate for disease, dead branches, rot, and the proximity of neighboring trees. What do you see?” he asks.
The most I determine from my clockwise rotation is the natural lean direction. Out of all the trees we could have come across, this one’s by far the healthiest.
“A southern lean,” I reply.
