“Just real talk!” she calls out as I drive away.
There’s part of me says that Momma is right. My experience with guys has been limited and what there’s been has not left me impressed.
So it’s a good thing there’s zero chance I’deverfall in love with Walker Rhodes.
I haven’t listened to a single song of his since our meetingby the lake. I’m petty enough to want to delete him off all my playlists, but that would take way more time than I want to waste on him.
I resolve to put him out of my mind, but it’s not easy considering that it’s his home I’m driving to.
My home, for the summer.
It's a thirty minute drive to the Rhodes' property line. Wild Rose Ranch. Every kid in Marble Falls grows up knowing about this place. You learn two things early: the mountains belong to everyone, and land like this only belongs to small town royalty. It's got to be the prettiest, not to mention priciest, piece of land in the whole county. Maybe even the whole state.
Walker got my phone number through Jane and texted me his address. No hello, no “nice to meet you,” literally just the address. I follow my phone navigation to it now.
A heavy iron gate marks the property line. Above it,Wild Rose Ranchis burned into the crossbeam in letters that have been here longer than I've been alive. There's a keypad mounted on a post at the driver's side window. I roll down my window and punch in the code Walker texted me. That was his second and final text message: a terse “key code” with the six digits after it.
The gate swings open.
It’s another five minutes of driving through the kind of land I grew up next to but never owned. Open meadows, hills covered in wildflowers and pine trees, mountains sharp against the sky. Wood fence line to keep in the grazing cattle and horses. A hawk flies overhead, riding thermals in the blue sky.
His house sits at the end of a long gravel drive, on a bluff overlooking the river. It looks like a new build. Not a huge place, but it's beautiful in that expensive, unfussy way: reclaimed wood siding, massive black steel windows, a widestone chimney. The kind of house that looks like it grew here out of the materials around it.
Beyond it, the land rolls out in open meadow to tree line, and then the mountains rise up so sudden and enormous you forget for a second what you came here for.
I remember quick, though.
Walker and Jonah are already on the front porch by the time I pull up. As soon as I come to a stop, Jonah scampers up to me. “Sadie! You’re really here!”
Grinning at him, I get out of the car. “Hey bud! I really am. I’m so excited to spend the summer with you.”
He gives me a shy smile. “Me too.”
There’s the sound of boots thumping on the dirt. I look up into Walker’s green eyes. There are shadows beneath them, as if he didn’t sleep, or he's been up since well before dawn. His hat is pulled low and he’s dressed in a faded blue t-shirt. There are two days of stubble on his jaw. He’s the kind of man who rolls out of bed looking like sin and has no idea, or at least pretends not to.
It's all deeply annoying.
“Sadie,” he says, in that deep velvety voice.
“Mr. Rhodes.”
Another flash in his eyes, quick as a lightning strike, at the way I sass him. He’d better get used to it. Just because I agreed to work for him doesn't mean I'm going to roll over and play nice.
But then Jonah’s tugging on my hand, saying, “Come on, let me show you my room.”
“Hang on a sec,” I say with a laugh. “I’m just gonna grab my bag.”
“I got it.” Walker’s already opening up the trunk and grabbing my stuff. The heavy suitcase I needed both handsand a small prayer to get into my trunk, he picks up like it's nothing. Like it weighs the same as a paperback.
I make a point of not noticing his forearms when he does it. Not the way they’re all corded and how they flex and those veins…
Nope, I don’t notice any of it.
“You two go on ahead,” Walker says. “I’ll take this to your room.”
I come around to Walker’s side and grab the dinosaur blanket, the one he wrapped me up in by the lake. It’s freshly laundered now and I drape it around his shoulders.
“Every hero needs a cape,” I say archly.
