The question leaves my lips as the last of the trees give way, and the scene at Hartley’s plays out in front of me in slow motion.
Cathy’s arms are flailing. Hart’s right-hand man, Bobby, dives across the yard as if he’s about to catch a football pass. Oscar waddles as fast as his short legs will carry him across the lawn with a wild, slightly petrified look stamped on his face.
They’re all in pursuit of a little pink pig … headed straight for Cathy’s garden.
Hartley leans against his truck with his thick arms folded across his barreled chest and a carefully arched brow directed at me.
Oops.
CHAPTER
TWO
Mira
“I can explain,” I say before I’m even out of the car.
“I figured.”
The door swings closed behind me, and I shove my heart-shaped sunglasses onto the top of my head. In the distance, chaos continues to unfold. Shouts, shrieks, and the distinct sound of oinking create a cacophony of background sounds—how do I smooth this over?—but all that fades into oblivion as my gaze settles onhim.
The warmth from his deep brown eyes spread through my body—heating my chest, coloring my cheeks—coiling into analmosttoo tight ball in my core.
It’s unfair how well time treats him.
Hartley has always been devastatingly handsome—a fact I’m uncertain he knows, but he probably couldn’t care less if he did. The more years that pass, the better he becomes. He fills out the denim wrapped around his muscled thighs, and his shoulders are as broad as the barn behind him. And his mustache?Stupid hot.
His physical appearance is enough to throw any woman off kilter, but that’s not even his superpower.Thatlies in his charm. He has a seemingly effortless ability to …be. There’s no flash, no force, and absolutely no performance in anything he says or does. He’s just a quiet gravity that’s steady and grounding in a way I’ve only ever felt around him.
And it takes my breath away.Hetakes my breath away.Totally unfair.
“You better get to talkin’,” he says. There’s a twinkle in his eye, and I hope it’s from amusement and not the sun.
“So,” I say, coming to a stop in front of him. Whiffs of his understated cologne drift by like a welcome home committee. “I was at Oscar’s last night, and there was this little piglet …”
He drops his arms from across his chest. His head falls to the side as he peers down at me and sighs.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I say, my tone rising. “I panicked.”
“Youpanicked,” he says carefully. “So you decided to buy a pig?”
“No. I panicked because that baby was getting auctioned off to someone who would fatten him up and process him. It’s like he knew it—he knew his fate. And instead of just standing there looking cute, he chose life.” I talk even faster. “He raced around the arena, searching for an out. He knocked over a farmer and a card table, and I swear the little thing nearly had a heart attack. It was so sad.”
Hartley rolls his eyes.
“He wanted to live, Hart. What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Turn around? Don’t look?”
I groan. This isn’t going quite as well as I’d hoped—I usually get my way much quicker than this when it comes to Hartley. It certainly didn’t help that Oscar beat me to the ranch and the pig decided to make a run for it again. But, at the end of the day,none of that makes getting Hartley on board impossible. It just makes it a harder sell.
“Remember that time in middle school when Gray and Brooks caught those fireflies in a cup because someone told them they could remove the glowy part and put it in their hair?” I ask, trying another angle.
The corner of Hartley’s mouth tugs toward the sky for the briefest moment. But that’s all the assurance I need to continue.
“But you knew how sad that made me because I didn’t know if their parents would recognize them without their glowstick. You saw the tears in my eyes, and then conveniently got Gray and Brooks to run to the barn with you for something so I could accidentally knock over the cup and free the fireflies.” I smile sweetly up at him. “This is like that. Except people were gonna eat … Pigasso.”
“Pigasso?”
