Moose was wagging his whole body, looking as wrecked as I felt.
I turned to Sienna. Her hair was plastered to her skull, face streaked with red clay.
"You should shower first," I said. "You look like hell."
"You really know how to make a woman feel special."
I shrugged. "I just watched you pull a calf out of a ditch. You don’t need me to make you feel special."
That pulled a tired laugh out of her. She climbed out and headed for the house. Moose gave one last bark, shook a spray of brown water across my truck door, and trotted up the stairs behind her.
I sat in the truck for another minute, the rain drumming the roof until it slowed to nothing.
I was supposed to be running her off, not hauling calves with her. Not noticing she was funny, or tough.
Cody was tomorrow. I needed my head on straight. Couldn’t afford to start wanting her to stay.
six
. . .
SIENNA
The drive to Cody took three hours. Even with the windows rolled all the way down, the hot wind blasting through the cab didn’t help. The sun was baking the road ahead like a frying pan.
Brock had cleaned the worst of yesterday’s mud out of the truck, but it was still damp. We had to throw some old bedsheets over the seats so we wouldn’t ruin our clothes. I’d offered to take my rental Subaru instead—clean and air-conditioned—but he’d shut that idea down right away.
So there we were, sweating on faded floral sheets.
The first part of the trip had been gorgeous. Thick green pine forests rolled by, and the cab smelled fresh and sweet, but the second we came down out of the mountains, everything changed.
It was like someone flipped a switch. Suddenly it was just dry brown hills, mile after mile of fence posts, and a pale, washed-out sky. A country station played quietly in the background, but the signal was spotty. It kept cutting out to static.
Brock’s cowboy hat sat on the console between us like a wall. It was bright white with crisp stitching along the brim, and it looked newer than the one he usually wore.
“You’ve been tapping your foot for ten minutes,” he said. “You know you can read, right?”
I looked over at him. His arm was stretched across the wheel, forearm veined and tanned from the sun. His mouth twitched with how long he'd been sitting on that.
"Huh?"
“Your book.” He nodded toward the bag in my lap. “I saw it in there. You don’t have to stare at scrub brush for the next hour.”
My face went hot. That cover, and that smug grin he’d given me after he saw it.
"I'm fine," I said. "I like scrub brush."
He glanced at me, the corner of his mouth already curving. “You’re still jumpy from last time.”
“I’m not jumpy.”
“What was the guy wearing again? A skirt?”
“It was a kilt,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
He let out a short breath through his nose. “Right.”
“We’re changing the subject.”
