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I clear my throat and answer in a deep voice. “No.”

He laughs. “Cheat.”

But I didn’t cheat. Because I wasn’t lying. I don’t have a crush on Archer anymore.

I’m in love with Archer.

“That’s all right,” he says. “I can already see the truth in your eyes.”

“Oh, can you?” I ask with a challenge.

“Yup. It’s as obvious as when I first picked you up in my truck on the side of the road.”

“You’re seeing things.”

“If by things, you mean you, falling for me, then yes, I am.”

I laugh.

“I’m falling for you, too, though, so no need to be embarrassed,” he says. “In fact. I’m confident enough to say I might be falling for you even harder.”

We fall silent, but a different world is just beginning to wake up. One of the horses nickers to the side of us. Crickets chirp loudly across the fields, welcoming the approaching darkness with their rhythmic humming. The first star appears in the sky, despite the light still glowing above the mountains, and the trees rustle in the wind, giving off their final colors of red, yellow, and orange before the night takes them.

I let out a deep sigh, the wind brushing past me. “I love this time of year. Summer’s great with all the barbecues and swimming and camping. It’s just...intense. In the fall, things slow down. Instead of everything being bright and stimulating and sun kissed, in October, it’s...autumn kissed.

“Autumn kissed. I like the sound of that.”

His eyes catch mine, an impish look within them.

I shake my head with a half-hearted warning. “Don’t look at me like that, Archer Kade.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want to make me as autumn kissed as the land.”

He grins. “Am I that transparent?”

“Yes, cowboy. You are.”

He tips his hat up. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, sunshine, you gotta stop calling me that.”

My heart skips a beat. “What? Cowboy?”

“It gets me all sorts of riled up.”

My heart slams against my chest at the heat in his eyes.

“You know what I wish sometimes?” he asks.

“What?”

“I wish I could redo when I picked you up on the side of the road. I would’ve dropped a line to ask you out before you’d even gotten into my truck.”

“What line would you have used?” I ask, relishing the way his attention makes my chest burn.

“Maybe...You look familiar. Have I seen you somewhere before? You know, other than my dreams?”

I drop my chin with an unimpressed look.