“Bull. I could bench-press two of you without breaking a sweat.” I reach the bottom and start up the other side. “I’ve seen how you’re favoring that leg after hanging off the gate like a monkey. No sense in making anything worse.”
“It’s just sore,” she whines, her long lashes fluttering against my cheek.
Fuck.
“It’s injured, Peach. No point in putting more strain on it. Or do you want to double your recovery time? I’ve seen how nasty it gets tearing up the same muscle.”
By the time we’re back on the other side and reach the road, I’m wondering if I’ll ever be the same.
She smells as fresh as the air, and holding her like this has my blood roaring through my veins.
It can’t be her, I tell myself. You just haven’t gotten laid since the Stone Age.
Not since that fucking disaster in Oklahoma City, anyway, and I turned in my Special Agent badge.
“There. You’re welcome,” I tell her, planting her gently on the ground again.
“Well, thanks.” She throws her hands out at her sides, slapping her thighs. “Thank you, Quinn, for all your help today. I’d still be stranded on that gate if you hadn’t stopped by.”
“Give yourself some credit. You’d have figured something out, but helping you has been nothing but my pleasure. Damn good to see you again, Tory.”
That’s the full truth.
Shit, I can’t remember the last time I felt this good, this content.
I walk over and close the trailer door for her, then lift up the ramp.
She slides the bolt latch into place, still wearing this sunny smile I linger on a little too long. “Maybe whenever we bump heads again, I won’t look like such an idiot next time.”
“We will, because you’re gonna call me when it’s time to pick up your goats.” I wink at her. “It takes two people to manage that gate. No sense in having Tobin dirty his hands out here, either. He has a little bit of leg trauma left over from this dustup at the ranch about a year ago.”
She laughs as she turns, throwing a saucy, too-friendly smile back over her shoulder. “Careful, Quinn. I might just take you up on that offer.”
Careful is right.
Scratching the back of my neck—and this time I don’t think it’s a mosquito—I walk to the cab of her truck. “Where’s your phone?”
“In the door pocket. Why?”
I pop the door open, fish out the phone, and hand it to her. “Open up your contacts and I’ll punch in my number. It’s your lucky day. Most folks I give this number to are paying clients, but for you and your goats, it’s free.”
She rolls her eyes. After a couple of swipes on the screen, she hands it back to me.
I tap in my name and number and hit save before handing it back.
“Faulk?” She reads it and looks up at me.
“That’s what everyone calls me now.”
Her brows knit together as she stares at me, her mouth forming a confused O.
“I don’t know.” Shaking her head, she grins and looks at me. “You’ll always be Quinn Faulkner to me.”
“We all change, Tory, but I’ll answer to any of my aliases.” I give her a joking wink and have to look away because my mind is going places it damn well shouldn’t. “Let me get the passenger door for Owl.”
I say goodbye once the dog climbs in the truck, then shut the door and walk to my truck.
She drives forward, lurches up the road, and then backs the trailer in with precision. Then she pulls out and heads toward the highway down the long winding drive Ridge complains about non-stop in the winter when it becomes an impassable wall of snow.
We’re going in the same direction.
Damn. Tory Coffey.
I’ve thought about her plenty over the years, wondering whatever became of the girl who made my summers here a lot more exciting.
We all change, just like I told her.
For a second, I think I slipped back into that goofy, easygoing boy I used to be. The one she knew like her own shadow those summers half a lifetime ago.
I wish that’s who I could be.
Trouble is, it doesn’t last, and I’m right back to being the man I’ve become—the man she’d be afraid of.
If she only knew what kind of haunted, bitter wraith I’ve become as Faulk, hiding my grief behind the odd flash of humor, I think she’d never speak to me again.
If I’ve checked my phone once for messages and missed calls since yesterday morning, I’ve checked it a hundred times.
Literally lost count of how many times I’ve glanced at the screen.
Tory hasn’t called.
I’d expected her to after checking on the goats in the morning, but maybe she doesn’t go out there till afternoons. I’d called Ridge while driving to the highway with her in Dean’s truck and told him he had to put a walking bridge over the ditch before somebody snaps their neck.