by Lexie Davis
“It looks good, right?” Aubree smeared a streak of blue paint along his wall. “I think you should really do woodsy things in here. Give it a rustic appeal.”
“You’re the designer.” He stared at her while she rolled more paint on the wall.
He couldn’t even begin to understand how Aubree Grace Manning became so damn important in his life. He loved her presence, loved that she brought joy and life wherever she went.
“It’s your house. You have to have some say.”
He leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room. “I’ve lived here two years with peeling wallpaper, no appliances, and a shitty looking front porch.”
“Point taken.” She glanced over at him as she dipped the roller brush in the paint. “Did you ever let anyone inside?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “My dad came over to check on me. Sometimes he brought Jim. Colton’s been here a few times to use my weights. I don’t think Holt and Doug have ever been here—not until you got appliances for me anyway.”
“Awe. I’m the first girl you let in your house.”
“You were the first girl to do a lot of things with me.”
She grinned, scraping her lower lip with her teeth. She rolled more paint on the wall and dipped the brush back in the pan.
“I wasn’t the first girl you kissed.”
He pushed off the wall. “No. That title belongs to Missy Callaghan.”
“You weren’t the first guy I kissed either.” Aubree set the roller brush down and admired her handy work. “That honor belongs to Colton.”
“Someone dared you to do it.”
“Tasha.” She laughed. “The poor guy was scared to death.”
He took the roller brush and rolled some paint onto the wall. “He told me. Said you tried to choke him with your tongue.”
She scoffed. “That’s a lie. He pulled away before I could even French him.”
Parker rolled the brush along the white wall. His stomach growled, but he knew if he didn’t paint at least one wall Aubree would be up all night doing it herself.
“I wasn’t your first,” Aubree commented.
He dipped the roller in the paint. “No and that’s probably the one of my biggest regrets in life.”
“Why?”
“Everything meant so much more with you.” Parker shrugged as he rolled the paint on the white spots of the wall. “I was the star quarterback. All the guys thought it was weird I hadn’t done much sexually. It got in my head. I wanted to do everything—and I do mean everything.”
“You had what? Four lovers before me?”
“Yeah. How do you remember that?”
“Some things stick.”
He glanced over at her. Her expression didn’t reveal a lot, but he wondered if the situation was the foundation for her insecurities. He’d been so stupid back then. She’d been thinking of anything but sex and he liked that about her. He liked that he could spend time with her and simply enjoy it.
“I’m hardly your only lover.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “True.”
He set the brush aside. “What happened in Dallas? You said you tried dating. What happened there?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do we have to talk about that?”
“Hey, we’ve been doing a lot of candid talk about life, love, and feelings today. Spill it.”
She avoided looking at him. “I dated a guy I worked with during my internship. It moved really fast. Faster than I was prepared for.” She knelt to pour more paint in the pan. “I was so used to being comfortable with you. You never pushed the issue. Sex always happened naturally. You told me you loved me and held me when it was over.”
Parker didn’t like where she was going with this. He watched her continue to paint the walls, though she didn’t speak.
“It was the second date. We had drinks. He invited me to his apartment. It happened. He kicked me out afterward.” She pushed the paint into the wall as she rolled it. “I overheard him the next day bragging about being with me. Told the guys in the office that I was an easy lay. All they had to do was liquor me up first and watch my panties drop. They had a bet going on of who I’d screw next. Some guys even got a little rowdy in the office. One grabbed my boob.”
Parker reached for the paint brush from her. “Did you tell anyone?”
“My dad.” She chuckled. “I think he was loading his shotgun before I even finished speaking. Said Tom had his back.”
She sat on the coffee table and stared at the wall. “I didn’t date for a while after that. I wanted to focus on my career. My friends said I was weird, so I ended up going out with another guy. He was actually nice to begin with. With him, it seemed like I had to keep up this persona that eventually became a second job. He didn’t like me unkempt. I was sick as a dog—chills, vomiting, fever. He stood in the bathroom with me for five minutes drilling me on whether or not I was pregnant. When I’d finally convinced him I wasn’t trying to trap him with a kid, he completely turned around. He had invited some friends over and actually asked me to fix myself up so I didn’t embarrass him.”
Parker hated the look on her face, hated that some asshole had added to her insecurities. “What happened?”
“We broke up.” She finally looked at him. “I lived in his apartment and couldn’t move into my current penthouse for a month. So I stayed in a hotel. My mom was so mad that he acted that way, especially while I was sick. She came to stay with me for a week just until I felt better. I could barely move. She had to drive me to the doctor because I couldn’t take care of myself. I was pretty sure I was dying—or it felt that way anyway. I’d never been that sick in my life.”
He walked over to the coffee table and sat next to her. “You had some shitty boyfriends.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “Yeah. My dad loathed the idea of me getting married to either one. I think he was afraid I’d call him and say I was pregnant or engaged.”
“I’m glad you were neither.”
She smiled. “Do you like the color? It looks darker as the daylight fades. Maybe it’s too dark.”
“It looks fine.” He slipped his hand along her thigh. “Can we eat now?”
She laughed. “Are you starving?”
“Yes.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You’re not going to wither away.”
“You never know.”
She kissed him before she stood. “What do you want? I think I want to try this casserole. It smells good from here and it’s wrapped up in the oven.”
“That’s fine.” He stood and grabbed his cell phone. He’d turned it off for the day and when he checked his messages, he had around a hundred. He shook his head and followed her into the kitchen.
“This is my life.” He played the first message, holding the phone beside her as she scooped the casserole onto plates for them. “Sheriff, it’s Bill. The Dougless’s goats are on my dang property again, and I’ve told him to get them or I’d shoot them. He told me to eff off. Can you give him a ticket or arrest him?”
The next message clicked on. “Sheriff, this is Gwen. I need to talk to you about the speeding ticket I got on my way home from El Paso. Can you give me a call back?”
The next message started the moment that finished. “Sheriff, Riley told me you were sick and I thought she was joking. Since you’re not answering your phone, I’m going to assume she was telling the truth. Are you okay? Please call me back.”
Another message began. “I know you’re with my daughter. Will you tell her to call me? She’s not answering her phone.”
Parker cringed. “Uh, well, that one was for you.”
She reached for his phone. “That was three hours ago.” She dialed her father back as she popped the plates in the microwave.
“Hey, Daddy. We just got your message.” She folded the aluminum foil back over the dish. “No. Parker had a headache and took the day off. He was resting most of the day while I stripped the wal
lpaper and painted his living room. We turned the phones off because the noise bothered him. People kept calling before they started stopping by.”
He didn’t know what Jim said, but her brow furrowed.
“Okay. I’ll be over after we eat.” When she finally hung up, she rolled her eyes. “He needs my help at the ranch. One of the guys quit on him or something and he’s in a foul mood.”
“You want me to go with you?”
She grinned. “You can, but then you’ll have to deal with my father questioning you about why you’re not in bed basically dying. And then he’ll ask you if you were playing hooky so that you could spend time with me. And then…”
“I get the picture.”
“I think you can busy yourself with answering a few of those messages. How many did they leave you?”
He glanced at his phone. “I have over one hundred and we listened to four.”
“Yeah. Looks like we’re both working tonight.”
“You coming back home or staying there?”
She took a bite of the food. “I don’t know. It depends on what I have to do and how long it takes. I may be too tired to leave.”
He didn’t like the idea of that but kept his thoughts to himself. He could survive one night without her. Probably. Maybe. He searched through the fridge for something to drink and chose a beer. If she was leaving, then he was sitting outside on the porch and enjoying the sunset.
“Where are you going?” Aubree asked.
“Outside.” He glanced at the romper she wore. “If you’re going to work on the ranch, you’d better change. You’ll be flashing everyone around in that thing.”
She licked her fingers. “You are actually preventing me from showing my boobs?”
“I like private parties. Not public exhibition.”
“Ah. For your eyes only, then?”
“Exactly.” Parker stared at her breasts and watched her nipples harden beneath the thin cotton. “And put a bra on.”
Her laughter followed him as he went out on the porch. He sat in his chair with his food and beer. They had three more days together. Three more blissful days of heaven and then everything went back to hell.
“Will you do me a favor?” She walked out on the porch with her purse. She’d chosen a T-shirt with tight jeans and boots. She’d pulled her hair back and didn’t wear a drop of makeup. To him, she looked so damn sexy. “I need to take those dishes back to Ms. Malloy. I forgot to do it today. Will you do it, or at least remind me to do it tomorrow?”
“I’ll take care of it.” He drank from his beer. “You look too gorgeous for ranching. You’re just going to get dirty.”
“It’s all I have. Pants for ranching. Shorts for everyday.” She glanced down at her attire. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. You’re just pretty, that’s all. You look like you’re going on a date or something.”
“You know our dates usually don’t involve clothes.” She kissed him. “Behave while I’m gone.”
“I’m the Sheriff. When am I ever allowed to misbehave?”
“You do it all the time.” She stroked his jaw before walking to her car. He watched her go and felt a harsh pang in his chest.
The woman was easily the love of his life. He wanted to believe that, somehow, they’d get their happy ending. He just didn’t know the specifics yet.
****
“I know what you’ve been doing all day.” Her father was waiting for her outside when she parked her car. “After crying to me about your fight, you stayed the entire day locked inside his house making up.”
She pocketed her keys. “We did make up and it wasn’t really a fight. We simply needed to talk some things out.”
Her father folded his arms over his chest. “It’s all the same. You fed the animals, right?”
“This morning.”
“We got two horses missing since about an hour ago. I had one ranch hand quit on me around lunch. I’ve been trying to call you.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m here now. What do you want me to do?
“Help me find those damn horses.” He tossed her the keys to the four wheeler.
She walked around the house and climbed on the blue four wheeler she always rode. It was muddy from someone else’s previous adventures and undoubtedly another pair of good jeans would be ruined.
“What ground do you want me to cover?”
“I don’t know anymore. We’ve looked all over this place. Take a radio and keep in touch. They’ve got to be here somewhere unless someone flat out stole them.”
Aubree went inside to grab a radio from the kitchen. Her father was in a foul mood, so she didn’t offer any deviations from the plan. They didn’t have much sunlight left and they needed to make the most of it.
She straddled the ATV and started the engine. The horses liked to run in the open field if given the chance. Sometimes they got caught in the wooded lot where the mud grew thicker and turned into quicksand. She headed that way first.
The beautiful Texas landscape made her smile as she rode through the fields. Her father owned quite a bit of land and used it to raise cattle for sale. He was pretty good at it too. She turned toward the little narrow path that led into the woods. She didn’t think it had rained that bad so the mud shouldn’t have been an issue. She searched for any sign of the horses. The hot summer day could have pushed them into the foliage to take cover from the heat.
“Aubree?” Her radio beeped. “What’s your status?”
She picked up the radio and pushed the button on the side. “Woods. There’s nothing here.”
“Be careful. We don’t have much daylight.”
“I will.”
The deeper she went the darker it got. Just on the other side of the woods sat a main watering hole the animals liked to graze. It wasn’t uncommon for them to get lost in the wooded acreage on her father’s property. She stopped the ATV, spotting a deep mud trench in front of her. There was no way she could go through it without the probability of getting stuck.
She glanced around. There wasn’t much room to turn around, but she had to try. She angled the wheels to the right and turned very carefully through the uncharted ground to go back in the opposite direction. Darkness grew thicker as the sun went down. She followed the untouched land until she saw a trail.
Her father’s property was vast and beautiful. She loved growing up on the ranch and all that came with it. From an early age, she worked hard. Her father always told her that the animals depended on her and one day her boss would depend on her in the same way. Little did she understand at the time how true that statement was.
She rode and rode for what felt like forever. The trail into the woods hadn’t been that long, and she didn’t think she had gotten turned around. The thick brush shielded her from truly knowing her whereabouts. If she did get turned around on the wrong trail, then she could be heading deeper into the woods instead of out.
“Daddy?” She spoke into her radio.
The radio buzzed with static. She huffed a breath. She wasn’t horrible with directions. She didn’t normally get turned around so easily. She went the very route she came, though the end of the wooded area wasn’t near.
So she stopped. Glancing around at the thick brush, each tree looked like the other. There wasn’t any sense of real direction, and while she didn’t think she got off track, it was possible. She frowned, frustrated that she’d made a rookie mistake. She’d been through the woods so many times. How could she not know where she was?
She glanced behind her, noticing that her tracks were the only ones on the ground. She groaned aloud. It was too dark to follow them back to the mud pit. And if she spent the next few minutes looking for the main tracks she could get even more lost than she already was.
Her father always taught her to stay put and radio for help, but radios weren’t working either. The night was hot and humid. And while she hated the thought of being lost, the idea of being in the muggy air made it worse. S
he wasn’t staying out there all night. Going against her better judgment, she decided to look for the main tracks. She went slow, staring at the ground as she angled the ATV back toward what she thought was the house. A horse whinnied and she glanced up, spotting one of the missing beasts looking just as lost as she was.
“It’s okay, girl.” She got off the four wheeler and walked over to the horse. “It’s okay.”
She petted it and grabbed its reigns. “Somebody saddled you up and let you go.”
She walked back to the ATV, hating the thought that in a few minutes, it’d be dark enough that she couldn’t see. She grabbed her radio and pushed the button again.
“Daddy? Please answer me.”
Nothing.
“Well that was useless.” She pulled out her cellphone next.
No service.
She tugged on the horse’s reigns and it thumped its foot. Looking down at it, Aubree saw the mud caked in its hoof. Cleaning it out would be a task and with the dwindling daylight, she didn’t know how well she could do it on her own. She glanced down at her phone, thankful for the light it provided. She’d been out there for nearly thirty minutes and had no way of reaching out to her father for help.
The wind picked up, blowing the trees around her. The summer heat faded quite drastically when the nighttime set in and she wished she brought a blanket with her. Or a jacket. Aubree glanced around, looking for a small stick to dig the mud out with and bent to work on the horse.
“Come on, girl. Easy.” She scraped the mud from the hoof the best she could with what she had. “Can you walk?”
She pulled at the horse’s reigns and it moved. It still had trouble, but at least it was able to walk enough to hopefully get back home. She went to the ATV and grabbed the keys. Eerie silence surrounded her. She tried walking the horse through the woods, but it resisted, tugging back on the reigns.
“What’s wrong now?” She angled her phone toward the horse’s legs and saw that its back hoof was caught in a mud pit.
