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The end of the rope caught in the V of a fallen log looks frayed, possibly from Hellboy dragging it through the brush.
Quinn gently folds an arm around the animal’s back, and we work together to get the rope off the goat’s horns and cut away from the log.
“You poor little monster,” I whisper, stroking his fur. “Hang on, you’re almost free…”
A few frantic seconds later, he’s out of his predicament.
Hellboy bumps my arm and bleats, softly but purposefully, as if to say thanks.
Then he turns and scrambles out of the brush, back toward the safety of the tribe.
Something about his woes seem extra unsettling.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed he’s basically become the self-proclaimed leader of the tribe. Who knew goats were such social creatures?
Whatever else Hellboy is, he’s shown his intelligence repeatedly. And to see the black shaggy alpha-goat with the wicked smile almost brought to a humiliating end…
It’s too suspicious.
Something stinks to high heaven.
“Where would that rope come from?” I ask, frowning so hard my face hurts. “The Neumans haven’t used this land in ages.”
“Hard to say,” Quinn replies while wrapping the rope’s remnants into a coil. “Could’ve just been lying around, an old artifact from years ago, maybe. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
His voice is too level.
I stop and study him.
No way he believes that, and neither do I, yet neither of us say it as we walk to the truck.
I hadn’t pushed him to chase the red truck to the lake, either, because I’m not sure I want to know if that guy is part of Quinn’s past or not.
What happened to him? I wonder. All of those years we spent apart?
There’s this shadow hanging over him, dark with secrets.
No, he hasn’t mentioned anything more about the brother of that guy he’d busted, but I have a pretty keen sense he thinks about it a lot.
The last week has been so incredible, turning my world upside down, I just didn’t want to dwell on it.
Still, the pinholes of darkness in our light are there.
When he thinks I’m asleep, I catch him up, staring into the night.
I see a lonely, faraway look in his restless green eyes, an anxiousness, and I know he’s not thinking pleasant thoughts.
That worries me.
“Before we head home, I need to stop by Drake and Bella’s place,” Quinn says as we arrive at the truck.
“Okay.” I hold open the back door for Owl to jump in the back before I get in the front.
I saw what he was doing.
Quinn was examining the ground the entire time we walked to the gate, and now he’s paying an eerie amount of attention to the gravel road.
He doesn’t say anything when he climbs in the driver’s seat.
Just leans over, grasps the back of my neck, and pulls me toward him.
“You okay, Tory?”
“Perfectly fine,” I lie, flashing him a side-eye. “Are you?”
“If Hellboy’s all right, so am I. I’m in no mood to come here and find a man down—er, goat, I guess.” He gives me that boyish smile then, the same kind he always wore when we were kids.
God.
You’ve got to appreciate just how hard it is to stay mad at him.
I don’t complain when he leans in, delivering a long, sweet kiss. So very different from the storming inferno of tongue and teeth this morning.
As he pulls away and starts the engine, he gives me a wink.
I let out a long sigh as I lean back in my seat, wishing this weren’t so hard.
His kisses, like the rest of him, are unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in all the best, masculine, oh-so-growly ways.
If only his secrets, whatever he’s hiding, didn’t feel equally devastating.
Drake and Bella’s ranch is only a few miles away from the dairy. They walk out of their house as Quinn shuts off the truck.
Bella freaking glows like her skin can’t hold anymore sun. It’s a throwback to how she looked when we were young—petite, pretty, and bubbly as ever—except now she has a round stomach from the new baby they’ll be welcoming into the world in a few months. Their second child.
Her pregnancy wasn’t as noticeable at the rodeo as it is today.
Or maybe she’s just one of those girls who starts showing big-time a few weeks apart.
Confession: I’m a little jealous.
Surprising, really. I’ve never thought of having kids before. My focus was always dancing, dancing, and more dancing. How could I live that dream with a baby to look after?
Whoever said to dream big wasn’t thinking it through.
I’m dreaming as big as it gets—a sudden vision of myself as a mother with one special, achingly handsome Oklahoma snarlypants husband by my side—and it sucks.
Because baby dream collides headfirst with ballet dream.
Because some dreams get so big and overgrown they become binary choices.
And right now, the director job waiting back home with a life and man who trigger my gag reflex feels like a phantom from another life.
