“I’m not trying to make it hard. I just… I hate the idea of you leaving. It feels wrong.”
“It feels wrong to me too,” she says. “But it’s necessary.”
“Is it?”
She pulls her hand back and crosses her arms.
“I have to go,” she says. “Clara will be back soon. We have to pack.”
She pushes off the fence. She starts walking toward the house.
But I can’t just let her walk away.
“Sedona,” I call out.
She stops. She turns.
I want to tell her. I want to tell her that I’ve been in love with her since I was fifteen. I want to tell her that I’m not Billy. I’m not Seth.
I’m not angry or steady. I’m just me. The wild one. The one who would ride a bull through a wall of fire just to see her smile.
But the words stick in my throat.
“Be careful packing,” I say lamely. “Don’t lift anything heavy.”
She smiles. It’s a sad smile. “I won’t.”
She turns and walks away.
I stand there, alone in the pasture, the cows low in the distance.
I feel like an idiot.
Billy and Seth might be willing to let her go. They might be too proud, too hurt, or too respectful to fight for her.
But not me.
I don’t know how to quit. I don’t know how to back down.
If she wants to go back to New York, fine. But she’s going to know exactly what she’s leaving behind.
And maybe she’ll decide that the life she built isn’t as good as the one she could have here.
I turn and head for the barn. I need to find Jasper. I need to know the schedule for the fair.
I have one week.
One week to show her that the wild brother might just be the one worth staying for.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sedona
I’m in the barn,lying on a bed of hay that feels like silk. Hands are everywhere.
One set is rough, callused, sliding up my thigh. Another is smooth, firm, tangling in my hair. I smell pine and leather and rain.
Billy is there. His blue-gray eyes bore into mine, his jaw tight. He whispers my name against my throat.
