The dream starts at the gravesite. People crowd around the casket, dressed in black, heads bowed. A cold wind sweeps through the cemetery, carrying whispers through the twisted branches overhead.
Everything moves in a slow rhythm. The pastor’s voice drifts through the air, too soft to understand.
Sedona stands where she stood earlier, her shoulders trembling as she stares down at the casket. Her hair lifts in the wind, brushing her cheek. Her hands hang at her sides like she has nothing left to hold onto.
Then something shifts.
The man beside her is gone. The blond one. The stranger who held her hand at the service.
Instead, I’m the one standing at her side.
Her hand slips into mine, warm and delicate, fingers curling around my palm. The contact shoots heat up my arm. Her body leans toward me, not collapsing, just finding a place to rest. A place that feels right.
I pull her closer, my thumb brushing the inside of her wrist. Her breath catches. Her head drops to my shoulder.
My heart pounds so hard it feels like it might break something inside my chest. I tilt my head, inhaling the scent of her hair, a mix of citrus and something sweet I can’t name.
The wind rises. Dust swirls around our feet. The casket lowers into the earth. And Sedona presses closer, her voice trembling as she whispers my name.
A rush floods me, powerful and overwhelming. My arms tighten around her.
The dream shatters.
I jerk awake with a gasp, my chest heaving. Sweat clings to my skin. My sheets twist around my waist like I fought them in my sleep.
The room feels cold, and my breath moves out in ragged pulls.
My hand drags over my face, catching the harsh exhale that tears out of me. There’s a dull ache low in my stomach. My body remembers the dream in ways I wish it didn’t.
I sit up slowly. The moonlight slants across the wooden floor, and the shadows stretch long. My pulse refuses to settle.
Seeing her again after five years wrecked something I thought I buried. I had a crush on her when I was younger. Hell, everyone did—she’d step onto the bleachers, and half the boys on the football team would trip on their own feet.
But it was harmless then. Juvenile. And once she started dating Billy, I kicked the feeling to the curb. I had to.
Today, though… today something broke open.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My feet touch the floor. My palms press into my thighs.
It was the hug. The smell of her hair. The way she whispered my name earlier at the house when she realized Boone still remembered her.
The way her eyes softened when she saw me. How her body fit in my arms like it was instinct.
I grit my teeth and shake my head, hard enough to jolt the thoughts loose. I need to get over that. Whatever this is, whatever my body thinks it’s doing, it ends now.
Sedona might not be Billy’s anymore, but she sure belongs somewhere else. To someone else. To a life far outside this ranch.
My heart hammers once, twice, refusing to let the thought settle. The feeling churns inside me, raw and insistent, as if it wants to claw its way out.
I stand, dragging a shirt on over my head. Boone lifts his head from his bed in the corner, ears twitching. I scratch the top of his head, then open the door to let him follow me into the hallway.
The house is calm, shadows stretching across the walls. Billy’s door is cracked open a sliver, pale light spilling through. Seth’s room is dark.
The floor creaks under my feet as I move toward the kitchen.
I open the fridge and grab another beer, the bottle cool in my hand. Boone sits beside me, leaning his side against my leg. I rest a hand on his head.
The beer tastes bitter tonight. I take a long drink and close my eyes.
