“A scenic little morning walk, barefoot and in a hoodie that’s not yours?” A low laugh slips out of him. “You’re a terrible liar.”
My heart stutters, a combination of fear and the final ebbing waves of my post-Wesley high.
“You’re observant for someone who just woke up.”
He jerks his chin at me. “Whose is it? Wes’s?”
Fuck.
“No.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “Landon’s?”
My brain has been replaced with scrambled eggs, completely useless. Words are dry on my tongue. I open and close my mouth several times, briefly contemplating throwing myself down the stairs.
Say something, Sadie. Anything.
“Lydia would have some very strong opinions about me fucking her brother,” I blurt.
The second the words leave my lips, my insides shrivel.
Anything but that.
Emmett blinks, taken aback, then his mouth twitches as he leans back against the wall, crossing his arms. His gaze sweeps over me again, slow and amused. “Well, it’s not mine, since you’re apparently fucking whoever it belongs to—and I’d remember if it were me.”
I stiffen, pulse flickering hard beneath my skin. I can practically see the gears turning in his head. The amusement slips, fading into something closer to realization. His eyes narrow, then widen just a fraction.
“Oh,shit. Please tell me you’re not sleeping with one of the fuckers in the bunkhouse.”
My stomach plummets through the floor as nausea curdles hot in my throat, humiliation and panic twisting together so tight I can’t separate them. My fingers curl around the hem at my thigh.
The hallway tilts, the walls closing in. That familiar roar starts in my ears, the beginning of a spiral I have no grip on.
“I—I gotta go.”
He watches me for another beat, his brow furrowed. Then he exhales, rubbing a palm over his face. “Okay, sure. Probably better off not knowing. I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t see…this.”
I move past him, slipping into my room with shaky hands. The door clicks shut behind me, but not before I hear him muttering to himself, “What kind of walk requires no pants?”
It’shot.
The kind of mid-July heat that sticks to your skin, thick and unrelenting. Sweat trickles down my back and my tank top clings to me, but I don’t mind. There’s something steadying about it, like the weight of summer pressing down.
The air hums with the buzz of cicadas. Dust drifts through shafts of sunlight, swirling each time a horse shifts in their stall.
Iris is lying in the middle of the breezeway, gnawing on a buffalo horn Wesley bought for her. Her training has come a long way, but she still needs a lot of work. I’m sad I won’t be here to see her become the amazing dog I know she’ll be.
Most of the guests and staff are in the lodge for lunch, leaving the ranch in a rare moment of peaceful stillness.
It’s just me, the horses, and nothing but uninterrupted time to overthink everything I’ve ever done and said.
Pausing for a much-needed break, I grab my water bottle that’sconvenientlyright next to Wesley’s hoodie.
I stupidly tossed it on a bale this morning, right out in the open, literally asking to get caught. I shouldn’t have even kept iton, but a part of me wanted to surround myself with his scent for as long as I possibly could, even if it meant risking a heatstroke once the sun came out.
Stupid. So, so stupid.
“Hey.”
