Lennon Graves had been lying since the first day she came to Mercy River Ranch.
14
LENNON
For the firsttime since I’d arrived at Mercy River, the sun managed to beat me to rising. Staying out past nine o’clock might have had something to do with it.
That, and the horny, frustrated thoughts that kept me tossing and turning for another hour after I turned off my audiobook.
But then I’d slept and slept well. I woke up in an insanely good mood.
He kissed me.
The thought popped into my head with a giddy giggle before I’d even opened my eyes. I rolled onto my stomach and screamed into my pillow, kicking my feet under the covers.
He kissed me.
I wanted to dance around the room, singing songs to squirrels like a Disney princess or something. Because that kiss…that was some fairytale shit.
I hadn’t even known kissing could feel like that. Sure, I’d seenThe Princess Bride. I’d read books. I’d even heard people talk about it in real life. But I’d always figured they were…I don’t know…making shit up. You couldn’treallylose your mind with the need to rip someone’s clothes off and pull them inside youright fucking nowjust from a kiss.
You could, it turned out.
Icould.
That was a wholly new experience for me. I’d always enjoyed sex. I liked the men I was with, even if my favorite thing about them was their bank account. Sex had felt good. Kissing was perfunctory but enjoyable. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was missing out on anything.
But now I knew. I was missing out on Jeremiah.
It was like living in Alaska your whole life, thinking you knew how summer felt, and then visiting Florida in July.
A fucking epiphany, that’s what his kiss was.
I threw back the covers and hopped out of bed. It was Amos and Cecily’s day off, which made it mine, too—a weird way to think about it when the ranch wasn’tpaying me to cook—and Emma had invited me over for lunch with Grace and Blair.
But that was a few hours away. Maybe I’d shower, eat breakfast at the lodge, and then go find Jeremiah for a riding lesson. Get him to teach me cowgirl shit. Real cowgirl shit, not how to save a cowboy—although that was an appealing way to spend the morning. But I’d been at the ranch for nearly two weeks and had yet to spend even a second on the back of a horse. Actually, I’d never been on a horse before. It looked like fun, though. I wanted to give it a try.
The buzz of my phone startled me. I’d turned it off every night after listening to an audiobook and stuck it in the nightstand drawer so I wouldn’t think about it. Hector didn’t want me on social media until Benny’s mess was over, but I knew if my phone was on or within reach I wouldn’t be able to resist scrolling. Last night I’d forgotten to turn it off.
I glanced down at my phone.Mom. Heaving a sigh, I answered, putting her on speaker. “Hi, Mom. What are you doing up this early?”
“Early?” Mom’s voice was raspy from decades of smoking. “It’s nine a.m. Some of us have respectable jobs, Lennon.”
Right. There was a two-hour time difference between Virginia and Wyoming. I ignored the dig about my profession and said, “How are you?”
The real question waswhat do you want?But I knewshe’d get to that eventually. She always did. She liked to work up to it first. Give me a sob story I couldn’t say no to.
“Someone called for you,” she said, surprising me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She huffed, as if I were being purposefully dense. “I mean, someone calledmyphone to ask if you were around.”
I frowned. “Around…Virginia?”
“Yes, Lennon. Obviously.” I heard the metallic flick of her lighter and then a deep inhale. “People are worried about you.”
“What people? Who’s worried about me?” I demanded. Benny knew where I was, and no one else would care. I wasn’t a loner, but I had acquaintances, not friendships. People I went to Pilates with or brunch. Honestly, my social media followers were more likely to notice my absence than anyone in my offline life, which was why I had pre-scheduled posts for the month.
