My fingers tighten around my keys. “What’s the right question?”
“Question ain’t who opened it.” His mouth curves. “Question is whether he’s got the nerve to walk through.”
Heat crawls up the back of my neck, and I hate that he can probably see it even in the dark. “I’m just meeting a friend in town,” I repeat.
“Sure,” he says, easy as anything.
The worst part is, he doesn’t sound like he’s mocking me. He sounds like he already knows why I’m leaving.
I take another step down the stairs. “Goodnight.”
“Drive safe,” he says.
I jog down the porch steps and cross the yard to my Bronco. The door groans when I pull it open, and the familiar smell of leather hits me as I climb in. I shove the key into the ignition, and the engine turns over with a growl. For a second, I sit there with my hands on the wheel, staring past the windshield at the dark stretch of drive leading away from the house.
Do I go back inside, or do I walk through the damn door?
I don’t know if I’m walking through it or driving straight into trouble, but I throw the Bronco in gear anyway and head toward town.
I casually glance around the small bar and take a drink from the beer bottle in my hand. A pretty brunette across the room smiles at me, but I'm not interested. Doesn't surprise me. There's only one woman on my mind—Cat. My attention shifts and settles on Cat instead. Like I have for the past hour since she walked into the bar, I watch her. I haven't stopped thinking about her since I arrived. Cat is the first person I think about in the morning, and her face is the final vision to fill my head at night. And it's fucking with my head. The need to be around her any chance I can get has become my sole focus. Everything about her intrigues me.
Would you fucking look at me? I'm out here lying low because of a stalker, who is obsessed with wanting to be with me, and I'm turning into one myself. How pathetic is that?
Cat works harder than anyone I've known. She rolls out of bed before the sun rises to help run the ranch, then drives to town to work at the salon. The little help I've offered the past few days is nothing compared to the heart and determination Cat pours out to keep the ranch from drowning.
She's sitting at the bar, talking with a friend, wearing a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, and I want to know why. Cat carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. She deserves to be taken care of, and all I know is I want to be the one doing it.
"Easton." Lev says my name, and I snap my head in his direction.
"Yeah?"
He laughs. "What are you deep in thought about?"
"Not what—who." I set my empty drink on the table.
"Care to share?"
I sigh. "The feisty, fun-sized redhead, Cat Callaghan," I tell him, and he looks back to where my obsession sits.
Lev turns back to face me. "No shit?"
"I can't stop thinking about her."
My friend's face turns serious. "Look, man. I'm all for a guy having fun as he lives up his single life, but Cat isn't a one-and-done woman. Her plate is full, and I don't want to see her get used."
I down the rest of my beer. "It's not like that."Shit, I can't believe I'm fucked up over this.I run my fingers through my hair. "You ever look at someone, and every thought in your head vanishes? All thoughts except for them?"
"I have."
"I haven't."Not until five days ago. "The moment Cat looked at me, all the air left my lungs. I couldn't think straight. I got tunnel vision. All I could focus on was her. The feeling was foreign. It felt like I'd stepped into another dimension or something." I fixate on the water stain on the table's surfaceand trace its shape with my fingertip. "I had this—this, I don't know…gravitational pull toward her. An unseen force propelling me to her. Like, if I just got closer to Cat, I would breathe again." I let out a short laugh because I sound like an idiot trying to explain myself. "I sound like a fucking dumbass." Instead of reaching for my beer, I grab the bottle of whiskey that's been sitting in the center of the table and pour a shot, then throw it back. The smokey oak flavor from the barrel the whiskey was aged in coats my taste buds, and the alcohol burns my throat. Finally, I break free of the fog my brain settled in and look across the table to find Lev staring back, with the same grin as before still plastered to his face. "I'm clearly fucked up," I admit.
"I agree. You are royally screwed for the rest of your life." He downs what's left of his beer.
"The feeling you get the moment you lay eyes on the one. It's your soul reacting to finding its match—the one person you are destined and designed to walk through hell on earth with."
"That's deep," I chuckle.
Lev shrugs. "Call is whatever the fuck you want. But I felt it the moment I laid eyes on Summer. Nothing else mattered. She was mine."
