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I faced her and ran my fingers through my hair, holding it back and sagged against the stall door. “I don’t think I can take this anymore,” I admitted.
o;Oh, you’ll know,” the man said, laughing. He walked out into the cold, still chuckling as if Bridge’s and my lives were playthings to him. I suppose they were. If he worked for my father, he would be devoid of morals. Says the pot.
I ignored my inner jab and rushed out to the truck. It was running and near the door. I got into the driver’s side quickly. The interior lights were on, and I could see everyone, including Cricket.
“What-what happened?” Bridge asked, scooting to the edge of her seat.
Her eyes were red from crying.
I glanced up at Cricket through the rearview and she looked nervous.
“Uh, well, Dad’s found us,” I said.
“No,” she cried, slumping into her seat.
Jonah wrapped his arm around her, and I couldn’t muster up an objection. She bent into him and cried into his shoulder.
“What does this mean?” Jonah asked.
I drove out of the pub parking lot and started to make my way back to Hunt Ranch. “Honestly, I don’t know. I say this because I threw something at him I don’t think he was expecting that might tie his hands.”
Bridge raised her head and wiped below her eyes. “What?” she asked tearfully.
I looked straight at Cricket. “I shouldn’t really say,” I said, afraid to admit something so heinous in front of her. “Let’s just say, if he were smart, he would leave us be.”
Bridget nodded, thankfully accepting my vague answer, and laid her head back down on Jonah’s shoulder. I looked up and noticed Cricket’s narrowed brows, then quickly glanced back down at the road. She wanted to know but she wasn’t going to press.
Guess we all have our secrets, Cricket Hunt.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Weeks went by and the calves started making an appearance by the droves. Jonah and I worked side by side a lot, and although I was still visiting Cricket at night, we barely said a word to one another, both of us afraid to come clean. I didn’t care though. I had to be around her if for nothing else than she appeased my nightmares at night, but we all know it was more than that. It was more than that because I was falling in love with Cricket Hunt, and I was finding it increasingly more difficult to keep that fact to myself.
It had been weeks since Piper had made a manifestation, and I was so grateful. She was starting to eat at my soul. After the nightmares, it would take at least two days to shake her completely. Cricket was a balm to my disturbed spirit.
Cricket still hadn’t given me the sculpture she’d promised me. I wanted to ask her about it, but it felt clumsy between us, and I couldn’t force myself to demand it. Though so many times I wanted to. So many times.
Bridge was about five months along by then and starting to show. Much to my surprise, Jonah wasn’t distancing himself as I had thought. In fact, he was even more attentive which, frankly, shocked me. I had decided the night we had an appearance from my dad’s lackey Dominic that I was going to keep my mouth shut and just let things play out.
Dominic had not made a single attempt at contact. Neither had my father or my mother, which made me think my dad hadn’t told her. The fact that he hadn’t reached out in any capacity left me more than a little nervous, but with each day that passed, my uneasiness subsided more and more. We were fast approaching Bridge’s eighteenth birthday, which also made me more comfortable.
There were also a few serious things going on at the ranch, but any time Bridge and/or myself would walk into the room, the conversation would turn silent. It wasn’t our business, and we decided to respect their wishes. Although it did make us extremely curious.
About mid-February, Emmett assigned Cricket to be my partner because he needed Jonah to work with him more closely as they began to plan their new season, when they would inseminate the cows in April, etc.
On a random Wednesday, as we spread pellets out in the horse stalls, I broke down with Cricket. Ethan continually took her into town for hours at a time, and I was finding myself green with envy. I wanted answers.
“Hey, Cricket,” I began.
“Mmmhmm?” she asked, throwing her rake back and forth with practiced ease.
“Where do you go with Ethan so often?”
She stopped raking and studied her hands a moment before going back to work at a furious pace. “Nowhere really.”
“You’re lying,” I said, knowing her well enough then to know when she was indeed being untruthful.
I stopped and leaned on my rake. She did the same.
