Page 61 of Ethan

He was quiet for a moment, his thumb moving slowly along her shoulder.

“I’m falling for you, Naomi.” He said it simply. “That’s what this is.”

She felt something loosen in her chest that had been wound tight for a long time.

“I’m falling for you too,” she said. “I just didn’t want to assume.”

He looked at her like that was the most unnecessary thing she’d ever said. “You weren’t assuming.”

She smiled and laid her head back against his shoulder.

They sat like that for a while, the evening going quiet around them, the wildflowers on the windowsill catching the last of the light.

She thought about the woman who’d left him years ago because she couldn’t handle the life. She thought about the man who’d cheated on her because she’d loved horses more than she’d loved staying home.

She thought that sometimes the wrong roads were the only way to get to the right place.

“Ethan,” she said.

“Mm.”

“About that surprise.”

She felt him go very still beside her.

“I haven’t forgotten about it,” he said carefully.

She lifted her head, looked at him, and the look on his face made her laugh.

“The surprise can wait,” he said, standing and holding out his hand. “Come with me.”

She took it. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

She grabbed a light cardigan from the hook by the door, followed him down the stairs and to his truck. He opened the passenger door, helped her in, then drove them out through the back gate and across the property, the headlights cutting through the dark.

He drove until the barn lights were just a faint glow in the distance, then pulled up on a rise she hadn’t been to before and cut the engine.

The silence was immediate and complete.

He got out, came around to her side, helped her out, then dropped the tailgate. He stepped up into the bed, turned, then lifted her up beside him like she weighed nothing.

She laughed softly. “A little warning next time.”

“Where’s the fun in that.”

He shook out a blanket he’d had rolled up behind the wheel well and spread it flat, then sat down and patted the space beside him. She sat down. He took her hand and laid back, pulling her gently down with him.

“Look up,” he said.

She looked up.

She stopped breathing for a second.

The sky was enormous. More stars than she had ever seen in her life, spread from one horizon to the other in a wash of white and silver, the Milky Way cutting across the middle of it like something out of a dream.

“Ethan,” she whispered.