Page 100 of Drifter’s Heart

“I’m sure.” My sober face seems to convince him this time.

“All right. And the second half?”

“I didn’t say anything about⁠—”

“Winnie,” he warns me.

I nibble my lip and his gaze zeroes in. “I want to move up to Valiant Peak like we talked about.”

“We?” West wasn’t there for that conversation.

I nod, a small concession. “Cord and I talked about it. I never said if I’d stay at the homestead, and, I don’t know, I kind of thought I could get a small rental in town, or maybe just outside it? Something with a few bedrooms. Just big enough for me, and Sally, and—” I licked my lips. “And you?”

That speech is enough to leave me breathless. Silence falls in the hospital room. I peer up at him through my lashes.

“Fucking flirt,” he growls, catching my chin in a firm grip before his mouth finds mine in the sort of slow, mind-searing kiss that helps me forget every word I’ve just uttered. “Got anywhere picked out?”

“What’s picked out?” I mutter when he releases me to catch my breath.

“Good.” West leans back, a satisfied smirk decorating his handsome face. “I might know a place.”

“Of course you do.” I snuggle down into my pillows, the taste of cowboy and overcast date days on my lips to remind me I’m not alone as sleep drifts at the edges of my reality.

The scarred hand that wraps around mine promises I’m not alone and don’t have to be scared of the dark anymore. Not that I told him, but I think he guessed, anyway.

THIRTY-THREE

WINNIE

Ride a Woolly

The ram bounces its way across the permanent area at Valiant Peak in pursuit of Billy’s buns. Or at least that’s what he presents the woolly with as he bends over and shakes his denim-clad behind in the sheep’s direction to encourage it to get moving. The horned critter is the next best thing West could wrangle me out of season that I’d let Sally get on, and even now, looking at it, the poor thing is a bit undersized.

“One lap, then off,” I growl, and clamp a hand to my side. My stitches have been out for weeks, but the pain remains whenever I try to do pretty much anything. The knife Brad stabbed me with was one of our steak-knife wedding gifts that he took with him when we split years before.

I never wanted them back and was relieved to see one disappear as evidence.

“Take it easy.” Trixie swings her sheath of long caramel hair over her shoulder as she taps away at the tablet Billy gave her to handle Valiant Peak accounts. It’s far from her favorite activity, but she’s gripping this new duty with both hands and going at it full speed just like she does everything else.

She’s who Cord has set to babysit me in case I overdo it while he works around the stadium for the next few hours with West. The two boys are cooking up some plans, but I know I won’t be able to figure it out until it’s hatched.

“I’ve been taking it easy for months now. What I want is to work,” I bitch. Sally is on her woolly, which finally deigns to move.

“Oh, I hear you. I can’t sleep if I have work left to do. My bed doesn’t get much use, trust me.” Trixie never looks up and she never stops tapping, two-fingered.

I look at her with a sliver of more respect than before. Not for the hideous work hours— those are unhealthy as hell and I’ve been there. And I’m going back. West and I have worked that out together. We’re still not sure what, but at the moment I’m enjoying just spending time with the most important person in my life— Sally.

“Yeah. A pity about the bed, though. There are other rooms in the house,” I muse, thinking of the amount of times West and I have crept about the rental in Valiant Peak that we’ve chosen for the moment until we figure ourselves out.

Sally, oddly, in my unprofessional opinion, opted to be homeschooled, and currently Lanie and I are sharing pictures of baby Sally and the Rand family’s newest addition. Lanie is helping teach as well as studying her wolves, or Coyote Falls’s wolves, because giving birth to her brand-new baby isn’t enough. Overachiever doesn’t come close to covering it.

But Sally loves having baby Randall—yeah, the poor kid—nearby on his playmat while she does her classes. And I get to see Lanie. So that’s a win for us all right now. We’re still deciding what family looks like for us. West has work in the form of his old architecture job. But I know he desperately misses the ranch work, to the point of irritation.

Irritation that we discuss nightly. In the nude. In different rooms of the house.

And hence the comment to Trixie about which rooms she can use apart from the bedroom.

“Ah—” She looks up at me with a blank face before she catches on. “Oh, hell, yes. Sleep is at a premium.”