Page 84 of Slow Burn

The night was a blur of mouths colliding, hands teasing. God, I wish I’d known earlier how good Beck is in bed. He can make my back arch and my eyes roll with every touch. He can make me breathe his name like a prayer and scream it a second later.

I’m pulled from my thoughts about Beck by the sound of a phone ringing, and I roll over to pick mine up off the night stand. There’s a missed notification from my e-mail. It’s from Shirley.

She’s sent over the paperwork, the official job offer in writing. I stare at the number under the heading called “compensation.” I still haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it, how life changing that amount of money would be.

But then, there’s Beck.

It’s too much to process, and I won’t be able to make any kind of clear headed decision in the blissful haze lingering since last night.

There’s another ping, and I realize the notification wasn’t coming from my phone earlier, but Beck’s.

Reaching over to the other nightstand, I pick it up. Austin is probably wondering when he’ll be back today, and likely has a list of chores he couldn’t get to over the weekend. But it’s not Austin’s name I see on the screen. It’s someone else I don’t recognize. Dave.

I go to put the phone down before this gets weird but I can’t help noticing the preview of the messages.

DAVE

3.49 list price, but I bet we could get well over 3.5

Now that you’ve made improvements to the ranch, we could potentially find a buyer to take over the business too and list it for more.

I blink a few times to be sure I’m not imagining it. My stomach twists and then drops as I realize that this is real. That Beck wants to… sell the ranch. After all this work to save his family legacy he’s willing to let it all go?

A wave of nausea and pain surges through me. He was going to sell it without telling me. Just like Austin kept me in the dark as he listed and sold our family’s property. He brought me a check for my half the estate as if that would make it any better.

You moved away, I didn’t think you’d care.

The memory of Austin’s words lances through me.

Of course I cared. He was entrusted to take care of the property. It was the only thing we had left of Mom and Dad, so the devastation when it sold… I didn’t think I could ever return to Sage Valley without crying, without either completely breaking down, or saying something to my brother that would completely and irreparably sever our relationship.

But here I am. I faced it, and I even started to think that Sage Valley had welcomed me back, and that I had a place here, a home again at Wild Sage with Beck.

Another question pops into my mind that I do whatever I can to ignore, because it isn’t possible. It can’t be possible or else I’ll be well and truly heart broken. Did Beck keep it all from me on purpose? Was he afraid if he told me about the realtor that I’d flip out?

Tears burn my eyes but I blink them back. Questions swirl around in my mind and stir up a cloud of emotion threatening to turn into a full blown storm. Anger and hurt tangle within me, but as the doorknob to the bathroom turns and Beck emerges, I tamp them down.

Against every instinct, I shove my emotions to the very depths of me.

Don’t over react. Don’t blow up.

I’ll give myself time so I can have a level-headed conversation with Beck. This is what I’ve been working on, right?

“Just about ready?” Beck asks, his face completely void of any indication that he knows what I just saw, and completely absent of any signs he was planning this.

I steel myself and plaster on a smile. “Yep.”

Chapter 32

Beck

Lyla has been suspiciously quiet the whole drive home to Sage Valley.

The first hour she spent with her eyes glued to her phone, but the last hour she stared out the window, not uttering so much as one word even as we passed by the World Famous Gopher Hole Museum. There were no jokes, not even a huffed laugh, nor a hint of a smile.

Something is wrong.

Something is seriously wrong, because if Lyla ever has a problem, she’ll let you know.