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While having my son here working the ranch is great and all, he’s an adult, and I’m happiest in my own company. Our living arrangement gives all of us enough distance so that we’re not on top of each other.
That boy sure as hell loves to tease me that I wouldn’t survive without him, which is bullshit, but it’s easier having the two of them live on the ranch, I’ll grant him that. Even if they do love to steal my beer and help themselves to my fridge while they’re at it.
I pull up out front of the porch and cut the engine as Skylar keeps looking around with wide eyes like I’ve driven us into some sort of fairy tale or some shit. “Winter looks gorgeous out here.”
God, I can’t fucking get my head on straight. She sounds so relieved, so happy to be here, and that’s screwing with my already very messed-up thoughts.
Something bucks around inside my chest and tries to crow about how good she looks here, too. With that pastel-pink hair skimming her jaw, shorter than when she was in that passenger seat a year ago, but it suits her even more at this length. It highlights that pixie, heart-shaped face, perfectly framing those baby blue eyes of hers.
“Let’s get inside, get you warm. This snow is gonna keep piling up.” Coughing into my fist, I keep my eyes firmly on the house, the porch, anywhere but the gorgeous girl whose feminine scent is filling the cab of my truck.
“Thank you so much again, Mr. Rhodes.”
Jesus. I both love and loathe the fact she’s calling me that. It collides inside my head with the force of two bulls charging one another. The fucked-up part of my brain enjoys it more than I want to dare examine. The other part of me wants her to call me by my first name, because at this stage, I’d do damn near anything to erase any lingering evidence of boundaries.
“Don’t mention it.” My jaw is almost frozen in place.
Do I dare admit the truth to myself? That I’d be tempted to discard my morals real quick if it meant being able to eliminate those infuriating invisible lines stretching between us. You know, the ones that relate to our difference in ages or the plain and simple fact that she’s my kid’s best friend.
Staying in my seat is a bad idea.
I make the move to hop out and grab her bag from the back, but she beats me to it and our gazes lock from where we’re standing in the open doors facing one another from opposite sides of the vehicle.
From here I get my first proper look at Skylar. I get to really look at her, and there might as well be a bronc’s hoofprint on my chest judging by the way air struggles to reach my lungs.
Her cheeks are a little flushed, plump lips painted a stunning shade of pink that, on someone else, might look ridiculous, but on Skylar, it’s perfectly balanced with the sweetness of her pastel hair and hot-as-fuck silver ring in the center of her nose. A septum piercing, as I was informed by Brad, mid–eye roll, when I fumbled around completely tongue tied seeing her with it for the first time last year.
He thought I didn’t know what kids these days call that kind of thing, when really all I knew was that she caught me off guard turning up at the house looking like a dream I hadn’t dared to believe existed.
Now, here she is. Catching me unprepared to navigate the way my attraction to her hasn’t faded in the slightest.
Clusters of puffy white settle on top of her wavy curls as delicate snowflakes, making her look like some sort of winter fairy that I’ve been gifted as a Christmas miracle.
Goddamn, why does this girl have to be so insanely attractive?
It might be snowing, the air swirling thick around us, but neither of us seems to be able to move, and that’s when her eyes waver. They dip behind those thick lashes, and if I wasn’t already aware of the thundering rhythm caged inside my ribs, that beat becomes erratic as all hell.
Her blue eyes drop to my mouth.
My fist grips the door to the truck so hard I’m sure the frame is going to buckle.
I’m not imagining this.
I’m not hallucinating.
Skylar’s tongue pokes out to wet her lips, and we both stand there like statues. Neither wanting to make the first move to break whatever unspoken connection this is.
Only, the outside world decides to choose that moment to invade our privacy.
Her cell phone bursts to life in her coat pocket.
CHAPTER 6
“Oh my god, Sky … Are you okay? I’ve got like fifty missed calls and you didn’t leave a single message. Way to freak me out.” Brad’s voice booms down the phone when I answer.
Across from me, the cowboy who I’d just been locked in the most intense moment of … I don’t even know what that was … slams his door and strides toward the front porch.
Whitewashed boards, worn down in places where countless boots have stepped on them over time, a particular spot that holds a thousand memories from when I would hang out here as a teenager.
