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We’re all alone out here, sitting at higher elevation than the land below us, and the space between us is filled with a peaceful kind of silence that only being out in nature can provide.
“It’s time,” I whisper into her ear, and she starts to turn to look at me, but I squeeze her shoulders and add, “Right there. Watch the sun as she announces to the world that it’s time to sleep.”
Her gaze jerks back toward the horizon, and it only takes a few moments before a hand comes up to her mouth. “Wow,” she whispers. “Just…wow.”
“I know,” I agree and wrap my arms around her waist so that her body can rest comfortably against me. “That’s exactly why I wanted you to see it.”
The sky is cotton-candy pink with hints of blues and purples and oranges, and the sun bounces off the cliffs in the distance, making them look almost metallic.
I lean back so I can see the expression on Leah’s face as the sun makes her final descent. Her lashes flutter as she blinks several times, and her lips form a perfect little O shape.
“I can’t believe this is real life.”
I grin. “Oh, but it is real life, darlin’.”
And damn if I’m not starting to wish that this, nights like this with Leah, were the real life of my future.
Leah
With the warm night breeze blowing through Rhett’s truck, I hold my hand out the open passenger window and let it skate through the air.
After Rhett took me to a Jameson family secret spot in Dixie National Forest to watch the sunset, we rode Sonny back to the stables and got him settled for the night.
It was dark by the time we hopped into his truck to head back to his place.
Patsy Cline serenades us from the radio, singing about walking after midnight and the moonlight and searching for her love, and I just feel…good. Happy, even.
The past few weeks have been some of the best of my life, and it’s all because of the handsome cowboy in the driver’s seat.
I look over at Rhett and note the way the moonlight falls over his face, highlighting the lines of his strong jaw and curve of his full lips.
His mouth is relaxed, and when he feels my gaze on him, he glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “What are ya doin’, darlin’?”
I shrug. “Just looking at you and thinking about what a great night this has been.”
His mouth curves upward, and he reaches out to rest his hand on my thigh. “You enjoyed watching the sunset?”
“I enjoyed watching the sunset with you.”
He squeezes my thigh and flashes a wink in my direction.
When Patsy Cline’s song comes to a close, the radio switches over to a new one. A soft drumbeat starts it off, and it appears Rhett recognizes it before I do.
“Well, hell,” he mutters on a grin and turns the steering wheel so sharply to the right that my hand jolts up to the handle above my door.
“Ah! Rhett! What are you doing?” I screech when he directs us completely off-road, in the middle of one of the meadows on the ranch.
The bastard just laughs. “Making sure this night ends with some old-fashioned romance.”
“Romance?” I nearly shout when he skids the truck to a stop. “Taking us off-road isn’t exactly my idea of romance, you crazy man.”
He just chuckles and reaches out to turn the radio up as loud as it will go.
And that’s when my ears turn their attention to the words of a song I still don’t recognize.
The man is literally singing my name over and over again.
“What is this?”
“Darlin’, this is Roy Orbison,” he comments. “He was a fuckin’ legend and one of my all-time favorites, who just so happens to have a song called ‘Leah.’ Which is quite the wonderful coincidence, if you ask me.”
Rhett hops out of the truck and rounds the hood with quick steps. He wastes no time helping me out of my seat with a gentlemanly hand, and I squeal when he steps back to spin me beneath his arm.
“Dance with me, darlin’,” he says, and my jaw falls open.
“What do you mean, dance with you?”
He wraps his arm around my back and pulls me tight to his chest, all the while he guides us into a two-step rhythm. “I mean exactly what I said. Dance with me.”
“Holy hell, you can, like, really dance.”
“What? You think cowboys can’t dance?” he challenges and spins me around again before pulling me flush against his body. One hand skirts down my back and grips my ass through my jean shorts. “Let me be the one to correct that false assumption right fuckin’ now,” he whispers into my ear. “Cowboys can dance. Oh, we can definitely fuckin’ dance. We just gotta find a woman who inspires us to want to dance.”
