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“The real kind?”
“The kind I used to dream about.”
“Good…” He smiles sweetly. “Shane deserves someone like you.”
“Would ya look at that,” Mona drawls, wearing a sly smile. “Almost exactly the same, but better.”
A baby blue Chevy pickup truck is in the process of being lowered from the flatbed of the delivery truck. It’s completely restored. It looks so shiny and fancy I’m going to be scared to drive it.
“It’s too much.”
“Of course it is,” Mona chimes in. “Like all good things.”
Shane signs the packing slip and the delivery driver climbs back into the cab and drives away.
“Nice ride,” Aidan says, hands stuffed in the pockets of his track pants, smiling broadly.
“Did you know about this?” I ask him.
I’m so torn about this gift I don’t know what to do or say.
He tips up his sunglasses and squints. “Yep. Had fun looking for it, too. And it wasn’t easy.”
“Tell me how much?” Shane won’t tell me how much he spent. Which scares me even more.
Aidan makes a face. “Never.”
Shane walks over to us with a lazy smile. I’ve never seen him more at ease. Comfortable in his own skin. Content.
The fight over Kaya almost forgotten, we’re back to having fun and great sex. Everything is perfect. Except he hasn’t told me how he feels. I want to be mature about this. It’s not like I don’t feel his love. Because I do. It’s in every touch, every glance. It’s everywhere. Except out of his mouth. I don’t want to put any pressure on him, but if you have a hard time saying I love you then maybe you don’t feel it? Just a thought.
“What do you think? The same but better,” Shane says, echoing Mona’s thoughts. He looks pretty proud of himself. He’s so sweet. I’m dying a million tiny deaths. “Registered to Mother Goose Non-Profit. Paperwork is in the glove compartment.” He holds out the keys for me and I reluctantly take them.
“The engine’s a rebuilt V-8 with a turbo charger,” Aidan adds, excitedly.
“I can’t ever thank you guys enough… I can’t ever repay what you’ve done for us.” Here come the tears again. Brimming, falling, gushing. The barn’s rebuilt and painted. The new wash stall with all the gadgets. I never even got a bill for the materials. And now a fancy new pickup truck.
They’re leaving in a few days, going back to their lives, and me back to mine.
“Get in.” When I open the passenger side door he swallows a chuckle. “Behind the wheel. I want you to get used to the power of this engine.”
“You’re scaring me now.”
We drive into town and pass the bookstore and the cafe where I saw him having dinner with Kaya.
“Let’s grab a cup while we’re here,” he says. “Park at the end.”
“Yes, sir.”
We order our coffee and the girl behind the counter, barely sixteen, blushes and gives him a coy smile. He steps closer, our bodies brushing together, and whispers in my ear, “How come you don’t blush when I smile at you?”
I glance up at him and take a sip of my latte. “I blush, Colonel. I blush all the time. Just not on my face.” His lips twitch and cover mine. He kisses me right in front of the blushing girl.
On our way back to the new pickup truck, we pass a magazine stand at the open-air bookstore. Shane’s boots come to a sudden stop. I keep walking until I realize that I’ve lost him and turn around. The look on his face tells me everything I need to know. Turning, I see the headline and the pictures.
“What the actual fuck! What did I say about being careful not to give away your location?”
Jules is positively beside herself as she paces back and forth in her high-heeled Chanel moto boots. She holds up her cellphone as if any of us can see what’s on it.
“First, your ex-sister-in-law goes public with the affair, and now this!”
Shane has been quiet since we found out yesterday what Kaya had done: given an interview to an entertainment show. After we got back to the ranch, he dragged me into the guesthouse, into bed, and we didn’t leave until it was time to feed the animals this morning. She knew how to hurt him, the value he places on his privacy, and she went after it deliberately. Foxes are destructive.
“It seems an enterprising journalist who will never work in this town again, if I can help it, put two and two together and recognized the ponies in the pictures with Aidan. She tracked him back here and somehow got plenty of footage of Aidan and you,” she points to me, “dancing in that dust pit.”
“It’s a paddock,” I say, for the record.
The Airstream is already tight without her treating it like a treadmill to burn off her misplaced anger. Meanwhile, Mona, Aidan, and I do our best to look remorseful sitting side by side on the banquette against the wall like a group of juvenile offenders. I’m not even sure what we have to be sorry for.
