Page 60 of Wild Highway (Runaway 2)

“Yes,” she whispered. “But that doesn’t make it any less terrifying.”

She had nothing to fear when it came to me. There wasn’t a thing she could do that would make me think less of her, make me judge her or make me dislike her.

Except leave again without a goodbye.

“Can I make a confession?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m scared to get too close to you because I know you’re eventually going to leave.” It was only a matter of time.

“Where does that leave us?” she asked, not denying what we both knew was the inevitable.

I shrugged. “I don’t have a damn clue. I wish I could say I’d steer clear of you and that cabin and we could call this thing quits. But I won’t.”

“I don’t want you to steer clear of me and the cabin, and I don’t want to call this quits. What if we kept things casual?”

“Great theory. But you have to know that the minute my mother or my grandmother sees us paired together, casual is out the window.”

I wouldn’t put it past Grandma to move Gemma into my house, making up some bullshit excuse that the cabin was too cold or too isolated or too small for a single woman in the winter.

“Then let’s keep it between us,” she said. “Except I already told Katherine.”

“She’s the only person on this ranch who can keep a secret.”

“Then it’s settled.” Gemma winked, then took a step away. “See you around.”

“What?” I tried to catch her but she was already moving backward. “You’re leaving?”

“Aren’t you working?”

“Yeah.” But I didn’t want her to go. It was Saturday and instead of sitting behind my desk, I wanted to spend some time with her. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

She gave me a curious glance, but when I turned and marched to the office to get my truck keys, coat and her flannel, she followed.

Gemma played along, not peppering me with questions as I escorted her to my truck. She sat quietly in the passenger seat, her expression relaxed as we drove away from the stables and to the soon-to-be site of the Greer Ranch’s latest expansion.

When I pulled over to the edge of the gravel road that ran the length of the new property, she looked around and asked, “What am I looking at?”

“See that right there?” I pointed to the open field out her window and the large barn in the distance. “I just bought it.”

“Nice. This is a pretty spot.”

Pretty and the setup for the facility was perfect with the flat, wide fields. “My Realtor called me right before you came into the office and told me the buyers accepted my offer. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Lucky timing on my part.”

“No, not just today,” I corrected. “At all. I didn’t tell anyone I was putting in an offer.”

Her eyes widened. “No one?”

“Nope.”

The magnitude of what I’d done settled on my shoulders. I’d been so desperate to make a decision without debate or counsel that I’d bought land in secret. My plan was to use the ranch’s capital reserves to pay the three-point-one-million-dollar price tag. The money was there and at my discretion. But I should have told my family before making this big a commitment.

Shit. What did that say about my trust in them? Maybe the reason they questioned my decisions and stayed so in the loop was because they feared I’d shut them

out.