Page 59 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

“Am I losing you?” he asked, his gaze straight ahead.

“I’ll always be your friend.” I leaned over, resting my head on his shoulder.

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.” I love you? No, thanks. My wall of self-preservation was about to double in thickness.

“Why don’t you want to go to California?”

“Because there’s nothing for me there but old memories. I’d rather focus on making new ones.”

There was no family. No friends. I didn’t want to see the junkyard, because I was worried that the reality of where we’d lived would be too much to take.

“Do you want to take a job here?” There was a twinge of pain in his voice, likely because he knew the answer.

“Maybe. I think . . . I think I’d like to stay in Heron Beach a while longer. With Aria.”

Carol had been right all along. I needed to take some time, to think and decide.

Cash didn’t have to be told he wasn’t invited. He nodded, his jaw clamping shut. Then he stared at the water and the other tourists, the two of us sitting on the beach for hours.

“Do you remember the goat?” he asked as a dog ran by with a frisbee in its mouth.

“You meant the white devil that tried to kill me?”

He chuckled. “Dad asked me about a month ago if we should get some goats to graze.”

I shuddered. “Tell me you told him no.”

“I said, ‘Over my dead body. Kat will smother me in my sleep if she finds out I agreed to raise goats.’”

I smiled. That was exactly what I would have threatened, verbatim.

Liddy was the one who’d brought a goat to the ranch. She’d seen a baby at the farm and ranch supply store in Missoula, and JR, being the loving, doting husband he was, had bought his wife a goat. Cash and Easton had built their mom a pen for the animal but somehow, that goat always managed to find its way out. Or its way over, we learned.

The damn thing could jump like Air Jordan.

It had never been a nice, sweet animal. To this day I believed the display goat that Liddy had seen was a fake. Because the goat she brought home loved nothing more than to chase unsuspecting humans and head butt them in the ass—specifically, me.

The goat hated me.

One day, I brought Liddy a pie I’d made from scratch. It had been one of my first since she’d taught me how to bake. She’d spent years teaching me little tricks and handing down her favorite recipes.

I was so damn proud of that strawberry rhubarb pie I didn’t want to wait. The second it was cool enough to carry without an oven mitt, I drove it over to her house.

Except I didn’t realize the demon had escaped its pen.

I parked, took my pie and got out of my car, nudging the door closed with my hip. That fucking goat came around the corner of their house and I panicked, running into a field with it chasing behind.

Cash had been out riding that day. He caught sight of me and barreled toward us, chasing the goat off with his horse and swiping the pie dish out of my hand right before I tripped.

Maybe another man would have tried to save me from falling. Not Cash. He knew the hours I’d spent with Liddy in the kitchen. That was before we’d moved in together, but he knew how important it was for me to bake her a gift.

So I’d eaten a face full of dirt. But he’d saved my pie.