Page 76 of Indigo Ridge (The Edens 1)

Sunrise. A new day. The fifth of July. The mark of another year alone.

I missed them. I hoped I’d never stop.

“Hey.” Griff’s rugged voice cut through the quiet.

“Hey.” I turned, finding him at the door I hadn’t heard open. “You should go back to bed.”

He shook his head, his hair a mess, and stepped outside wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. He waved me out of the chair.

I couldn’t go back to sleep, not now. But he hadn’t slept any longer than I had, so I’d go back to bed and lie there until he drifted off, then sneak out to the porch again.

But when I stood, he didn’t lead me inside. Instead, he took the blanket from my shoulders, tossed it around his own, then stole my chair.

“Sit down.” He patted his lap. The fabric of his boxer briefs strained at the bulk of his bare thighs. The circles under his eyes said he’d had a long day yesterday too.

“You don’t have to stay out here.”

“Sit. Keep me warm.”

I sighed but settled into his lap, letting him circle me in his arms and snuggle us beneath the blanket. Then he started to rock the chair with slow, measured nudges of his foot. “Sorry to wake you.”

“You need to get some rest. You were on your feet all day yesterday. What’s going on?”

“Just a bad dream.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Yes. No. The nightmares had been my secret. My pain. Even when Skyler and I had lived together, I hadn’t told him why I’d woken up late at night. Though he had to have suspected what was going on, he hadn’t asked.

Because the dreams were real. They were massive. And he hadn’t been one for heavy lifting.

“I don’t want to burden you,” I said. “It seems like you carry a lot already.”

He tensed. The rocking stopped.

When I looked up, a crease marred the skin between his forehead. “What did I say?”

The tension on his face melted away. His arms held me tighter. “You might be the most intuitive person I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t know about that.” I leaned my forehead against his shoulder. “Just an observation.”

He started rocking us again, and for a few minutes, the only sounds were his heartbeat and the birds in the trees, chirping their morning song. “I’m the oldest of my siblings. That’s always put me in a different position with my sisters. My youngest brother too. As little kids, they’d take their problems to Mom and Dad. The older they get, the more those problems come to me. Especially after I took over the ranch. I’m the role model. The mediator.”

“Does it bother you?”

“No.”

Because Griffin was the type of man who stood at the ready, always willing to heft the load.

“But it is a weight. I need to be here for them. I don’t want to let them down. And I don’t want to fail the ranch.”

“Is everything okay with the ranch?”

“Yeah, it’s good. Just a lot of work.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I do.” He nodded. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”