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Ethan wipes the blood from his nose, turns on his heel, and storms away. The adrenaline that has been coursing through my body for the last fifteen minutes has dissipated. I need some air.
Wells grabs my hand and starts to inspect the knuckles. He sighs and lets it drop. I guess I didn’t break anything.
“River?” I turn to face her.
“Um, yeah?” She looks like she’s biting back a smile.
“Let’s go meet Betty.”
“You sure?” She walks toward us.
“You don’t have to, Poppy. If you want to go find Rhett—”
“I am not going to find Rhett right now. He needs to cool the fuck off, and so do I,” I tell Wells. “I’ll talk to him tonight. Right now, River and I are going to go meet Betty. You good handling the rest of this?” I ask him.
“Yeah, of course.” He smiles at me, looking very proud. “Good hit, city slicker. Wouldn’t have thought you had it in ya.”
I just roll my eyes. “Thanks, I think?”
“Oh, it’s a compliment.”
With a wink, he’s jogging back into the barn, hopefully to get the rest of those sweet dogs adopted by the end of the day. I take a deep breath and look over at River.
“Ready?”
She smiles, and it’s warm and playful. I can see why — if there is something between her and Wells — he likes her.
“Lead the way.”
* * *
“So…” River says as we sit on my living room floor. Betty has been let out of her crate, and she’s lying in between both of us, chewing on her favorite toy. She hasn’t let River touch her yet, but she’s been slowly moving a little closer, inch by inch. It’s just going to take time.
“Wanting an explanation about what happened at the barn?”
She laughs. “Yeah, my life is boring as hell. I could use some excitement.”
“Ugh,” I groan. “I moved here from San Francisco, which I’m sure you know. I’m guessing word travels fast in a town this small.”
“You could say that.” Her grin is all I need to know about how much the people in this town know about me. I could probably get my social security number from one of them if I asked.
“Well, I left Ethan there. I broke up with him, let me make that clear. We were done. But he thought I would be back. I think most of myacquaintancesI made while living there thought I would be.”
“Acquaintances?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t call any of them friends. We weren’t that close. I move a lot. Like…a lot. So I tend not to put roots down in the form of friends because it just makes it harder to leave when I’m ready.”
“But you’re more than friends with Rhett, it seems…” She smirks.
“I was ready to stop moving all over. I kind of just want a place to call home.” I sigh. “That’s why I took this job. I thought it would be such a wild change from what I’m used to that it might be exactly what I needed.”
“Turns out you were right.”
I hum my agreement.
“I’ve never seen Rhett look at anyone the way he looks at you,” she tells me. “And the scene he made in the bar that night?” River laughs. “Yeah, way out of character for him. He’s smitten.”
“He’s an asshole.”
