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She climbs up into their cab. The wife is already talking to her about their granddaughter who runs poles. Addie gets herself buckled, and then she leans out and looks down at me on the gravel, hair still damp, that spark climbing back into her eyes.
"Hey, Chace?"
"Yeah?"
"I’ll never beg you," and she winks, slamming the door in my face.
I stand there in the setting sun, watching the taillights disappear down the highway, hauling the damn horse and the woman who almost snapped every ounce of my self-control.
Chapter fifteen
Chace
The kid who towed the rig couldn't have been more than eighteen. He dropped me off a little after nine in a fenced-in lot behind the garage. The owner was nice enough to let me crash in the camper for the night, so long as I didn't make a mess.
I open the camper door and step inside, glancing around. It's a small space, but six months ago, when she bought it, it was shabby and smelled like mothballs. Now it's clean, organized, and unmistakably Addie. She'd hauled it up to Clark Ranch the day she bought it, proud as a peacock, showing Eli every cabinet and storage compartment as if she'd just won the lottery.
It's come a long way since then. She's really spruced the place up. The cabinets are painted green, the bench seats reupholstered in a soft gray. Pictures of Dusty hang on the wall alongside framed shots of the Clark and Dawson ranches. There's a tiny sink and stove to the left, a cabinet on the right that probably holds every flannel she's ever owned.
Me. In Addie's camper. Sleeping in her bed tonight, with whatever coconut thing she washes herself with still clinging to the pillow. When I'd volunteered to stay behind, I hadn't stopped to think about this part. About sleeping in her bed. In her sheets. God really does have a shit sense of humor when it comes to me.
I sigh, strip my shirt over my head, and kick off my boots just as my phone lights up.
Sunshine: Made it. Dusty's not impressed with his stall. He's being a nightmare about it.
Me: Course he is. He's you with hooves.
Sunshine: Rude. At least he's better looking than you.
Me: Hey now, that’s debatable.
Sunshine: Not remotely debatable- straight facts. You still stuck out there?
Me: Just got towed in. Sleeping in the shop lot. I'll live.
Sunshine: Sleeping where, exactly? There's one bed in that camper, Walker.
I look down at it. At the ribbons tacked crooked over the bunk, a hoodie thrown across the little table, all of it hers.
Me: Guess you'll just have to picture it.
Sunshine: Picture what?
Me: Me in your bed.
The three dots come up. Go away. Come up again.
Sunshine: Uhhg. Gross. You're the worst.
Me: You love it.
Sunshine: I regret every choice that led me here.
Me: No, you don't.
She doesn't answer for a long minute. I climb into the bunk and lie back against her pillow, one arm behind my head, grinning into the dark like an idiot because I can still feel it—the thing from the side of the highway, still humming between us despite the miles that separate us.
My phone finally buzzes with another text.
