Page 19 of Love Me Reckless

“There are ways to look into this. Discreetly.” Grayson turns left, toward Finn River Ranch.

“And make him hate me even more?”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Grayson says, following the sweeping curve to the gate.

“Then why isn’t he nice to me?” I don’t want to get emotional, but the closer we get to home, the more real my situation becomes. I’m going to marry someone who doesn’t show me the basic kindness of paying attention to me. He hasn’t tried to get to know me. To understand me, let alone love me, even just a little bit.

This didn’t seem so terrible until tonight.

I coax a steadying breath into my lungs.

“I wish there was another way to rescue Finn River Ranch,” Grayson says, sounding defeated. “If only Dad would hear me out.”

I reach for his hand across the console. “I’m sorry.” My brother has great ideas, but none of them have satisfied our dad the way Birch Cahill has.

At the entrance to Finn River Ranch, the guard gives Grayson and me a once-over, then opens the gate. “Welcome home,” he says with a nod.

“I’ll sneak you to your bungalow,” Grayson says as we cruise through the gate and follow the smooth blacktop road up the hill. “But you’re going to have to face them in the morning.”

Bythemhe means Mom and Dad. “Thank you.”

“Zach’s friends are a boisterous bunch, huh?” Grayson says as the road crosses Miner Creek.

“Definitely. They were all super nice, too.” I smile thinkingabout their assault on the pizza and the stampede to the lake for a swim in the dark. Like life was just one big adventure. “It was fun to just be myself.”

He offers me a fist, and I bump it. “I’m glad. But… they’re not our people, you understand that, right?”

My face burns, and I look away. “Yeah, I know.”

Grayson turns up our driveway. Though it’s dark, the soft lighting tucked into the landscaping creates a soft, welcoming glow. Rising like a fortress above us is the main house, where our parents live. Grayson has his own place on the west end of the property, with ski-in, ski-out convenience for his favorite winter sport. Since I returned from college, I’ve taken over the little bungalow on the east end. It’s close to the stables, with a pretty creek just off the back porch.

Birch owns a home in Grayhawk, a newer section of the ranch, and when he’s in Finn River, I’ve been joining him more and more. We’ll live there together once we’re married, and Grayson will take over the main house when he settles down. Mom and Dad are building their retirement home on a seventy-acre plot of high prairie in an undeveloped part of the ranch.

After Grayson drops me at my bungalow, I walk to the front door. The crisp night air carries the scent of wildflowers and the subtle vanilla from the Ponderosas. I nod at the security guard standing in the shadows, but he ignores me like usual.

Inside my bungalow, I’m relieved that my mom or Birch are not waiting to ambush me.

At least I no longer have a personal security detail like when I was at Brown. While I’d like to think my parents dropped it because surviving for four years in Providence, Rhode Island is proof enough that I can fend for myself, it’s only because I’m home, with Finn River Ranch security to watch over me. Will they finally stop worrying about my safety when I marry? I almost laugh out loud. Like I’m somehow magically safer when I’m with Birch.

Like tonight. I could have been kidnapped from that party while he was busy doing whatever he was doing.

Or whomev—no. Don’t think about that.

Plus, Zach and my friends would have never let anything happen to me tonight. And though I don’t even know Sawyer, I get the feeling he fits that description too.

Upstairs, in my room, I sink to the edge of my bed. Everything is just as I left it. Dresser drawers shut, my clothes hanging from my closet evenly spaced, shoes organized in the cubby below, the easy chair in the corner uncluttered. It’s how I like it, so why do I have the sudden urge to fling my clothes to the floor and crawl into bed without washing my face? The impulse only strengthens when I hang up my jean jacket and remember the first aid supplies in the pocket, and Sawyer.

My belly warms, and I close my eyes and sigh. Grayson’s right. They’re not our people. How exactly could a friendship with an outsider like Sawyer fit into my life?

It couldn’t.

After changing into my PJs, I slip off my earrings and unclasp the silver necklace with my grandma’s opal pendant, then carry the first aid supplies into the bathroom. In the mirror, my face is flushed from too much sun, and it looks like the freckles on my shoulders and chest have exploded. But I regret nothing about tonight, even though it’s a reminder of the future I can’t have.

I rinse my foot in the shower, then pat the wound dry with a towel and sit on the edge of the tub. Even though I have a small clinic’s worth of first aid supplies in the hallway linen closet, I reach for the ointment and bandages Sawyer gave me. I’m peeling open the wrapper on the oversized Band-Aid when I notice hand-scrawled lettering.

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