Page 80 of Somewhere We Belong

“A lady never kisses and tells,” I smirked.

“I don’t see a lady here,” she chuckled.

“Blanche,” I scolded as she cackled.

“Hello, Atlas,” she said, walking up to him. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hello, ma’am,” Atlas said with an amused tone.

“You treat my girl right.” She leaned in. “I know some people that know this wilderness so well that they won’t find your body for years.”

“Blanche!” I whisper yelled.

Atlas chuckled. “She’s got nothing to worry about from me. I adore her and Sol.”

“You better.” Blanche patted his face. “I like you, so I'd hate for something to happen to you.”

Atlas laughed as she walked away.

“Should I be nervous?” He looked back at Blanche.

“Honestly, her and Gladis scare me sometimes,” I chuckled.

Atlas didn’t laugh with me but smiled instead.

“I like you like this,” he said. “You look happy and carefree.”

My cheeks felt hot.

“I stopped by to see if I could pick up Sol,” he said, as we had to move out of the way to let a client in. “The guys and I want to take her riding, giving you some time to take a bath or maybe a nap or do whatever you need to do. Jude and Iris are coming over tonight for dinner and Theo made his pot roast.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, fighting the urge to tell him that I could pick her up.

“That was hard, wasn’t it?” he smirked.

“Oh, shut up.” I pushed him playfully.

He grabbed my hand, squeezed it and I expected a kiss.

“Take your time getting home, but we will leave the door open for you if you want another bubble bath,” he said, pecking my cheek before he left.

Instinctively I turned around to see no one paying attention to us except Blanche and Gladis. Fuck my life, the gossip brigade never missed anything.

You’d think being a stylist, getting your hair cut would be easy, but something always happened. Your schedules didn’t line upand boom, it had been six months since you had gotten your hair done, but today was a fucking miracle. Stacie, one of our younger stylists, had a cancellation and all it took was bringing her a coffee to get her to stay for me.

I was driving to the ranch, wishing I could put the windows down to let the wind in my hair, but the late October air was too chilly. There were two extra cars by the house when I got there, one of them looked like Iris’ car.

Leaving the warmth of the car, I locked it, rounded the corner of the house to see Iris laughing. I followed her line of sight to see Sol riding around barrels with Theo. She laughed as he took tight turns.

“Go, Sol!” Iris yelled, clapping.

Colt stood off to the side with an enormous smile and Atlas was right next to him. My eyes widened at the sight of Atlas in jeans, a jacket and baseball hat, paired with dark brown boots. Damn, he looked good when he dressed like Colt and Theo.

Another man stood on the other side of Colt and the uncanny resemblance to Theo was insane. If I didn’t know better, they could have passed as fraternal twins, even though he was smaller than Theo. He also whooped and hollered at Sol who was soaking up the attention.

I walked back as my throat closed with emotion as I leaned against the house. All I ever wanted was for Sol to have a place to feel safe, to be a kid, and to have people in her corner no matter what she did. The emotion was too much to tamper down and a few tears escaped.

It felt like I might never be able to provide that for her and now that it was here, why was I so scared? They clearly cared for her, and I was the only one getting in the way of something amazing. Maybe I needed to tell her about them sooner rather than later. I closed my eyes, taking a few deep breaths before I turned the corner.

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