Page 9 of Trusting Blake
“Why?”
“Mila, trust me,” he says with a sigh, as though he expected nothing less than such resistance from me. “Go downstairs to the front door.”
Only because I can’t sleep anyway do I get up and creep out into the hallway, keeping my footsteps light. I pause every few steps, listening, but I hear no movement from Mom’s room, so I continue downstairs.
“Okay, I’m at the door. Now what?”
“Walk outside,” Blake says. “Are those stables a few hundred feet away from the house?”
“Um, yeah,” I whisper, my phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear as I slide on a pair of shoes that I left by the door. I should really run back upstairs for a sweater, but I figure it can’t be that cold outside. It’s the middle of summer in Tennessee, after all.
“Okay. Head toward the stables, and then turn right and walk diagonally toward the rear of the ranch. Just direct yourself toward the corner of the walls,” Blake instructs in a calm, collected voice as though it’s totally normal to send me off on an adventure across the ranch at midnight.
“Blake, seriously. Why am I doing this?”
“Are you walking yet?”
I sigh and quietly slip through the door, down the porch steps, and make for the stables. “Yeah, but it’s dark out here and all I can hear are crickets.” Although I know I am safe and protected by the ranch’s security features, I still glance over my shoulder repeatedly as I walk, leaving the house behind. Across the ranch, the fields aren’t even visible, and I can’t make out anything in the distance. I don’t particularly like this. “Okay, no. You’re freaking me out. I’m turning back.”
“Mila, c’mon. Keep walking. You’re not scared of somecrickets, are you?” Blake teases, and his friendly laughter makes this whole thing slightly less creepy.
“Fine,” I huff, trekking through the long grass as it tickles my bare legs. “I’m past the stables. Walking diagonal now.”
“Okay,” Blake says, and then to my complete and utter disbelief, he hangs up the call.
I stop dead in my tracks and stare at my phone in anger. Does he think this is funny? Playing pranks on me in the dead of night. Is this an attempt to cheer me up?
But then I hear it – his voice.
Not through my cellphone, but right here at the ranch.
“Mila!” he whisper-yells from somewhere up ahead. “Mila, keep walking!”
Am I dreaming? To be honest, this seems like the sort of weird dream I usually have.
Confused, I follow the sound of his voice, continuing diagonal like he told me until finally through the darkness, the rear walls of the ranch come into focus. And there’s someone there, way up high, their silhouette cradling the wall.
“Well, howdy, Mila!” a voice calls out. “What are the chances of meeting you here on this damn fine wall at midnight? And while you’re wearing such an elegant outfit!”
“Blake!” I gasp, running forward and pressing my hands flat against the wall, tilting my head right back to stare up at him in alarm. What thehellis he doing? “How are you? How did you get up there?”
“So, funny story,” Blake says nonchalantly. Without an ounce of fear, at the top of the eight-foot wall, he gets to his feet and paces effortlessly back and forth on what must be a very, very narrow ledge. He stretches out his hand to gesture into the distance, to the opposite end of the ranch. “Did you know there’s a crowd of press guys outside the gate? Like, with cameras? Even at this hour.”
“Yeah. They’ll camp out there overnight.”
“Well, I figured if I wanted to see you, I had to get creative,” he says, quitting his pacing to stare down at me. Under the moonlight, I see the glisten of his dark eyes and the smugness of his smile. “I didn’t stop by the gate. Didn’t even slow down. Just kept on driving. . . and then I decided to take a detour.”
“Blake,” I murmur anxiously, gulping at how close to the edge of the wall his foot is. At least there’s not even a hint of a breeze. “Sit down, please. How did you get here? To the back of the ranch? There aren’t any. . . roads.”
“So? There’s grass, and I have a truck,” says Blake. He lowers himself back down, dangling his legs, pursing his lips at me. “Don’t give me that look, Mila.”
“You went off-road, and then what? How did you climb the wall?”
“Again, I have a truck.” He points over his shoulder. “It’s not that hard to park against the wall, climb on the roof, and then. . . Well, I’m a superb athlete, as you know. So, ta-da! Here I am.”
“But why?”
Again, he doesn’t seem surprised by my lack of response to what he thinks is his five-star humor. He crosses his arms over his chest as if to remind me of his buffness. “Why what?”
