Page 125 of Knot Her Cowboys
“Nothing, petal. I swear it’s nothing you’ve done. I guess I’m just feeling a little jealous of your relationships with Cooper and Cash.”
“Relatable,” Levi said with a laugh.
She looked at me with enormous eyes and the sweetest pout, which I was pretty confident she didn’t know she was making.
“I promise I love how close you are with them and how comfortable you’re getting with the pack. You have so much history with Cash and Cooper. I just want the opportunity to build some memories with you too.”
“Cooper and I could go home and let you three have your wilderness sleepover,” Cash offered.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I insisted. “We’re a pack.”
“Mhmm, we are,” Cash agreed. “And part of that is recognizing what packmates need. I know I monopolize Riley. Won’t kill me to spend the night away from her so you guys have more time to get to know each other.”
Cooper grumbled but eventually sighed. “We’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of us, but Cash is right. You deserve time with her.”
“You cool with that, honey bun?” Cash asked Riley.
“I’m down for a sleepover, but I’ll still miss you.”
Cash beamed and kissed her sweetly. “Be a good girl for Dakota and Levi. We’ll help you get set up, but we can’t stay long or we’ll lose the light before we get home and that’s dangerous for the horses.”
Within a few minutes we had a lean-to strung into the trees in case nature surprised us, and the horses were unsaddled for the night, minus Ranger and Betsy Boo that Cooper and Cash were taking with them.
“Grizzy, you be the best girl, okay?” Cash said, patting her flank. “Guard our girl.”
She leaned into the attention, happy to be in the thick of things, especially when the end-of-season wildberries were plentiful for her to graze on in the trees. Cooper got her, Big Jack, and Sky eating some of the grain and apples we’d brought as treats. They’d be able to forage the rest of their dinner.
Riley gave Cash and Cooper each a kiss fierce enough that the first bit of their ride home was likely to be very uncomfortable sitting in their saddles. She waved until they were out of sight and then turned back to us, a little uncertain but determined.
“We’ll get everything for a fire going,” Levi told her. He’d already cleared some space on the lakeshore.
Riley gathered kindling while Levi and I took apart a downed tree for firewood overnight. I didn’t spend as much time out here as I had in my youth, but it was always satisfying to test my skills living off the land, even if it was just for a short while.
I hadn’t expected Riley to know how to set up and start a fire, but I was given a fresh appreciation for her. She constructed a tidy cone shape with the sticks she gathered, and dry kindling stuffed between them. She even had a whole pile of branches neatly stacked nearby so she could feed them in as the flames caught. Her smile was bright and satisfied as she sat back, surveying her success. While we worked, she filled a camp kettle with water and slid it close to the fire to start warming before rooting around the packs to see what all we had brought.
She paused in her search, watching us work.
“Like what you see, sweetheart?” Levi asked.
“Mhmm,” she replied. “I’d like to see it a little closer, too.”
Wood chopping had never seemed particularly alluring to me, but watching Dakota and Levi swing those axes while shirtless wasreallydoing something for me.
“You’ll have to wait a bit, sweetheart. Wood’s not going to chop itself.”
“I can be patient.”
They were almost done anyway. Birch burned longer than a lot of wood out here, so a handful of decent logs would last us through the night. While they worked, I whittled some sticks for roasting the marshmallows and hot dogs I’d found in the cooler pack. Both were the food of my childhood. Morgan, Cooper, and I had always scraped together our pennies to buy them from the shop near the school, and we scarfed them all down around the campfires we probably weren’t supposed to have built.
I stuck the marshmallows onto the end of sticks and rotated them in the flames, lifting them out when they had been set ablaze and quickly blowing out the tiny infernos. Levi and Dakota paused in their task when I held out the sweet treats.
“Fuel for working,” I said with a smile.
Seemingly deciding it was time for a break, they took two of the logs they’d cut, split them into quarters, and leaned them together over the fire before settling down. I sat in Dakota’s lap while I roasted my own marshmallow.
“You’re sure you’re comfortable staying out here overnight?” Levi asked. “We wouldn’t be able to leave in the dark very easily.”
“Are you worried we’re gonna get eaten by something?”
