“Are you still going to hang out with the guys this weekend?” Mitch asked.
“We’ll see. I’m sure once Rayna makes her rounds, everyone will know about my new girlfriend. I guess we could always play along and make the rounds about town. What ya think about that?” I said, tickling Hadley’s side.
She pinched my arm. “Don’t think so.”
We said goodbye to Mitch and once we were outside, she slapped me on the arm. “You’re supposed to be hiding me away and protecting me, not parading me around town.”
I tapped her on the chin. “It was a joke, Hadley. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Besides, I’d rather not go. Every local in the bar will be trying to hit on you.”
“Speaking of which, why does Mitch call you City? I thought you were from around here.” We got in the truck and started on our way back to the ranch, but I wasn’t in a hurry to explain the story to her. “Are you going to answer me?” she asked.
Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair. “He calls me that because I’m a city boy. I only moved here a little over a year ago from North Carolina, after my grandfather passed away. He left the ranch to me.”
Smugly, she lifted her chin. “And you had the balls to call me a fake?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I most definitely have those.” I winked at her.
She pretended to look offended, but ended up laughing. I joined in when she had to wipe tears from her eyes. It was over the dumbest comment in the world, but it was the hardest I’d laughed in over a year.
Hadley
“Hey, princess, you ready to go?” Blake called.
I finished tying my shoes and grabbed the new jacket I had bought. It was early May, but had snowed that morning. Never in my life had I seen snow in May. I rushed downstairs and Blake was in the kitchen, packing our hiking gear. Instead of his usual ripped and worn jeans, he had on a pair of black track pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt. Also, the cowboy hat he never went without, sat on the counter, replaced by an old baseball cap.
“Wow, you look different today,” I teased.
Grinning, he gazed over at me with those stormy gray eyes of his. “Is that a good or bad thing?”
I sat down at the bar and laughed. “It’s a good thing, but the dirty cowboy look agrees with you. It’s hard to imagine you as a city boy. Where in North Carolina are you from, anyway?”
He packed waters and snacks into his backpack and zipped it up. “Born and raised in Charlotte. My parents used to bring me out here to visit my grandfather every holiday and summer.”
“Was he your mother’s father or your dad’s?”
“My dad’s. He moved to North Carolina to attend Duke. That’s where he met my mother. After that, he never came back, except to visit.”
Glancing around the house, it had to be heaven growing up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It was a dream come true. “I bet it would’ve been nice to grow up here. I’m from Lower Manhattan. My parents didn’t exactly take me to places like this. All of our vacations were to beaches and resorts.” Sighing, I gazed out the window. “Not that I’m complaining. I’m not. It’s just . . . it’s so peaceful out here.”
His thigh brushed mine when he sat down beside me. I tried to hide my smile, especially when he made no effort to move.
“I guess you don’t know what that’s like, do you?”
I shook my head. “And I probably never will.”
The room fell silent. I finally had some peace, but it wasn’t enjoyable. How could I when Scott was dead, Nick was fighting for his life, and my stalker was still out there hunting me? Blake bumped me with his shoulder. “You ready to go? We have a full day ahead of us.”
Taking a deep breath, I slid out of my chair. “And when we get back, I’m going to order you some glittery pink Mexican boots for our next trip into town.”