Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

Time passes. I hear my dad’s truck drive in. But the barn still remains our sacred place, and underneath the flannel blankets, there is no cold. We are warm, we are whole, we are one.

We have sex again. This time I make my fingers go into overdrive and she manages to come at the same time I do. It’s like we’re spinning out into space together, weightless, dancing in the stars.

But the night starts to get away from us and I know it’s time to go. After she gets dressed, shivering as she slips on her clothes, I take the box out of my pocket and hold it out for her.

“Merry Christmas,” I tell her.

“What is this?” she asks, awestruck. Her cheeks are still flushed from sex and she’s glowing. A woman before me.

“It’s a present, obviously. Open it.”

She looks at me wide-eyed. “You shouldn’t have.”

I just nod at it.

She takes off the flimsy ribbon, then the lid. It was just from a store in the mall and I know it’s not made of diamonds or anything but…

She gasps and stares.

A tiny rose gold wishbone necklace. The lady at the counter says that all the girls these days love rose gold. I hope that’s true.

“Shane,” Rachel whispers.

“Do you like it?” I ask, my heart in my throat.

She looks at me and tears spill down her cheeks.

I wasn’t expecting that reaction but I won’t complain.

“I love it,” she says through a sob. “I love it.”

I reach over and kiss her through her tears. “Good. I thought you might want a wish for a rainy day.”

She wraps her hands around my neck and holds me close to her. “Shane,” she whispers and her voice is choked with something more profound than just gratitude. “There’s only one thing I wish for.”

“What?”

“Run away with me.”

I try and understand. This is the first I’ve heard of it. “Where?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere but here. Shane…I don’t want to be in this town anymore. My mother…my father…I need to leave, or else.”

My heart rate is picking up again. “Or else what? Raven, talk to me. What is all this?”

She shakes her head, tears spilling in rivers down her face. “I just want to go away. Please.”

“Okay,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and holding it to my chest. “Your heart is where my home is. I’ll go wherever your heart goes.”

“Do you mean that?”

I nod. I love it here, but it’s not the same without her. If she wants me to run away with her, I’ll go. I’ll go anywhere if her hand is in mine.

“I promise. Anywhere, anytime.”

She seems to calm before my eyes. “I need to leave…”

“I know.”

“I can’t tell you…”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because…it doesn’t matter. I just needed to know if you’ll leave with me.”

“I told you I will. No matter what.”

She nods and takes my hand to her lips, kissing my fingers, her bright blue eyes watery and warm and reaching into parts of me I long thought dead and dormant. “Thank you.”

A pause.

A whisper.

“Thank you.”





10





Shane





"Shane," my father says, exasperated.

It takes me a moment to realize he must have been saying my name for the past minute or so.

I pull Polly to a halt and glance over my shoulder at him as he comes forward on Major. Major is a large, dapple-grey half quarter horse, half Percheron and the oldest horse we have. The horse is twenty-six, the same age as me, and in some ways feels like an extra sibling. He doesn't get ridden much but today my father decided to take him out for a stroll, especially as we were only patrolling fences down by the riverbanks and didn't have to go very far.

"What?" I ask him.

I can tell my father is glaring at me under his sunglasses. I don't know why he insists on wearing them on hazy days like today, especially with his cowboy hat. He looks like he's trying to be Jack Nicholson.

"I don't think you've heard a damn word I've been saying," he says to me gruffly as he pulls up alongside me. Polly gives Major the stink-eye and shifts away from him. She's picking up on the tension, and then there's the fact that Polly doesn't really like the other horses. Which is one reason why I like her so much. She's a challenge.

And that's the reason why I haven't heard a word my father's been saying to me this last while as we've come up from the river.

My mind is fixated on another challenge.

Rachel.

It was only a few days ago that she came to see me by the stable, where I was actually able to have a halfway decent conversation with her. My attempts before were fraught with too many unanswered questions and unsaid words, and I've been too much of a chicken-shit to get real with her.

Time has changed her. In some ways she's the same Rachel that I know, but in others it's like she's slipped on a mask and a new persona, trying to bury the person she once was. If you'd just met her, you'd probably think she's a gorgeous city girl, roughing it in the sticks for a few weeks, a high-powered business person with a full plate. But I'm not really sure that's the person she's become—I think that might just be the person she wants to be.

And above all, the person she wants to be is someone far away from me, from this place.

But, hell, I should probably encourage this. North Ridge doesn't hold anything for her these days, except for her mother who she wants to rebuild a relationship with. There's a better world out there, filled with more opportunities and a faster life. Everything in this town moves at a turtle's pace. There’s something I like about it, but it's not for everyone. Most people who leave never end up coming back, not when they've gotten a taste of that big wild world.

And yet, I don't want her to leave. And I don't want things to keep progressing as they are. Sure, I made her laugh but then we separated again. It's like anytime we're brought together for a moment, the both of us make sure to push each other away. One step forward, two steps back.

It's just...it's fucking killing me. It's killing me to know that she's sleeping a few yards away from me. That when I look out my bedroom window, I'm looking at hers. That we're so close and yet light years apart, as if the galaxies above us have drifted down, creating chasms and endless space between us.

Every single moment she's here I'm hit with every single memory, the good and the bad. The sexy and the sweet. She's no longer just a phantasm of my dreams, of the years gone by—she's here. She's here and she's real and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do about it. She's got a boyfriend. She's only supposed to be here for a few weeks. And she still fucking hates me. When I look into her eyes, I see pain, and when the pain fades, I see the deep freeze. It's like she's willing her heart to freeze over, to numb herself from the past, from me.