Wrangled

“Lived here my whole life, buddy-boy.” He lolls his head to the side and shoots me a teasing look. “This guy thinks he knows where he’s goin’.”

I huff and shake my head. “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

“Spruce. Why so many people stay here after school. I mean, isn’t anyone the least bit curious what else is out there beyond the highway?” I gesture out the window, my hand catching the wind. “The world’s a big place.”

“The world’s as big or as small as you want it to be. Makes no difference in the end. What matters is what you do with what you got, and how much happiness you find in it, don’t you think?” He shrugs. “Hell, think about someone in prison, how small the world must seem for them. To see the same four walls every day. Same eating area. Commons. Same chambers and rooms and hallways and people. Ain’t that a lot like a small town in itself? With drama and politics and secrets … all on its own?”

I watch the side of Chad’s face the whole time he talks. Was he always this thoughtful? Or did this thoughtfulness just … sort of happen over the last decade?

“So is that what you’re trying to say?” I ask him. “Spruce is like a prison?”

Chad snorts. “Nah. Far from. I just think about it sometimes, what the world looks like through someone else’s eyes.”

“But why a prisoner’s?”

He glances out his window, then slowly brings the truck to a stop at a stop sign. After a moment of sitting there for too long, sifting through thoughts in his head, he finally makes a decision to say something. “Not sure if you heard about any of it. Judgin’ from how far and fast you left after graduation, I doubt it. But that fall, my dad did somethin’ I ain’t proud of. Somethin’ bad. And he went to prison for it. Been there ever since, almost ten years now.”

He flicks the turn signal, makes a slow left, and we’re off again down the dark road.

I stare ahead, astonished. “Wow. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t figure you would.” He shrugs. “Anyway, now you do. My family was the talk of the town—in the worst way—for a very, very long handful of months. I stayed holed up at the ranch the whole time, wouldn’t see or talk to any of my friends. My dad’s scandal threw a dark cloud over everything. And with him gone, I had to grow up real fast and be the big man on the ranch.”

“It must’ve been rough on your mom.”

“It was. But she’s one tough cookie.” Chad lets out an amused snort as his blue eyes sparkle with the memories. “It was just that Halloween that some other thing happened in town—I think a fire broke out and burned down a haunted house—and suddenly none of the gossips cared ‘bout the big Landry scandal anymore. We became old news. Best fuckin’ day of my life, the day that house burned down.” He laughs. “What an awful thing to say.”

Despite myself, I let out an airy chuckle through my nose, too. Then I give a long, appraising glance at the strong, stubbly side of Chad’s handsome face. He’s focused intently on the road. What is it with soft-eyed, strong-jawed country boys that makes the fierce focus they give everything so damned sexy?

I wish his focus was on me.

If I was the target of those intense, watery blue eyes of his, I’d just about break into a hundred colorful Lego pieces at his feet. He could do anything he wanted to me—build me into any shape, step on me, scoop me up and pour me into a little container, keep me up on a shelf somewhere until he wants to pull me down and dump me all over the floor to play with again …

It might be the punch talking.

Just a suspicion.

My metaphors are getting stranger by the second.

“So, buddy-boy.” He peels his pretty blue eyes off the road to stab me with their beauty. “Let’s focus on you. I wanna know it all, good, bad, and ugly. What you’ve got goin’ on. What you’ve done over the years. Who you’re seein’. I wanna know every bit.”

And there he goes, cranking the spotlight right onto me, as if he could hear all my bizarre, Lego-filled thoughts.

Chad’s eyes seriously devastate me.

His sexy, lopsided mouth with the dimples, a dusting of facial hair over his cheeks, and that sharp chisel of his jawline ruin me.

The gleam of his thick, exposed shoulder.

The sinewy cords of muscle running down his arm.

The power in his thighs as he presses a foot to the gas.

Jesus, goodness. Ask and you shall receive; I have his full attention. “I’ve …” Where do I even start? “I’ve been working in the fashion industry for many years now, developing my brand, my style, my signature. I spent several years working my way up from an assistant designer to a senior designer for a major label, working to get my work in front of the right people. I had a couple of really nice pieces featured in Threads and Rougé Fashion Weekly—they are a couple of big magazines in fashion, if you don’t know, a really big deal, designers kill to get their work in them. We’re talking full-spread editorial shoots and everything. Oh, I was really proud of the Threads piece. It had an intricate—okay, picture this—a tight blue leather bustier, perfectly crafted, great detail, my best work, and it had these crazy long sleeves of silk chiffon that flowed like watery, cerulean flames, especially when the model moved, and a long—Um, eyes on the road, please. It’s dark out here.”