“You want me to stick around or give you some privacy?”
“I need to do this on my own,” I say with confidence.
He slaps the papers on the table and wraps his hand around the nape of my neck, pulling me in for a hug. “Fire away, baby.”
38
SAVANNAH
THREE WEEKS LATER
With the back seat of my car stuffed full of mainly shoes and handbags, I drive through the gates of Prairie Rose Ranch. Blythe is in the passenger seat with her tan bare feet propped up in the corner of the open window. It’s not a refreshing breeze, being as hot and humid as it is. But it’s a beautiful day nonetheless and I like the feeling of our hair whipping in the wind as we make our way up the drive.
“Is this crazy?” I ask her as I grip the steering wheel extra hard.
She pulls the green Popsicle out of her mouth and whips her head in my direction. “Oh, it’s crazy alright. Good luck with laundry—these boys do five loads a day and there’s still dirty clothes in the mud room. It’s a hillbilly frat house, girl. Godspeed.” She salutes and then bends forward to put her sandals back on.
“I don’t care about that. But moving in with Warren . . . It’s fast. I don’t want to mess this all up by rushing everything.”
She takes a sip out of her water bottle and then points it to me. “You already pretty much live here. You’re here every single night.”
“True. You Farrows and your damn love spells. I give up fighting it and trying to take things slow.”
Blythe clutches her stomach as she laughs. “I know I have no room to talk. If you’re really that worried about it, you could move in with me,” she suggests. “The bed in the guest room is comfy and I just put the cutest rug in there.”
The car comes to a stop as we pull in front of the bunkhouse. I lean forward to look out the windshield and take a deep breath. I know it’s not forever, but right now, it feels like home. Despite the comforting feeling, I can’t help but worry about the future.
The proposition of living here was a mixture of wanting to spend more time with Warren and wanting to feel safer at the same time. We’ll still take care of Mesa’s place until she’s back, of course. But even with Emma no longer being a threat, I didn’t want to live alone.
“So I can listen to you and Gage going at it all night upstairs? I think not.”
“Okay,” she laughs. “So you’d rather hear Tripp’s girls screaming his name right across the hall. Got it.”
My face scrunches up and I push the sunglasses to the top of my head. “Ugh. I’ll take an extended stay at the bed and breakfast off Main Street for 200, Alex.”
Blythe smiles but then lowers her voice to a more sincere tone. “Do you have second thoughts about my brother?”
“No,” I say immediately. “It’s just . . . I’ve never been so scared to ruin something good.”
And that’s saying something. I’ve been scared of ruining plenty of things before. But never as much as this.
“You should always go with your gut. But in my opinion, there’s no timeline for love. The first time Gage and I were together, I knew in my bones I’d be sitting on a back porch with gray hair and an iced tea in my hand next to him in fifty years.”
“The first time you saw him? Really?”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Oh, no. He was a blubbering mess the first time I saw him,” she laughs. “I’m talking about the first time we knocked boots and he?—”
“Okay,” I cut her off and open the driver’s side door. “It’s not late enough in the day for me to hear about your sexcapades.”
“Fine, but the man can bone. That’s all I’m saying.”
After a beat of silence, I form my lips into a tight line and take a cleansing breath.
“You know what? I’m going to stop being a nervous nelly and embrace it. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and moving in with Warren isn’t going to mess anything up. It’s going to make it even better.”
It feels good to step out of the cage of anxiety and say that out loud.
Blythe’s jaw drops, but then her mouth lifts in a grin. “Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”
