“You guys have a tire swing?” I point at it even though he already knows it’s there.
“My grandfather hung it there when my brothers and I were kids. He thought it would keep us out of trouble. In his mind, it was better if we drowned in the river than to do something stupid around the dangerous ranch equipment or risk getting trampled by a herd of stampeding cattle.” He sits on the blanket and pats the spot next to him.
I join him. The view surrounding us is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, with the low slope of the Bitterroot mountain range on the other side of the river. I can only imagine how gorgeous this place will be when the leaves change color in the fall.
“But no one drowned, right?” I ask.
“That’s right. I guess the old man wasn’t that big a fool when he came up with the idea. And he was probably right about the ranch. My brothers and I were your typical boys, always looking for adventure, never thinking of the risks first.” He rests his hand on my lower back, his thumb lightly stroking against my tank top.
The familiar hum that always visits whenever he touches me lingers beneath the surface. The move is sweet and intimate, tender and exhilarating. It’s never felt this way with any other man…and that scares me.
I’m not talking about a serial-killer-is-chasing-me-with-a-chainsaw scared. It’s more like when you eat the most amazing dessert and you know you’ll never have anything like it again.
But what Noah and I have also comes with a ticking clock, counting down the seconds before I return to LA.
So enjoy what time you have left together, a voice in my head says.Don’t worry about what could happen tomorrow, or next week, or in three months from now.
“Did you and your brothers hang out here a lot when you were kids?”
“Yes. We used to come here every day in the summer with our friends, including Violet and Austin. This was the place where we used to dream up our craziest schemes.”
I nudge him with my shoulder. “Like what?”
“Like when I was ten years old and we thought it would be a brilliant idea to sneak some hot sauce into Mrs. Eversteen’s chili during the county fair cook-off. She was our math teacher and no one liked her. She was a cranky old bitch even at the best of times.”
He smirks in that sexy way of his that always leaves my body tingling.
“So what happened?”
“Austin decided that he would be in charge of the mission. He was the oldest of the five of us, so that made sense. Violet and I were supposed to distract Mrs. E while Austin dumped the hot sauce into the chili. Everyone else was assigned lookout duty.
“Turns out that Violet and I sucked at being a distraction. It didn’t help that Mrs. E was determined to win—and hell if a couple of kids were going to keep her from doing that. She had won the category for the past three years, and there was no stopping her from winning again.
“She discovered what Austin was up to, which wasn’t hard to figure out since he was caught dumping the entire contents of the bottle into the pot.”
“Oh, no!” I press my fingers against my mouth to suppress the laugh that has no intention of being held back. I giggle.
Noah grins at me. “Oh no, is right. It didn’t take much to figure out who his accomplices were. Her husband was the town sheriff at the time, and he decided that we needed to be taught a lesson. He had his wife dish out five bowls of chili and we all had to finish it.”
“Surely the law isn’t allowed to punish kids that way.”
Noah shrugs. “I have no idea. All I know is that our parents were also at the county fair and they agreed with his punishment. I don’t think they realized how much hot sauce Austin had poured into the pot. I swear fire came out of our ears as we ate it, but we did our best not to let Mrs. E know just how much it burned.”
A laugh erupts from my lungs at that image.
“And you know the best part?”
I shake my head.
“Austin went on to become a winner in the county fair cook-off years later. Except his specialty is barbecue sauce. He’s been unbeatable.”
That makes me laugh even harder. “I’m sorry I missed all of that.”
“Me too. You know why?”
“No, why?”
He leans closer, his mouth a breath-width from mine. “If you had lived in Copper Creek as a kid, you would have been that girl whose pigtails I would’ve pulled.”
