The sprinkler system hisses and comes alive. A jet of cold water slams square into her side.
“Shit!” she shrieks and spins, hands on my hips, shoving me in front of the blast.
“Come on!” I move the tools to one hand and grab her wrist, running toward the golf cart shelter, both of us soaked and laughing.
By the time we duck under the overhang, we’re drenched.
“I thought you told them to turn it off,” she says between breaths.
“I did! Obviously, they didn’t do it.”
She shakes water off her arms. “Well, great day one.”
I look at her, soaking and shining with wet hair and flushed cheeks. “We always make good memories, don’t we?”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze lingering. “Thanks, Bennett. Not just for the protection. For what you said.”
“You don’t have to thank me for telling the truth.”
We stand there a beat longer, water dripping off us, and for the first time since she came back, I’m not thinking about what we lost but wondering if we could find our way back to one another.
Chapter Seventeen
Delaney
Leia’s strapped into her booster seat in the back of my brother’s truck, and my stomach is a knot of nerves as we wait for Levi. My mom went behind my back and talked him into getting Leia horse riding lessons at Plain Daisy Ranch. Then Levi went ahead and told her it was happening. So now, here we sit, waiting for him to finish raiding my mom’s kitchen before we leave.
He jogs out of my parents’ house, still chewing a biscuit from dinner. Levi rents the house behind my parents. Well, he doesn’t pay rent. He’s never home anyway, and my parents are too all in on his rodeo dream to demand rent from him.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, crumbs tumbling onto his shirt as he hops into the cab. He looks back at Leia. “Ready?”
“Yep!” She’s all smiles and excitement.
The minute she was old enough, I put Leia on a horse. It’s one of those things I wished I was comfortable with, so I wanted to make sure my daughter would be. Then I realized that if I was too afraid to ride, she might be too, so I joined her lessons. I’ve tried to raise her to be fearless, even if I’m not. But she’s still cautious, studies everything before she feels she can trust it.
“You good?” Levi glances at me, half a biscuit still in his mouth, turning the key in the ignition.
“Yes.”
“Just making sure. Mom said you wanted to go to Wild Bull, which, for the record, offends me deeply. That guy’s a class-A?—”
“I get the point.” I nod toward the back seat.
“Sorry. Not used to having kids around.”
“I know.” I give him a small smile.
He manages to get the rest of the biscuit into his mouth without his hands, which is a disturbing talent I didn’t know he had.
“You could’ve eaten before we left.”
“Nah, I told Nash we’d be there in fifteen.”
Nash. Bennett’s roommate, along with his cousin, Jensen.
“Nash will be there?”
Levi side-eyes me at the light. “How do you think I got her in? Why?”
