more distant than he had a few minutes before.
Maybe he was simply as tired as she was, but it was also possible that he was concerned she’d felt more in that up-close-and-personal moment than he had and perhaps expected something from him. She didn’t force any further conversation, instead leaning her head back against the seat and staring out the window. Before the lights of Blue Falls even faded into the darkness of ranch country, she felt herself drifting and her eyelids drooping.
* * *
MANDY JERKED AWAKE when something shook her. Had she been having a bad dream? About to fall out of bed? Movement out of the corner of her eye startled her so much that she jumped and in the process banged her elbow.
“Ow!” She rubbed the offended body part as the truth settled in her mind. “Oh, jeez, I fell asleep?”
“Vandalism is tiring.” Ben smiled a little, relieving the awkwardness that had settled between them as they’d left town.
“Yep. That excursion will probably last me another decade. Thanks for taking part in my temporary insanity.”
“I’m blaming the pigeon.”
She laughed. “That excuse expires at midnight.”
“I’m going to expire before then.”
“Me, too,” she said as she clasped the door handle. “Good night, Ben.”
“Wait.”
Her heart leaped, but then she saw him reaching for the rifle.
“I’ll walk you to the door.”
That sounded very chivalrous. Part of her wished it had romantic overtones, but she’d picked up enough of who Ben was in the last several hours to know it was instead his need to make sure she was safe before he left. Of course, that was nice in and of itself. She needed to focus on that and not on the part of her that was disappointed.
They walked side by side up to the porch. When she passed her frog statue, she thought about how he wasn’t who she wanted to kiss tonight. Just a few more minutes and she’d be safely inside her house, away from her sudden abandonment of good sense. One didn’t end the day by kissing the person who wrecked your car earlier in the day, especially when you’d known that person forever and would likely know them the rest of forever.
“You know how to use this?” he asked.
She eyed the rifle. “Only in the vaguest of terms.”
Somehow she managed to pay attention to the instructions, enough that she was confident she wouldn’t, in fact, shoot off her foot. That had to be an A plus for effort, considering how much her senses were demanding she ignore his actual words and instead focus on the warmth coming off his body, his undeniably male scent, the deep rumble of his voice, the memory of how it had felt to be pressed close to him with his strong arms around her.
“Got it,” she said too suddenly, judging by the startled look on Ben’s face. “Sorry, but Cinderella is about to turn back into a pumpkin.”
“I know I’m a guy, but I’m pretty sure Cinderella wasn’t the one who turned into a pumpkin.”
“Whatever—it sounded better than ‘poorly dressed, mistreated orphan girl.’”
Ben’s amused smile caused a fluttery feeling inside her, as if she’d swallowed a migration of butterflies who’d taken up square dancing.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
“Yep.”
Yep? Really? She supposed that was better than the other thought that had been near the tip of her tongue—that he might as well stay over since it was only a few hours before he had to be back here. Instead, she gave him a nod and stepped inside the house. She resisted the urge to bang her head against the wall, instead storing the gun safely in the corner.
She finally let out a long breath and sank onto the couch when she heard Ben start his truck. As the sound of the engine retreated into the night, an aloneness she’d never felt since moving to her own piece of land descended. The night surrounding her tiny house seemed darker, quieter, more filled with potential danger.
How could she feel so different from when she’d gotten up that morning? She was the same person with the same job, the same home. And yet as she sat there, there was no denying that something had changed within her sometime since she’d looked up at the sound of her car being crunched.
And she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.
* * *
WHEN BEN REACHED the porch of his family’s home, his sisters were sitting in two of the rocking chairs in the dark.
“Thought maybe the mountain lion had eaten you,” Sloane said.
He leaned against one of the porch supports. “Glad to see you were so concerned you decided to lounge out here with a glass of lemonade.”
“What? I’ve got two other brothers.”
“Sloane!” Angel said and kicked at her older sister’s foot.
“What? He knows I’m just giving him a hard time.” Sloane looked over at him. “Seriously, though, did you find the mountain lion? I’m not about to bring any more kids out here to camp in tents if it’s still running around.”
“I didn’t see him, but there were tracks. He’s not a small animal.”
“Did you follow the tracks in the dark?”
He shook his head.
“Then where have you been all this time?” The teasing crept back into Sloane’s voice.
He considered brushing off her question, but that would just make her more persistent, like a dang mosquito buzzing around his ear, determined to draw blood. Better to tell her the truth. Well, partial truth. He wasn’t about to tell anyone about his unexpected reaction to Mandy, how he’d dang near kissed her as they’d hidden from Greg. She’d felt so good in his arms. Warm, soft, full of a zest for life.
“You remember that time Greg got me in trouble in high school?”
“How could I forget? Those pictures were epic. I thought Mr. Kushner was going to pop a vein.”
“Mandy may have given me a way to finally get some payback.”
“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” Sloane said.
He told them about the wrongfully delivered pink streamers and how Mandy had suggested they wrap Greg’s truck in them and how he, in an evident moment of insanity, went along with it. He mentioned how they’d almost been caught but skipped right over how he’d held Mandy in the dark, feeling her soft curves and her chest rising and falling against his, how he’d experienced the almost irresistible urge to drop his mouth to hers.
“I’d give good money to have seen Greg’s face when he saw that truck,” Sloane said.
“Heck, I’d settle just for seeing the truck.” Angel laughed.
Ben pulled out his phone and scrolled to the photo Mandy had sent him then extended the phone to Angel.
“Oh, my, that’s awesome,” she said before handing the phone to Sloane.
Sloane snorted. “I cannot wait to tease Greg about this.”
“Don’t tell him who did it.”
“I won’t, but probably half the town knows about this by now. People are probably hopping in their cars to cruise by to see it.”
“He may have it all off by now.”
“Trust me, a fair number of people would have gone to gawk before he managed to remove all that. You and Mandy did an excellent job.” She shook her head then looked up at him. “One thing I don’t understand, though. How did that prank on Mr. Kushner