Change of Hart (Wells Ranch, #3)(50)
“Babe, I’m fine—swear.”
“You love really hard, and I don’t want you to get hurt if the feelings aren’t reciprocated.”
“It’s just a ride home because, between the heat and Cecily’s potent sangria, I probably shouldn’t drive. Nobody’s falling in love.”
She points her head toward where Denver’s leaning against the hood of his pickup. “Have fun.”
I turn and smile at him, waving a quick goodbye to Cass over my shoulder and trying to disguise the extra spring in my step while I walk across the crunchy gravel to his truck. Obviously, it’s not the same truck he had back when we were seventeen, but sliding onto the dark leather passenger seat, breathing in the faint smell of his cologne, and rolling the window down to feel the sunshine on my bare arm still feels a lot like it used to. Like home.
Denver hops into the driver’s seat, and the diesel engine rumbles to life, filling my nostrils with yet another nostalgic scent. I swallow hard, watching his tanned forearms flex as he shifts the manual transmission. Thick veins branch under his skin, begging to have my fingertips tracing them. I keep an eye on his strong jaw, with light brown stubble catching sunlight, in my periphery as we pull away. It’s no wonder all the girls in town have been chasing after him in the years since I left, and a dull ache takes up residence in my chest when I consider how many of them have sat in this seat.
“Do you need to go straight home?” he asks when the truck rattles over the cattle guard at the end of the driveway.
“Why? Have somewhere else in mind?”
I’m openly flirting now, I’ll admit. If the rumors are true, he’s incapable of any commitment beyond a single night. Cassidy says I love too hard, but I had plenty of one-night stands and short-term relationships in Vancouver. They were a welcomed distraction. Something to quiet the storm in my brain. Maybe I can do the same thing here. Get it out of my system, then move on to the things I should be prioritizing.
“There’s a place I want to show you,” he says.
“I have nowhere else to be.” Nor anywhere I’d rather be than here with him.
Rather than heading left, toward town, his large hands glide over the steering wheel, spinning it to the right. When we reach cruising speed, I twist my hair around until it creates a makeshift bun at the nape of my neck, and sink into the seat. Warm summer air whips around in the cab, carrying the aroma of freshly cut hay and the crackling sound of tires on a dirt road.
Aside from Koe Wetzel’s hushed voice coming from the radio, it’s comfortably silent between us. We’ve never needed to fill the space with unnecessary chitchat, and there’s something magical about being with a person who feels so much like an extension of yourself you don’t need to do anything except coexist. Despite the years, the trauma, the heartbreak, Denver Wells is always going to be that person for me.
“I missed this,” he says after a few minutes of silence, which he clearly spent lost in thought with me.
“Me too,” I admit. “It’s been really nice to be home, actually.”
“So much so that you’re referring to Wells Canyon as home again?”
They say home is where your heart is. Fourteen years away, and I didn’t give my heart to anyone else. Because how could I? It was back here in Wells Canyon…with him.
So—
“Yeah, it’s always been home.” I shift in my seat. “I loved my life in Vancouver, and didn’t expect to be back here, but…”
“I get it.” His hands aggressively twist around the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Then he turns off the road onto a trail that’s barely wide enough to fit the truck. And he stops.
“Okay, it’s safest if we walk from here.” He leans an elbow on the center console to get a better look at my footwear. Strappy sandals with a slight heel—hardly appropriate for walking on pavement, never mind on an uneven dirt trail. “But that’s not an option, since you’re a city girl now, apparently.”
“I take offense to that statement. Just because I dress nicer than I used to doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own in the country.”
“Then unbuckle your seat belt, and be ready to bail out of the truck if I tell you to.”
My face twists in horror. “What the hell are we about to do?”
“I’m taking you somewhere special.”
“To my early grave?”
“Not if we’re lucky.”
With a groan and a lurch, the truck starts up a steep hillside, along a path that the majority of civilization wouldn’t deem worthy of being called a road. Twisting and winding along the mountainside, up steep embankments, past terrifying cliffs. Denver grips the steering wheel, never letting his eyes leave the path, giving the truck just enough oomph to get over each knoll and pothole. The views are stunning—not that I can look out the window long enough to appreciate them, because I’m staring at the door handle, and having a mild panic attack about the idea of leaping from a truck as it careens off the edge of the road.
Reaching the top, both he and the truck shudder an exhale when we come to a stop in front of the best view of the Wells Canyon valley I’ve ever seen. And finally I’m able to quit nervously picking at my cuticles.
I throw open the passenger door, taking a deep breath, and step onto compact earth. The view extends far beyond Wells Canyon, likely allowing a sightline all the way to Sheridan, if you squint hard enough. The ranch, the distant ski hill, and a sea of treed hilltops.