Rope the Moon (Runaway Ranch, #2)(26)

A crease forms on his rugged brow, like the memory annoys him. Maybe it does. Maybe all I am is a burden he’s stuck with because of a promise he made to Stede.

Two old men—friends of my father’s—are sitting on a porch swing outside Zeke’s Hardware. I tug my jacket tighter over my belly. Heat shoots into my cheeks when they look me up and down, but say nothing.

They don’t recognize me.

Maybe no one will.

My head swivels as we pass the Neon Grizzly. Even at ten a.m. country music blasts through the windows and every barstool is full.

Right next door is an art gallery. The contrast is staggering.

“The town’s gotten so big,” I breathe.

Davis chuckles, nods at a passerby. “People still say hello on the street, so not that big.”

Resurrection is different. It’s not so much gentrified as it is hip. The saloons, antique store, and candy shop from my childhood still exist, but now there’s a small-town cool to it. There’s hardly a chain-store in sight. Instead, mom-and-pop shops and cute boutiques line the storefronts.

A hollow ache fills me as I take in the sights while we walk.

The soul of my hometown hasn’t changed, it got better. But I never wanted Resurrection. I never wanted The Corner Store. Or my father’s legacy. Or my sister’s wild. I wanted to be perfect and to work hard. Older daughter status that led somewhere. I was a cheerleader and a straight-A student. Homecoming queen and valedictorian. I was Resurrection’s golden girl, and I left.

It’s clear I’m not one of them anymore. I’m an outsider, an interloper, a deserter.

No one in Resurrection will be happy I’m back. We take off for greener pastures when we should keep tending our own. People invest their life here, so when you’re new, or come home, no one welcomes you with open arms.

I had all this hope in leaving Aiden, and now…coming back to Resurrection feels like some perilous journey instead of a hopeful one.

“We should keep moving.” Davis’s low rumble sends warmth cascading through my stomach.

Then I blink. I’ve stopped on the street corner and didn’t realize it.

The oxygen leaves my lungs when Davis puts a hand out. It hovers over the small of my back, not quite touching it as he gives me a stern frown. A long sigh bubbles up in my lungs before I swallow it down. He keeps doing that. Not quite touching me. What does it say about me that I want him to?

What does it say about him that he won’t?

Everything about it is just like the cowboy himself—infuriatingly frustrating.

“Let’s go,” he says, his voice cool and collected.

We cross the intersection, headed for the end of Main Street. Davis strides ahead, back straight, broad shoulders stiff and on edge. For such a massive man, his energy radiates stealth, calm. His nimble movements are like a shark slicing through water.

Powerful. Dangerous.

I want to complain that he’s here with me, but I can’t. The truth is, I feel safer with Davis beside me. Isn’t that why I came back? Because, deep down, I wanted those five seconds he promised.

Davis holds the door for me, and I step inside the Bear Creek Clinic.

I exhale and square my shoulders, scanning the signs on the wall. First floor. Suite Two. Obstetrics.

A strange mixture of revulsion and fear courses through me. I’m horrified when tears hit my eyes. Even more horrified when I feel the heat from a big, muscled body behind me. The temperature in the room suddenly rises.

I jerk around, put a hand out like I can stop him. “You don’t need to come with me.”

Still, Davis moves toward me. Worry flashes in those chocolate-brown eyes. “Are you sure?”

No, I’m not fucking sure. I want him there to hold my hand, to take it with me. I want his stern face and that commanding rasp of a voice to tell me it’ll all be okay. But I can’t have that. I can’t—and won’t—ask that of him.

I lift my chin and wipe my eyes. “Does it look bad? My face?”

His expression softens, the hard apple of his throat working up and down as he stares at me. And, oh god, this time he does touch me. His big, calloused fingers tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, lingering there. My eyes flutter close at the sensation. The air between us warms at least ten degrees.

“No, Koty,” he finally says, his voice ragged. “It doesn’t look bad.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Breathe, Dakota. You got this.”

I blink back tears. Somehow, he always has me.

Before he can say anything else, I turn on my heel and leave Davis behind.




Thirty minutes later, after a variety of pregnancy related tests and a blood draw, I’m reclined on an obstetric table in an itchy gown when the door opens.

“Well, if it isn’t little Dakota McGraw. I swear I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw your name on my chart.”

I look up from my spot on the bed and smile weakly. “Lucky you, I guess.” Every sigh inside of me is fighting to come out.

My old babysitter, Agnes Winfrey, is now the town obstetrician. And why wouldn’t she be? It makes perfect sense she’d be the one to see my vagina after she changed my diapers.

In her early fifties, Winfrey’s a woman of boisterous laughter and solemn serenity. I remember her sneaking me Red Vines from her purse when she bribed Fallon and me to get back into bed and leave her and her boyfriend alone.