Hitched(43)

But not anymore.

We can’t be anything to each other anymore.

Not even friends.

I’ll have to figure out an excuse to send myself away on a business trip for the rest of our fake marriage. Maybe to study that sustainable farm in Vermont I’ve read so much about, the one with the foreman who told me I could come shadow him any time and learn how to turn my shelter into a source of farm-fresh food for my community.

Kyle knows I’ve been obsessed with that place for a while now. Maybe he’ll believe that I love sustainable agriculture enough to tear myself away from my new hubby.

And if he doesn’t…

Well, then we can fight it out in front of a judge.

I might not know how to love a human mate, but I’ve made a promise of forever to innocent creatures who won’t leave.

Animals die, but they never willingly choose to abandon you. They never wake up one morning, stop loving the person who has cared for and adored them, and decide to make that person’s life miserable, instead.

Animals take your love and keep it safe.

Safe.

That’s what I want. What I need. Just to be safe again. Alone, and lonely sometimes, but good enough on my own to get by and have some fun while I’m doing it.

But when I stumble in the front door, I don’t go to my bed. I go to the couch and fall onto the pillow Blake left there, inhaling his soapy, sexy Blake scent as I cry myself back to sleep.

And in the morning, I’m awakened by a loud pounding on my door, Kyle’s voice shouting—“I’ve got proof, Hope. Time to admit your marriage is a joke and sign that animal over to me.”—and I am reminded that things can always get worse.

Always.





Seventeen





Blake





* * *



She’s gone.

I’m not surprised—a part of me even expected it.

It’s the reason I laid awake for so long last night, memorizing the feel of her in my arms, the sweet smell of her, the way her heart beat perfectly in time with mine.

Because my gut warned that she might be gone by morning.

Hope didn’t say “I love you” back.

I get it, and I don’t blame her or resent her for not saying things she isn’t ready to say, but the fact that she didn’t share her feelings with me remains significant.

I believe she feels what I feel. I know she does. The way she touched me last night, kissed me, held me like she couldn’t bear to let me go, not even for the few minutes it took to fetch the extra sleeping bag from my truck so we’d have something to cover up with while we slept, matters too.

It matters enough to send me bolting out the door without bothering to clean up the remains of our picnic or roll up the sleeping bags.

Because I have to find Hope and convince her that she doesn’t have to run from me. I’m a patient man. I’m willing to give her as much time and space as she needs to feel comfortable letting me the rest of the way into her heart. Tending a vineyard for years before my vines finally started to bear enough fruit to make something delicious has taught me that good things are worth waiting for, working for.

And Hope isn’t just good. She’s incredible.

I just wish I could make her see it.

I race out to my truck, thrown by the sight of Hope’s old beater still parked beside it. Maybe she walked back to her place.

Or sleepwalked?

Shit. If she was sleepwalking, there’s no telling where she is.

“Hope?” I call.

No answer.

I pick up the pace and circle the tasting room, looking for any sign of her and finding nothing.

And now I’m hoping she did run away.

At least then I’d know she was safe.

I dash into my truck and speed along the country roads, fear gripping my heart.

I don’t have double locks on the tasting room. And we didn’t lock it at all. If she was up sleepwalking, she could be hurt. Lost. Worse.

I tell myself Hope’s a nature girl and more than capable of getting herself home in the dark, but I’m also thinking about all the ruts in the trail between our places, holes I’m going to fill in and cover with a fresh coat of gravel as soon as I ensure she hasn’t sprained her ankle and ended up trapped alone in the woods overnight.

As soon as I verify she’s okay.

She has to be okay.

I roar up to her place.

Dean isn’t at his post. His station wagon is there, but it’s empty and there’s no sign of him in the pasture or beside the road.

My inner danger alert system is going overtime with warning signals when I rumble into the shelter’s gravel parking lot to see a swanky Mercedes parked by the house.

Fuck.

Kyle.

I’m in no state of mind to deal with him right now. Not when I don’t know where Hope is, or if she’s okay.

I slam out of the truck, jogging around to the back of the house, hearing raised voices before the porch comes into view. And then I see them—Kyle on the steps, yelling at a frazzled-looking Hope—thank god she’s safe—while Cara and Dean stand in the grass nearby.

Dean’s holding Chewy on a lead while the alpaca nibbles anxiously on the rim of his baseball cap. For his part, Dean is grinning like getting a hat chewing from a high-class alpaca is the best time he’s had in a while. Cara is chattering, but after my one and only run-in with her, I don’t have any clue what she might be saying, and I don’t care.