Penn walked the few feet between us. “I think Payden just volunteered for babysitting duties. And I also think Pierce came all the way down to the barn, on foot, for the first time in... Years. Years, Anne.” He smiled down at me, putting a finger to my chin and tilting my head up. “You’re good for this crowd.”
I started to laugh and protest, but Penn’s lips stopped everything else. His hands went to each of my cheeks and held firm while he passionately explored the depths of my mouth.
Being kissed like that nearly made me go completely limp. And desires... desires I’d forgotten (up until last night) that I had deep within me began making the rest of the world blur and fade away.
Tianna snorted lightly from directly behind us.
Penn and I both started giggling mid-kiss. I could certainly say I’d never been kissed in front of an audience of horses before.
I didn’t mind it.
“I wanna take you somewhere.” Penn stuck his hand out to me, a soft smile playing at his lips.
“Um. How do I know this is something that I want to agree to?” I cocked my head and raised an eyebrow. After all, the poop pile is apparently view worthy on this ranch. I couldn’t just agree to anything.
Penn laughed loudly, and then his face grew somber. “Do you trust me?”
He meant, of course, with this little mystery in the present moment. But I realized, looking into – more accurately swimming in – his blue ocean eyes that I did trust him. I trusted him here. I trusted him anywhere.
Penn was solid and true in a way I’d never known a man could be. And standing there, his hand still reached out to me, wearing a t-shirt and jeans splattered with mud (and God knows what else), he was the most beautiful man I’d ever met. Or cared to meet.
Penn was everything.
As soon as the thought shot through my head, terror followed it. When had I started to feel this strongly about a guy I’d barely known for a week? In fact, hadn’t I worked diligently hard to prevent this exact feeling from coming to be?
“I trust you,” I finally answered, my voice raspy with emotion. I took his hand, and the happiness on his face beamed – positively beamed – back at me.
“Good. Cuz you should. Come with me.” Penn tugged gently at my hand and we began walking out of the horse barn. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it didn’t matter anyway.
I’d go anywhere with Penn Hardick.
“So I guess you’ve just gone from one mountain range to the other, huh?” Penn was trying so hard to find out more about me but with an evident, cautious gentleness.
We’d been walking for maybe a half an hour along a particular trail, taking our time. Penn’s mother had loved this trail the most, and there were many things along the way that he wanted to show me.
A patch of flowers she’d been fond of. A tree they’d climbed together often (apparently, River Hardick was a nimble woman), a little creek that the Hardicks had built an adorable wooden bridge over.
But he said he was saving the best for last, and I believed him.
“I didn’t so much live in the mountains though in Tennessee. It’s different here... Everything is so... elevated. I feel like I’m in the mountains even when I’m looking at the mountains.” The sentence sounded stupid when I said it out loud, but it was true. Colorado gave you a sense that you were living in the sky.
“Well, you’re not wrong. Elevations are much higher here. Do you like it here?” He gave me a side glance as he asked the question.
I nodded. “I love it here.” And I did. I’d gone a solid (almost) six months without being smacked, punched, or kicked a single time. I would have moved to the bowels of hell for that relief.
And Colorado, luckily, was anything but hell. Every direction I turned brought a new unbelievably picturesque scene. The air was crisp, even when it was warm outside. It felt clean in way that back-wooded, humidity drenched Tennessee never had.
“You don’t miss Tennessee at all? Not even a little?” Penn was surprised.
“No.” My reply was sharp and cold and I hoped desperately that I hadn’t offended him. The intense “no” had flown from of my mouth before I could even begin to calmly think about the question.
Penn was walking slower, studying me in a way that would have normally made me incredibly uncomfortable but... not when Penn did it.
“Anne... You don’t have to answer this or any other question I ask you – ever – okay? But if you ever wanna talk about... I just... I feel like maybe something bad happened to you back there.” He’d stopped walking, so I halted to.
But what I really wanted to do was run. And the irony that we were on a trail almost made me laugh absurdly.
I was pretty familiar with trail runs.
“Sometime... I’ll tell you all of the fun details of my whole entire life, okay? But please... not right now...” My eyes were begging him to drop it.
Penn nodded, but his brow furrowed. “Something bad did happen to you back there.”
I closed my eyes, and visions of Randall chasing Murphy and myself through the thick woods flashed like an unwanted reel of horror. His eyes had been absolutely mad when he charged. Insane. Gone.
“I didn’t say that,” I countered, taking a deep breath and continuing to walk. I wasn’t actually sure where we were going, but I’d rather go there alone than stand here reliving those nightmares.
“You didn’t have to.” Penn fell into step beside me, wisely deciding to let the questions go for now. “It’s right up here.”
“What’s right up –”
But then I saw what he was talking about. The trail kept going, but off to the left, giant rock jutted out, forming a type of smooth-surfaced cliff. In the middle of the space, an adorable, elaborately carved gazebo gave view of the horizon.
Penn grinned at me and held out his hand again. “C'mon. The sun sets soon.”
I took his hand willingly, and he led me straight to the gazebo, where a bench had been placed, I guessed, exactly for this purpose. Sunset watching.
“This was Mom’s favorite. The busier the ranch got, the more guests that came, it got harder for her to find many evenings where the bench wasn’t already claimed. I think that made her sad.” Penn paused, his expression turning wistful. “When she died, Dad closed this trail to visitors and made it for family only.”
“He did?” My eyes went wide at the romantic gesture.
“Yeah. He used to come out here nearly every evening. He wouldn’t say a word to us, just would take off through the front door and we knew. He was going to sit at Mom’s spot and watch the sunset.” Penn pulled me down gently beside him.
“That’s so... beautiful and... sad. It’s tragic.” I stared out at the expanse of land before and below us. River had obviously been Paul’s heart and soul.
I assumed his sons alone had given him reason to go on living once she was gone.
“It’s a lot of things. I dunno. They had some crazy, obsessive love between them. I remember listening to my mom talk when I was super little, and then glancing over to see my dad just staring at her in complete awe. Like he’d never met her before in his entire life. He was just... He adored her.” Penn’s voice faded out tenderly.