I slipped my hand shears into my dress pocket and smiled up at the row I’d just finished pruning, before a rustle from somewhere nearby made the hairs on my neck rise. I glanced right toward a small opening in the woods, a place I no longer dared to go or felt welcome.
The last time I had heard noises in those woods, things had ended very badly.
Heaviness rested on my chest. The first year and a half without Ridge hadn’t been easy, but the last three months had been worse after knowing Ridge returned my feelings and having felt it in that first kiss and the million kisses that came after it. Even if it was just one night, it was a night that spoke volumes.
Chills still swept over my skin when I thought about that night on the mountain. We had kissed like it was our first, last, and only. We didn’t speak much in between. And instead of returning to my tent, Ridge had brought me to his, where we lay together all night. Our inexperience was revealed as we explored each other’s mouths and our hands wandered in all the safe places. Neither of us tried for more. Not that night or the next. More would have been too much and turned the night into something completely different that risked tainting a beautiful memory I would never forget. But one beautiful night didn’t erase the ache in my heart from missing him.
The startling sound in the woods had nearly vanished from my mind when it picked up again, that time followed by what sounded like a chain clinking. Something about it was familiar, but I couldn’t place the sound until a black-and-white border collie made a dash from the woods, straight to me.
I gasped in surprise before laughing when Bruno jumped at me playfully. Back when Ridge had lived there, we would often take Bruno with us to our hilltop. He loved the hike, always wandering a safe distance away to race through the weeds or tumble around in the dirt.
I sank to my knees to pet my old friend before looking up toward the woods with a frown. “What are you doing over here, Bruno? You know my papa will lose his mind if he sees you, huh?” I whispered, even though my papa was nowhere near us.
When Bruno still didn’t budge to go home, I laughed and stood. “Go on, boy. Go home.”
Bruno just stayed there, looking up at me with his big brown eyes as his mouth hung open and his tail wagged.
“Oh, fine.” I clapped my leg and started for the woods, knowing he would follow.
He ran up beside me and paced me on my trek.
It felt weird to head back in the direction of the bridge after so long. I hoped Bruno would take off as soon as he saw it. Maybe he’d followed a squirrel or a rabbit and got turned around. Who knew. I was just happy to get him off our property and keep him safe. My papa would never hurt a dog, but the last thing either of our families needed was ammo to restart a feud that lay as dormant as the grapevines during winter.
The moment the bridge started to come into view, Bruno took off running. When I saw the reason why, I froze in my tracks and blinked harder than I’d ever blinked in my life. Standing at the center of the bridge, with a hand gripping the rail and his chocolate eyes on me, stood a man I didn’t think I would ever see again, at least not without me tracking him down, which I had most certainly thought about doing.
Ridge was home. At least, I thought he was home. It looked like him. He was even wearing the same old white-and-red flannel he often wore after a long day on the farm.
I blinked again, certain the image before me was a figment of my very vivid imagination. It wouldn’t have been the first time that I’d conjured up a memory of Ridge and wished that he would return to me.
“Don’t tell me I rendered you speechless, Wild One. I would be terribly disappointed.”
And just like that, my wishes and prayers and wildest fantasies were confirmed. My heart exploded, and a smile broke out wide on my face. I bolted from my frozen stance toward him. My cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, and my lungs already felt like they were going to combust.
Emotion swept over me, and I could have sworn it was the force of my love for Ridge that carried me straight into his arms until I burst into a puddle of happy and relieved tears. I didn’t know why he was back or for how long he was staying. But it didn’t matter at that moment. All that mattered was that he was there, wrapping his strong arms around me in an embrace I would never forget for as long as I lived. Even his scent wrapped around me, a rich blend that reminded me of blooming orchards and a woodsy meadow.
“You’re here.” I whispered the words into his shirt, my eyelids shut tight in an effort to never awake from that moment. It felt like Ridge was home—not the home he’d been searching for as long as I’d known him but the home that had always been waiting for him, as long as he was ready.
Ridge chuckled as he practically peeled me off of him so that he could get a good look at me. His eyes swept over my dress, my dirt-caked hands, and my flushed face then met mine and softened as my body melted back into him. I clung to him, desperate to keep him. Even better, he didn’t let me go.
“I’m here.”
I searched his eyes, swallowing over the emotion built up in my throat. “For good?”
Doubt flickered in his gaze.
“Ridge,” I pleaded. “Does this mean what I think it means? Are you back to stay?”
He cupped my chin and shook his head. “The truth is I don’t know. I wanted to see you. And I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”
My face burst into a smile. No words could have made me happier, and just the fact that Ridge was back pried open all the doorways to my heart.
He smiled back as he took me in again. “That’s a pretty dress you’ve got on.”
I already felt warm all over, and it wasn’t from the summer sun. Before Papa had put me to work on the field, I’d put on my Sunday best, a red sundress that fell just below my knees. I stepped back and pushed my hands into the pockets before twisting left and right. “Thank you.”
Ridge nodded behind him. “I’ve gotta get back to work.” When I frowned, he chuckled. “The corn isn’t going to detassel itself.” Then he winked. “Meet me here at three?”
“We’ll go to the hilltop?”
He nodded, and my world righted once more.
At three o’clock on the dot, we met again. Ridge was already there when I arrived, and he had changed into a white shirt and jeans, while I still wore my red dress that he had complimented earlier. I couldn’t keep the smile from my face as I approached. Several times over the last few hours, I’d questioned whether I would actually see him.
We walked toward the center of the bridge. I had always viewed our meeting spot as a symbolic representation of what Ridge and I could be—the end of our families’ lifelong feud, as a connection rather than the divide that had always stood between us. Maybe that day would come sooner than I’d imagined.
I hugged him just as tightly as when I’d first spotted him earlier, and his warmth thawed me from what had felt like an endless winter. Everything was good and right. I chose to ignore the fact that Ridge couldn’t give me a solid answer on how long he would stay. Instead, I chose to cling to the present as hard as I possibly could.
Peering up at him, I smiled. “First one to the tree is the winner?”
Ridge narrowed his eyelids at my challenge. “You’re on.”