So when did I fall? I know it was after the sun went down.
Was it the night we met? That night in my truck in the snowstorm when she begged me not to stop? What about seven days later when I couldn’t let her go? What about that night by the fire, a week before Christmas when I knew without a doubt, she had a hold on me?
It wasn’t any of those in particular. It was all of them combined.
Kacy, she was like a mixed drink. Ounce of batshit crazy, splash of city, and mix that with no logic, too much determination, and top it with a pair of wild blue eyes, and you got a drink that goes down easy but packs a wicked hangover.
After I get the girls into bed, I lay on the couch watching the fire dwindle down and think of Kacy. Truth is, I haven’t stopped thinking about her since she drove away. And I’m not sure it’s going to stop anytime soon.
A perfect stranger crashing into our lives and invading our home. It should have been messy. It should have been awkward and uncomfortable. But it wasn’t. It was natural. Easy. Comfortable. Most of all, it was scary. Why would a perfect stranger want to stay with us when the one person who was biologically related and legally connected to us wouldn’t?
She left California to find herself and she deserves to have the chance.
It doesn’t stop me from wishing there was a small chance the life she was searching for was right here on this ranch, with me and my girls.
I think about calling her. Maybe check in. Make sure she’s not lost. Ask if she’s thinking of me. But I don’t. Instead, I grab that bottle of Southern Comfort and wallow in my pride.
Did you see this coming?
BARRON
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I jolt out of bed, searching for the sound and wondering if Sev fell out of bed again.
Then I hear it again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Dragging myself from my bed, I stand in the hallway, listening. That’s when I realize someone’s at the door. I don’t waste another second and stumble into the kitchen. Thinking it’s Morgan or another one of the ranch hands needing help, I open the door.
That’s when I see Kacy standing there. Crying. She doesn’t wait for me to say anything before she says, “I got to Austin and realized I was going in the wrong direction.”
“Um, yeah.” I laugh, nervously running my hand through my hair. My heart pounds, waiting on her words. Why is she here? Did she come back for us? “That’s south, Kacy. I thought you were heading east?”
“I thought I was, but I was crying so much I wasn’t paying attention to road sighs.” Kacy gazes up at me, her smile hopeful. “My engine is making noise.” And then she bites her lip, her eyes wet and shiny, waiting on what I’ll say next.
“What kind of noise?”
“A hum.”
My lips quirk, but I don’t give her any insight into my thoughts. I hold them hostage for longer than she wants.
“And it might be overheating,” she adds, blinking rapidly, as if she needs to add more to get me to let her inside.
Heat rushes through me as I yank her inside the house. “I’ll fix it,” I rush to say. “It’ll take me a while though.”
She pushes back against me, her eyes frantic. “I know you said—”
“Fuck what I said,” I growl, pulling her into my chest, desperate for the connection.
“Oh, thank God!” She sags into me, and I spin away from the brutal cold outside. She places her hands on the back of my head. “Now what?”
My fingers dig into her back, my heart pounding. I kiss her, my tongue sliding against hers. This is what happens next. We don’t need words. I drag her to my bed, lock the door, and lay her on the bed. She laughs against my mouth as I slide my sweatpants down and her leggings off. She discards her sweatshirt, well, mine. “Did you take my shirt?”
She grins. “I also stole a pair of sweatpants and a flannel.”
“You’re a little thief.”
“No, you are,” she whispers, unclasping her bra and tossing it aside. “You stole my heart.”
“We’re even then, because you’re holding mine hostage.” I take my cock in my hand, sliding it against her clit.
It touches her clit ring, and she moans into the space between us, her breath hitting my face. “I missed you.”
I slide inside her, in and out, a perfect rhythm set by our frantic need for one another.
Her head hits my pillow, her eyes closed when her breath hitches. “I love you, Barron.”
It’s such an overwhelming feeling to hear those words again and knowing they hold so much more weight than they did the first time I heard a girl say it.
The pressure builds inside me, and we find our release together, slowly. Still above her, I tuck her hair behind her ear, pressing a kiss to her forehead as I mumble the words, “I love you,” and mean them. I don’t know how it happened so fast, or why, but I fell.
“What time do the girls get up?” Kacy asks, pacing the kitchen with a cup of coffee in hand.
“Soon.” I smirk, knowing why she’s asking. “You can go wake them up. I’m sure they’ll be excited to see you.”
Her eyes lock on mine. “Oh, thank God.” She sighs, setting her cup down.
She rushes around the corner and down the hall. It takes less than thirty seconds before I hear the girls screaming, “Kacy!”
Sev is the first to come out of their room, smiling, her blanket in one arm and her spell book in the other. Tossing both on the couch next to me, she crawls up on my lap.
“Hey, little girl,” I whisper, kissing her forehead.
“They’s makin’ my head hurt,” she tells me, rolling her eyes.
“Are you happy Kacy’s back?”
She looks up at me, her smile a little brighter. “I likes my mom.”
I don’t correct her, and I know I should, but all I can think is, me too, kid. Me too.
I… found peace.
KACY
My experience with New Year’s Eve has always been fancy parties, uncomfortable dresses that make you itch everywhere, and never kissed at midnight. I take that back. I was kissed by a girl when I was seventeen on New Year’s Eve. She wasn’t wearing cherry Chapstick, and I did not enjoy it. Katy Perry was wrong.
But this New Year’s Eve, I’m staring at a fifty-foot-tall bonfire, had my first s’more, and drinking straight whiskey from a Yeti cup wearing a flannel. It’s perfection if you ask me.
Morgan and Lillian are sitting next to one another on the back of a tailgate, sharing not tequila from a flask and kissing. It’s nice to see her happy with him.
With country music playing and the girls dancing at our feet, sparklers in hand, I lean into Barron, who’s next to me on a makeshift bench out of a tree stump. He smells like smoke and leather, and his kisses taste like memories in the making. I look down at my cup. “Yeti cups are like, indestructible. Cool as shit. I feel like someone could shoot me, and I could hold up this Yeti cup and block that bitch. And they’d be like, whoa, she’s Wonder Woman. What the F? And I’d be like, nah, it’s my Yeti.”
Barron’s shoulders shake with laughter as he hugs me to his side. “I’m glad your back.”