Love Me Reckless (Love Me Dangerous #2)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

KIRILEE

I slip my toes from the water and swivel so I can pop to my feet. “Grayson, hey.”

He gives me a dark look. It’s a warning. He flicks his gaze to Sawyer, who is sizing up my brother, arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey,” Grayson says.

“This is Sawyer.” I never did get his last name, and somehow that makes my misconduct tonight seem even more brash. “Sawyer, this is my brother, Grayson.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sawyer says, hopping up to sit on the rim of the tub. In the low lights outside, the beads of water on his muscular torso glisten like silver beads.

“Likewise,” Grayson says, then turns to me. “The door was locked, but I heard voices.”

“Just having a little soak,” I say, like I do this kind of thing every day.

The group from the water returns, dropping into the hot tub in pairs. I start to introduce Grayson to everyone but it’s a blur and I don’t remember everyone’s names. Another strike against me.

“Let’s go,” Grayson says over the rising din coming from the hot tub. Teasing and hoots and flirting. They’re high energy and so confident I want to drink the ambiance like an elixir.

“Thanks for having me,” I announce to the group, cutting my gaze to Sawyer for one last hit of his calm brown eyes.

“Aw, stay!” someone calls from the hot tub as I wrap up in a towel and gather my clothes from the peg.

“We’ve got an extra pair of trunks, Grayson!” someone else calls.

There are so many bodies in the hot tub the water sloshes over the deck anytime someone moves.

Grayson gives them a quick smile. “Thanks, but we’re going.”

“Bye, Kirilee!” Sarah calls out, followed by more goodbyes.

Inside the house, Grayson leads me to the bathroom. I duck inside and quickly change, my breaths fast in my throat. Grayson didn’t come to ruin my fun, so I’m not mad at him. He’s trying to keep me safe from Dad’s wrath. Dad’s hard on him, too, but in a different way. We look out for each other, and I’d be lost without him.

I hang Sarah’s suit in the bathroom and finger-brush my hair before stepping into the hallway.

When I round the corner, Sawyer is walking in from the deck. “You forgot this.” He flashes the tidy package of first aid supplies from Cooper, pinched between his thumb and fingers.

“Oh.” I hurry over.

“Kirilee, are you hurt?” Grayson asks from the doorway, concern lacing his tone.

I glance over my shoulder and smile to reassure him. “Just a splinter. From the deck at the restaurant.”

Even though I don’t need the items, I slip them from Sawyer’s fingers. Our hands brush, sending my heart pitter-pattering into my throat. “I never asked what you want,” I say before I lose my nerve.

He frowns.

“Kirilee,” Grayson warns.

I tuck the first aid supplies into my jean jacket pocket. “If you help me, I get to help you back. ”

He smiles, and the air between us turns staticky. “What makes you think I don’t already have everything I want?”

This throws me, and I laugh.

“See you around, princess,” he says with a wink.

I shoot him a murderous glare, but I’m still laughing.

Before I embarrass myself any further, I spin away and walk to the door.

Grayson ushers me from the house. Outside, he releases a sigh of relief and sets my shoes down on the stoop. Reluctantly, I slide them on, then lean on his arm so I can affix the tiny buckles.

In the car, we drive from the neighborhood in silence. I think back to the craziest conversation I’ve ever had with a total stranger, and the fire it lit inside me.

“What happened tonight?” Grayson asks once we’re heading back to town.

I’m tempted to spill everything to him about Sawyer and share what we talked about, but I know he’s worried about what I said on the phone. “I… don’t know, exactly. Birch sort of disappeared for a while.”

“Maybe he had to take a call.”

I think back to when Sawyer returned from the hallway in the kitchen and ushered me out, like we were in a hurry.

“You’re probably right,” I say over the voice in my head yelling wrong!

Grayson shoots me a concerned look. “Then why did you leave him stranded at the valet stand? He was… concerned.”

I laugh. “You mean furious?”

His look turns pained.

“When we were leaving the restaurant, there was this woman valet with fresh lip gloss fixing her hair in the mirrored glass.”

“And?”

“I just got this feeling. Then we get in the car, and I saw Birch’s watch face. You know he tracks his heart rate and breaths per hour blah blah blah right? There was this spike in his heart rate, and why else would that be there? It wasn’t like he left the party to run a marathon.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No.”

He sighs, like he’s disappointed in me. I guess I am too. Because what if I had confronted Birch, and it somehow made it clear we aren’t the perfect match our families think we are?

“There are ways to look into this. Discreetly.” Grayson turns left, toward Finn River Ranch.

“And make him hate me even more?”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Grayson says, following the sweeping curve to the gate.

“Then why isn’t he nice to me?” I don’t want to get emotional, but the closer we get to home, the more real my situation becomes. I’m going to marry someone who doesn’t show me the basic kindness of paying attention to me. He hasn’t tried to get to know me. To understand me, let alone love me, even just a little bit.

This didn’t seem so terrible until tonight.

I coax a steadying breath into my lungs.

“I wish there was another way to rescue Finn River Ranch,” Grayson says, sounding defeated. “If only Dad would hear me out.”

I reach for his hand across the console. “I’m sorry.” My brother has great ideas, but none of them have satisfied our dad the way Birch Cahill has.

At the entrance to Finn River Ranch, the guard gives Grayson and me a once-over, then opens the gate. “Welcome home,” he says with a nod.

“I’ll sneak you to your bungalow,” Grayson says as we cruise through the gate and follow the smooth blacktop road up the hill. “But you’re going to have to face them in the morning.”

By them he means Mom and Dad. “Thank you.”

“Zach’s friends are a boisterous bunch, huh?” Grayson says as the road crosses Miner Creek.

“Definitely. They were all super nice, too.” I smile thinking about their assault on the pizza and the stampede to the lake for a swim in the dark. Like life was just one big adventure. “It was fun to just be myself.”

He offers me a fist, and I bump it. “I’m glad. But… they’re not our people, you understand that, right?”

My face burns, and I look away. “Yeah, I know.”

Grayson turns up our driveway. Though it’s dark, the soft lighting tucked into the landscaping creates a soft, welcoming glow. Rising like a fortress above us is the main house, where our parents live. Grayson has his own place on the west end of the property, with ski-in, ski-out convenience for his favorite winter sport. Since I returned from college, I’ve taken over the little bungalow on the east end. It’s close to the stables, with a pretty creek just off the back porch.

Birch owns a home in Grayhawk, a newer section of the ranch, and when he’s in Finn River, I’ve been joining him more and more. We’ll live there together once we’re married, and Grayson will take over the main house when he settles down. Mom and Dad are building their retirement home on a seventy-acre plot of high prairie in an undeveloped part of the ranch.

After Grayson drops me at my bungalow, I walk to the front door. The crisp night air carries the scent of wildflowers and the subtle vanilla from the Ponderosas. I nod at the security guard standing in the shadows, but he ignores me like usual.

Inside my bungalow, I’m relieved that my mom or Birch are not waiting to ambush me.

At least I no longer have a personal security detail like when I was at Brown. While I’d like to think my parents dropped it because surviving for four years in Providence, Rhode Island is proof enough that I can fend for myself, it’s only because I’m home, with Finn River Ranch security to watch over me. Will they finally stop worrying about my safety when I marry? I almost laugh out loud. Like I’m somehow magically safer when I’m with Birch .

Like tonight. I could have been kidnapped from that party while he was busy doing whatever he was doing.

Or whomev—no. Don’t think about that.

Plus, Zach and my friends would have never let anything happen to me tonight. And though I don’t even know Sawyer, I get the feeling he fits that description too.

Upstairs, in my room, I sink to the edge of my bed. Everything is just as I left it. Dresser drawers shut, my clothes hanging from my closet evenly spaced, shoes organized in the cubby below, the easy chair in the corner uncluttered. It’s how I like it, so why do I have the sudden urge to fling my clothes to the floor and crawl into bed without washing my face? The impulse only strengthens when I hang up my jean jacket and remember the first aid supplies in the pocket, and Sawyer.

My belly warms, and I close my eyes and sigh. Grayson’s right. They’re not our people. How exactly could a friendship with an outsider like Sawyer fit into my life?

It couldn’t.

After changing into my PJs, I slip off my earrings and unclasp the silver necklace with my grandma’s opal pendant, then carry the first aid supplies into the bathroom. In the mirror, my face is flushed from too much sun, and it looks like the freckles on my shoulders and chest have exploded. But I regret nothing about tonight, even though it’s a reminder of the future I can’t have.

I rinse my foot in the shower, then pat the wound dry with a towel and sit on the edge of the tub. Even though I have a small clinic’s worth of first aid supplies in the hallway linen closet, I reach for the ointment and bandages Sawyer gave me. I’m peeling open the wrapper on the oversized Band-Aid when I notice hand-scrawled lettering.

Bachelorette party escort services

828-554-010 5

I frown at it. Who wrote this?

Bachelorette party escort?

A nervous tingle stirs in my belly. This has to be from Sawyer. He gave me his number? A laugh escapes my lips. I press my fingers to my lips, then rip my hand away.

Why do you do that? Sawyer asked. Are you afraid?

I meant what I said. I don’t mean to be. I don’t want to be.

Didn’t tonight prove that I can be brave? Or was that just a reckless urge?

After adding a layer of tape over the Band-Aid, I tidy up, brush and floss my teeth, then turn off the light. But once I’m in bed, that tingle in my belly turns to dread. By throwing out that wrapper, am I throwing away my connection to Sawyer?

I throw back the covers and hurry back to the bathroom. Squatting down, I dig in my wastebasket for the Band-Aid wrapper, and when it’s in my fingers, I heave a breath of relief.

There must be something wrong with me, because having a boy’s phone number has never made me feel like this.

Before I lose my nerve, I carry the wrapper to my phone. I ignore the missed texts from Birch and type in Sawyer’s number. I reason that I never have to call him. If I need a bachelorette party security team, I can hire one myself, not rely on a stranger.

Though Sawyer doesn’t seem like a stranger. Why do I feel like I already know him?

Back under my covers, I curl on my side and gaze out my window. The inky night is bursting with stars, the jagged silhouette of the mountains like a black cutout edging the horizon. Sawyer’s last words float through my thoughts.

What makes you think I don’t already have everything I want?

If that’s true, then he’s the most interesting person I’ve ever met.

In the morning, I sneak out for an early ride before the tour I’m leading at ten. The heavy dew soaks my riding pants, but I love the scent of the trees and the crisp bite in the air. Back in the stable, I’m grooming Pennyroyal when George, the stable manager, darkens the stall doorway.

“Message from your mum,” he says in his Aussie lilt.

I step closer and take the slip of paper.

“I can finish up here,” he adds, nodding at Pennyroyal munching from her feeder.

Breakfast on the north patio at 8:00. Your dad is leaving for London.

There’s no signature.

“Thank you,” I say, and hand George the brush. On my walk back to my bungalow, my stomach tightens with every step. I should shower, but I don’t have time, and I must still be feeling rebellious because showing up in wet riding gear smelling like the barn will be sure to irritate my parents. There’s a car waiting when I reach the bungalow. The driver steps out when he sees me and opens the back passenger door.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been corralled into meeting with them, but it’s the first time it’s sent prickles up the back of my neck.

Maybe my inspiring conversation with Sawyer last night is to blame. Or maybe it’s the flicker of hurt that I’m being mistreated by the man I’m supposed to marry.

Reluctantly, I get in the car.

If the driver notices my stink, he doesn’t let on. I focus on the beautiful wildflowers and groves of aspens clustered along the sweeping drive, their white trunks in stark contrast to the bright blue sky and their golden leaves quivering in the breeze.

Inside the house, I make the long walk to the north patio, the slap of my slip-on shoes extra loud in the cavernous hallway.

When I step into the covered patio, I freeze. Sitting at the table with my parents is Birch.