Change Rein - Anne Jolin Page 0,32

injuries and my haste to get there, it didn’t seem ideal.

Placing a finger to my mouth, I whisper, “It’s a secret.”

“You’ve really got the mysterious cowboy thing down, don’t you?” Her voice is teasing, but I can tell it irritates her that she doesn’t know what’s happening.

I reach across the middle console, lacing our fingers together and bringing them to my lips. “I think I wear my heart on my sleeve where you’re concerned, angel.”

A sweet blush stains her fair cheeks as I turn off into the west field. “We’re staying on the property?” She words it like a question, but it’s not. “I know where we are going!” she beams excitedly, looking out the window as if it’s not the same land she grew up admiring.

So cute.

I drive across the field until we disappear into a cluster of trees, which eventually clears and gives way to a small lake. The area is magical in itself, but what I have planned ought to make it even more so, especially when the sun goes down.

I back the truck up so the bed is facing the water’s edge and shift it into park. “Wait here,” I tell her, cutting the engine.

I know she’ll be able to see me doing it, but for some reason, I have this urge to impress her with the finished idea, so I move like an excited child to set it up.

The mattress is already in the bed of the truck, but it takes me a few minutes to gather the blankets and pillows from the backseat and position them into the makeshift couch I’ve created. Once that’s done, I walk to the small fishing shed and look for the outlet Aurora told me about. When I plug it in, the white twinkle lights that run along the roofline come to life. So does the little radio playing country music from the window.

It looks like a country paradise, pure and simple.

After jogging back to the truck, I help her down, and my heart swells when she beams up at me.

“This is so cute.”

“I have my moments.”

Standing on her tiptoes, she kisses my cheek. “Very frequently, it would seem.”

After helping her up onto the tailgate, I grab the wine and two glasses. When I join her in the bed of the truck, I pour us each a cup and then lift my glass up to hers for a toast.

“Here’s to first dates.”

After clinking her cup with mine, she takes a delicate sip, and the rumble in my chest comes unexpectedly as she swallows the wine.

As if on cue, the radio changes, and the first twangs of Jackson Young’s “If It Ain’t Too Much To Ask” drift out across the lake.

After we set our cups down on the edge of the truck bed, her arms wrap around my neck. My palm splays over her lower back as I tuck the sweetness of her body against mine.

“You makin’ it a habit of wooing me with your dancin’ skills, cowboy?” She laughs, and the way it mixes with the song has to be the most heavenly thing I’ve ever heard.

My cheek brushes hers as we dance closer. “That depends.”

“On?” Her breath whispers against my ear.

“If it’s working or not.”

She laughs again, and with God as my witness, I’m a lucky bastard to be holding her right now. “It might be,” she teases.

Her body was made for mine. Pressed together, we’re even more perfect. Strawberry wine dousing our inhibitions in wild desire.

The chorus to the song is coming up, and knowing I don’t suck at least half as much as she does, I sing softly into her ear, albeit still out of tune. She joins me, singing adorably off tune into my ear. “I know it ain’t an easy life, people can tell you that”—She hums along, folding her body closer around mine—“but to ask for a little bit, just a little bit back, If it ain’t too much to ask. .”

“If it ain’t too much to ask,” her voice sings adorably off tune into my ear.

I chuckle, and she reaches down to elbow me in the side before her eyes find mine once again.

“If it ain’t too much to ask, cowboy . . . I could really go for that kiss right about now.” She tries to sing along with the song, but by adding her own words, she fails miserably.

But it’s the thought that counts.

Do I hate that she felt she had to ask for it? Bet your ass I do.