love.” He gazed at her with such an expression of love too, that Montana knew he was falling for her too.
“I am very cautious with my heart,” she said. “I know better than most that sometimes a person can think they’re in love when they’re just in pain.”
Bishop nodded. “I suppose you do.”
“Even when you’re engaged, that doesn’t mean you’re in love. You can even be married and not be in love.” Montana looked at him, hoping he understood. She should just spell it out. “So I’m falling in love with you, Bishop Benson Daniel Glover, but I’m going to need time to make sure I’m really in love with you and not just feeling so great because our relationship is so much better than my real life.”
Bishop’s eyes couldn’t get any wider, and then he burst out laughing. He took her into his arms and crushed her to him. “I’m falling for you too, Montana,” he said sobering. “And my middle name isn’t Daniel.”
“What is it, then?”
“Flint,” he said, and then he kissed her. Montana matched him stroke for stroke, the intensity in the kiss slowing the longer it lasted. This was a whole new kind of kiss that spoke of their passion for one another, as well as their mutual respect, and all the emotion they’d just shared.
Montana was definitely falling in love with him, but she clung to the edge of the cliff, because she’d spoken true earlier. She knew what it was like to think she was in love when she wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to do that again. She was not. She was going to make sure she was one-hundred percent healed and in love with Bishop before they talked about diamond rings or weddings.
Chapter Seventeen
Ace approached the barn, frowning when he saw the door was wide open. “Bishop?” he called, because his cousin was crazy about making sure the barn was kept closed. They weren’t paying to air condition the state of Texas in June, after all.
Bishop didn’t appear, and his truck wasn’t outside the barn either. Inside, only a few tables had been set up, and Ace paused, searching for some evidence of an injury. Something to indicate why Bishop had obviously been here but wasn’t now.
Ace turned and looked back outside. Something had definitely happened, because the plan was that he and Montana would get the barn set up that morning, and Ace would meet Holly Ann to make sure she could get into the kitchen and prepare the food for that evening’s party.
Ace pulled out his phone and called his cousin, hoping he wasn’t interrupting something, good or bad.
Bishop didn’t answer, and Ace pocketed his phone. Something niggled in his mind that Bishop wouldn’t run off and leave the barn unfinished if it wasn’t important. Ace could set up tables and chairs, and he’d arrived early, hoping to catch Bishop and talk to him about Holly Ann for a couple of minutes.
“Might as well work off the anxiety,” Ace muttered to himself. He’d been getting up at four a.m. to run off the nerves, but they came back by lunchtime. He’d been avoiding the homestead for meals, though he usually ate lunch there. Instead, he’d been returning to the house he and Ward shared and eating alone while he contemplated his options.
Keep waiting for Holly Ann. Or get back on the dating app and find someone new. Keep going to town parties, dances, and festivals, and meet someone else. Ace also considered simply doing nothing.
He didn’t have to wait for Holly Ann. He didn’t need to update his profile and change his status back to single. He didn’t have to go to town. He could just keep being himself, and working Shiloh Ridge Ranch, and enjoying his family.
He’d had plenty of girlfriends over the years, and he’d never doubted that he’d find The One and have what his father had had. A wife, a family, a life he loved on the ranch. He’d come close once, but his proposal to Jeanie had been met with a no.
Ace hadn’t even waited a month before he’d asked someone else out. Maybe he just needed to slow down.
Footsteps sounded behind him as he set another table on its feet. He turned to find Royce and Max coming into the barn. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I meant to come back to the field. I just wanted to check on the barn, and Bishop isn’t here.” He looked around at the half-finished space.
“He called me,”