“Okay,” I nodded, very interested in the turn of events. “Well, maybe someday I’ll take you there.”
She grinned, but then her smile slipped. “Why didn’t you go back there after you were discharged?”
“I did for a little bit, but I needed space.”
“In Montana,” she deadpanned. “Right, I could totally see that with all those trees and horses crowding you in. I mean, they call it Big Sky country because you can’t actually see the sky while you’re out there.”
“Alright, alright,” I laughed. “I know it sounds stupid, but…see, my parents have this ranch, and it’s pretty big.”
“How big are we talking?”
I scratched at my jaw, not really wanting to talk about that. “Um…let’s just say that all my brothers and sisters live on the same property as my parents, but you can’t actually see any one house from the house you’re looking out of.”
Her jaw dropped in astonishment. “That’s…that’s really big.”
I shrugged. I was used to it, but other people thought it was weird.
“So, it sounds like you would have had plenty of space to hide out somewhere. Why not take it?”
“Well, first of all, when you live on the ranch, you work on the ranch. It’s just the way the family works. So, I’d be seeing my family all the time. My oldest brother, Liam, he’s a worrier. I mean, he acts like he’s my father. He’s always taken it as his responsibility to look after all of us. But he didn’t sit there and ask all kinds of questions. He would just watch every fucking move I made and stare at me. It was creepy. And then Krista, she’s a year younger than me, she would be the one that would be trying to set me up with all the eligible females in town. She’s a matchmaker at heart, but she sucks at it. I mean, they could write stories about the terrible dates she’s set up.”
She groaned, laughing a little. “I bet she’s tried to set you up before, hasn’t she?”
“Once, and I never let her again. Think of your worst date and then quadruple it.”
“I think I’d like to meet her.”
I smiled at her, liking where her mind was going. “Yeah, I’d like that too.”
We were caught in some kind of moment. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t stop thinking about taking her home to my family and introducing her. I couldn’t stop thinking of her as mine. My heart was practically pounding out of my chest with excitement.
“Anyway,” I said, finally breaking the intensity of the moment. “Then there’s my brother Jeff. He’s really nosey, so he would ask a million questions and want all the answers that I’m not ready to give. And Lizzy, she’s my champion, there for me until the end. She’s the only one I still talk to right now.”
“Why?”
“Because…because I can’t let her down. She believes in me more than anyone I know, and I just couldn’t break her heart like that.”
“I bet your family misses you,” Blake said after a moment. “You should call them.”
I nodded, knowing she was right. “I know. I just don’t know what to say to them. I know they all believe in me, but I don’t want them feeling this…horrible feeling. I tell Lizzy that everything is good. She thinks I’m moving on with my life, and that’s what she tells everyone else. Nobody has to know that this sucks.”
“Hey, you said it wasn’t going to suck,” she reminded me. “You said that we had to think positively.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “You’re right.”
“Of course, I am. So, tell me, if when all of this is over and we can finally have our lives back, are you going to take me home to meet your family?”
I watched her for a second, the way she bit her bottom lip slightly and a blush stained her cheeks. Nah, this wasn’t about my family.
“You just want to see me in tight jeans and a cowboy hat.”
“Maybe,” she chuckled. “Maybe I just want to see how you hide that monster cock in a pair of tight jeans.”
“Baby, we don’t have to go to Montana for that.”
I tackled her to the bed, smothering her in kisses as I ground my erection against her. I was thinking it was time to save a horse. I flipped us over and held her over my cock. “Why don’t you ride this cowboy.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Todd
I dialed again, but still got no answer. Where the hell was she? Yeah, there were times that she dropped off the face of the earth for a few days, sometimes even weeks, but we knew about it in advance. It was usually that she was going out on a job. But I hadn’t heard from her in over a week now. It just wasn’t like her.
“No luck?” my dad asked.
I shook my head. “Blake hasn’t answered any of my phone calls. I’m starting to think that something’s wrong.”
“You know your sister. She gets wrapped up in a case and she doesn’t call anyone.”
“Not like this,” my brother, Matt said.
We were all worried. My brothers, Matt, Doug, and Adam, had all come to Dad’s tonight because we needed a plan. Blake was our only sister, and as kickass as she was, we couldn’t allow anyone to mess with her.
“We need to drive out there,” Doug said. “We’ll go to her apartment and find out what’s going on.”
“I can’t get the time off right now,” Adam sighed. “I’m slammed at work. I would need a few days to make the arrangements.”
“We can’t wait,” I insisted. “This is Blake. You all know that she wouldn’t just disappear. We need to go find out why she’s not answering. What if she’s in trouble?”
“Wouldn’t the FBI have contacted us?” Dad asked. “If something had happened, we would know about it.”
“You really trust them?” I asked. “Come on, Blake has been telling us for years about the crooked people she works with. No, I don’t fucking
