Page 6 of Love at First Write

I roll my eyes. “Y’all are ridiculous.”

Caroline frowns. “He seems really genuine, Kels. Will you just read his email? Maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“For two years? He couldn’t find a way to tell me the truth?” I brace one fist on my hip. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, did he outright lie and say he was Tom?” Gracie asks.

I try to think back, remember his letters and then his emails and I don’t recall ever seeing a signature. “I can’t remember if he ever signed his name one way or the other.”

So technically he didn’t lie,” Gracie says. “He just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

“She’s right,” Caroline says. “I mean he is in the special services so like he probably can’t tell you everything.”

“I think that’s spies,” Gracie whispers.

Caroline shrugs. “Well, whatever.”

“He is sincerely sorry,” Gracie says. “I mean it was still a jackass thing to do so I’m not saying we forgive him yet. But I’m thinking,” she moves her fingers across my screen. “I’m just thinking that maybe we need to investigate more.”

“Gracie! That’s his junk!” Caroline shrieks.

“What?” Gracie holds her hands up in innocence. “I was just taking a closer look at his pants.”

Caroline holds my phone out to me. “Will you just consider reading his email?”

“At the very least check out his picture,” Gracie says. “He’s off the charts hot.”

I ignore my phone the entire ride to my childhood home. It’s out one of the country roads leading further into the hills on up to the mountain called Saddle Ridge. I’m sure if someone from Colorado or Tennessee were to come here, they’d laugh at what we call a mountain. But it’s ours.

I love the way it looms in the distance.

Today has just been… weird? Disappointing? Heartbreaking?

Yeah, I suppose all of those. All this time I thought I was falling in love with my friend’s older brother, but instead I’d fallen for a complete stranger. Those times when I’d tried to remember Tommy’s blond hair and the precise color of his eyes had been for naught.

Ethan Fox.

That’s what the girls told me. And that he was hot and seemingly sincere. The thing was, I didn’t take too kindly to being deceived. I was that kid who was actually disappointed in her parents when I found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. They’d lied to me. It was a hard pill to swallow for seven-year-old me.

I know, how lame am I?

I have a fantastic imagination. I’m very creative. But I can’t deal with deception. I’m sure if I went to therapy, I could figure out the root cause of this intolerance, but the truth is, it’s protected me in life.

That time I brought some “friends” to my family’s beach house, and they wanted to bring back some guys they’d met at the restaurant? I shut that down. I didn’t know those guys. It didn’t matter that one of them said he was going to pharmacology school in Ohio. That could have been some weird code for drug dealer.

You never know these days. So, it doesn’t hurt to be a little distrusting. My mama says I’ve always been that way. Maybe it has something to do with being in the smack-dab middle of us five kids. There’s Henry, then Oliver, then me, then Addison, and then Payton. Three boys, two girls.

So yeah, my older brothers pulled pranks on me, and my younger sister stole my clothes and then pretended she didn’t. Seems solid evidence to be a little suspicious.

Which is part of what is so damn annoying about Ethan Fox. I wasn’t suspicious. Pleasantly surprised maybe that Leah’s handsome older brother was flirting with me via letters and email.

I continue to ignore my phone as I drive down the long drive to my family’s property. The large white ranch house comes into view and my eyes prick. Just thinking about seeing my Mama already has me nearly falling apart. I need to dump these cookies and head back into town.

Otherwise, Mama will hug me, and I’ll break like an overfilled waterskin. I grab the box of cookies and step out of my car. I purposely leave my phone on the seat next to my purse. Then I head directly to the barn where I’m pretty sure I’ll find Henry.

Sure enough, he’s there swiping on the screen of his tablet. Henry made it his goal in life last year to make the entire ranch digital. .

“Hey sis,” he says, a smile on his rugged face. Then his eyes drop to the bright yellow box in my hand. “Did you bring me some goodies?”