I lower Ripley onto the seat of the ATV, strap down our food in the rack at the back, and settle myself right behind her, lifting her onto my lap.

She’s the perfect size to fit there, with the luscious curve of her ass pressing against my dick.

Is there anything this woman could do that wouldn’t turn me on? I suspect the answer to that question is a solid no.

Once again, I can’t help but think of the one time I tried to get Amber to go out on an ATV with me to see my property. She’d looked at me like I’d asked her to walk through a pit of vipers. She was an LA girl, and not interested in learning about the country way of life. At least, not the part that was the real me.

Even now that she’s out of my life, she’s still causing me grief. When I was putting up the rifle, my phone wouldn’t stop pinging with texts from Nick. Amber is back in Nashville, making demands and causing trouble. Just what I don’t need right now . . . so I left my phone in the house because I wasn’t about to let her ruin this night.

Ripley’s practically vibrating with excitement. She turns her head to the side. “Are you going to let me drive? Or are you one of those guys who won’t let a woman do it when you’re around?”

As much as I want to say no way in hell am I letting her drive because she’s never been on an ATV before, I know she’s fully capable. My five-year-old nephew can run around the yard on his.

“How about on the way back?”

“Deal.”

Something about Ripley makes me wonder what it would be like to make a lot more deals with her. I told myself she was a distraction in the beginning. Someone to take my mind off the fact that Amber fucked me over so hard, but that didn’t last long.

Hell, the first time I got my hands on Ripley, I knew this was something else. Having her in my house, fitting into my life so easily, drives it home.

My future with Amber was always a hazy concept. I couldn’t picture her walking down the aisle of a simple country church to meet me at the front while my family gathered around. I couldn’t see us arguing about what to name a kid, or her trying to talk me out of splurging on Christmas toys so our kids wouldn’t be spoiled brats.

All I could see with Amber was walking down a red carpet while she posed and cameras flashed around us, or maybe sitting next to her at an awards show. Maybe that’s because when I look back on it, I realize we didn’t do a lot more than that together.

But Ripley? She slides into all the other scenes I’ve pictured having in my life like she was always meant to be there. It should scare the ever-living hell out of me, but it doesn’t.

I’ve learned a lot of things in my life already, including the fact that shit happens for a reason, even when you don’t know why at the time. My brother got half his leg blown off in Afghanistan, and there was nothing that could make me understand why that had to happen. But fate had me there on a USO tour at the same time, and I was able to be by his side in Germany as they fought to save his life.

And when he came home early, frustrated and cursing fate for condemning him to this life, he met his wife while she was visiting her brother at Walter Reed. He tells it as love at first sight. She says he was doped up on painkillers, but either way, now they have an amazing boy, another on the way, and a house down the road from my parents.

The worst thing to happen in his life led him to the best thing. You can’t tell me that wasn’t meant to be.

I’m hoping life has a similar plan in store for me. The darkest moment taking me down a path that leads me to the light.

“Are we gonna ride this thing or what, superstar?” Ripley wiggles her ass on my lap, the excitement in her tone loud and clear.

I wrap my fist around her ponytail and tug it to one side as I lean forward, dragging my teeth down the tendon of her neck before adding some pressure at the curve of her shoulder.

Ripley inhales harshly before squirming again, this time for a completely different reason.

“First, we’re gonna ride this thing, and then I’m gonna ride you.”

She arches back, unable to move because of my grip on her hair. “Is that right?”

“Damn right.”

A shiver ripples through her body.

“You wet, sugar?”

“You’ll have to wait to find that out for yourself.”

Her words goad me into firing up the ATV. I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her back so she’s flush against me.

“Hold on tight.” I give it some gas and steer us toward our destination.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, I stop the ATV beside my stocked pond. Sure, I took a longer route than usual to get here, but that’s because I wasn’t ready to let Ripley off my lap.

She sucks in an audible breath when she sees the little dock that stops thirty feet into the twenty-acre pond as the sun starts sinking in an explosion of reds, oranges, and yellows.

“It’s beautiful here.”

“Glad you like it. We’re gonna have us a picnic.”

Ripley twists around to look at me. “I never would’ve guessed that you were a picnic kind of guy.”

The breeze catches a piece of her hair that pulled free of her ponytail, and I brush it away from her face. Even though the weather hasn’t taken much of a chill, I’m glad I grabbed a blanket to bring along with us.

“A beautiful woman, a trout pond, a sunset, and cold wings? Those are some of my favorite things. Put ’em all together and it’s the perfect evening.”