This feels like home.
Sierra couldn’t stop thinking and rethinking the phrase that repeated itself like a mantra as she sat next to Forrest at dinner, laughing and chatting it up with a couple they’d met who already felt like fast friends. Going to dinner parties was something Sierra had done all the time when she’d lived in California. Feeling like she was in the right place—with a whole group of people where she belonged—was something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
It showed her how much she was missing—things she’d longed for so dearly, she’d never admitted how much. It made her think about the difference between a lifeline and a life. Jaya and Rick provided the former. But Forrest made her feel like she had a shot at everything else.
The heads of the table were empty but they sat right at the end, on the far side away from the bar. At some point, it became clear they had the very best seats. From their western-facing vantage point, they had an idyllic view of the sun setting over the orchard, its trajectory in perfect alignment with the road.
Dinner itself had been a languid, luxurious affair, with plate after small-plate of culinary delights. They’d been—as the name The Noble Pig had foreshadowed—heavy on things like short ribs, pork belly, and bacon.
The right amount of time had been allotted between each course to relax and digest. Each course was served with its own libation. Every drink had been perfectly paired with the food. Just after the host who had been emceeing the affair announced the conclusion of the meal and invited guests to proceed down the road past the bar, a man as tall and as built as Forrest came out of nowhere and patted Forrest on the back.
“Hey, man. Glad you could make it,” the other man said.
The man engulfed Forrest in a tight hug. When they pulled back, they shared a long, meaningful look.
“You must be Sierra,” the man finally said, turning his gaze upon her—he had striking golden eyes that seemed to light from within. Even in profile, she’d noted that he was good-looking. Standing next to Forrest now, there was a sameness about them. The dark hair, the trimmed beards, the light eyes and the fact that both men were strikingly handsome … it was like they belonged to the same hot guy club.
“Enjoying everything so far?” He extended his hand and regarded her warmly. He wore a clean apron over black pants and a stylish version of a chef’s jacket—this one short-sleeved black denim. “Forrest let me know you were a big fan of bacon. I tried to integrate it into the menu.”
Sierra shot a surprised look at Forrest, still shaking the strange man’s hand.
“Everything was incredible. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything so good.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” the man continued easily. “Forrest said you’d be hard to impress. I hear you like to cook?”
“More like Forrest likes to eat …”
“You sure got that right,” the man said. All three of them laughed.
“Sierra, this is my buddy, Chase. We go way back. And it’s a good thing I know him. If I didn’t, it would’ve taken a good six months to get into this place.”
“It’s about damn time you made it out here for dinner,” Chase cut in. “I thought I’d have to send an engraved invitation. He came here once for a wedding a few years back, before I turned this place into what it is.”
“Maybe I was waiting for the right person,” Forrest put in casually at the same moment he slid his arm around Sierra's waist. It felt like that was where it belonged.
“Well, I hope y’all left room. It’s sour cream pound cake with a peach wine reduction for dessert. I’ll try to catch y’all later. In the meantime, enjoy.”
Chase left Sierra with a congenial shoulder squeeze and gave Forrest a bro handshake with his free hand. A second later, he was gone.
“Shall we?” Forrest asked.
The other guests had begun walking, leaving them to bring up the rear.
“Do you know everybody in Tennessee?” she wanted to know.
They resumed their slow stroll down the lane. She didn’t want to leave the pocket of his arms but liked the way he took her hand immediately as soon as he had to let her go.
“No, not everyone. Me and him grew up together. Then, we worked together. Chase is a legendary firefighter. He would’ve beat me out for Fire Marshal if he’d stayed in.”
“Why did he decide to get out?”
Forrest looked out at the orchard in the fading light. The way he paused told her there was a story.
“Well, for one, he loves cooking. Probably should’ve gone to culinary school to begin with. When he got out of the fire service, that’s just what he did. Even without that, it’s a tough job—hard on your body, hard to maintain a relationship. And it does a real job on you, when you lose friends.”
Oh.
Sierra hadn’t thought of that. Some part of her still found it hard to wrap her head around—the fact that Forrest knew how to fight fires. She’d only seen him in his marshal uniform, which was similar to hers but for its color. Her most frequent reminder was the axe he carried around.
“Is that why you became a marshal?” she suddenly wanted to know.
“Indirectly, I guess … Not from the trauma of losing people, necessarily. But because I saw better ways to fight fires—more strategic ways to approach them and to run incident command. Better ways to set up the whole system to save lives.”
Sierra only had a vague understanding of how the fire service hierarchy worked. The parks system was complicated enough.
“Can you do that as a marshal or is this just a temporary stop to something bigger?”
“Something bigger,” he answered easily. “The guys who do what I want to do don’t have titles. They’re called in wherever they’re needed to write policy, develop standards, and solve the biggest problems. I don’t have all the experience I need, but if things go right, I’ll end up as a highly specialized internal consultant.”
She replied without hesitation. “Sounds perfect for you.”
She liked the sound of his chuckle. “It does?”
The sun was setting behind them and the sky was getting dark.
“Of course it does. To be a problem-solver, you have to be tenacious. Circumspect. Persistent. Willing to stick your nose everywhere it doesn’t belong.”
He laughed again. “Sierra Betts, if I didn’t know better, I might think you were calling me a pain in the neck.”
“Your words, not mine.”
“Say whatever you want. My persistence got me here with you.”
Sierra rolled her eyes but said nothing.
“And it was worth the wait.” His voice took on a deeper note. “I’ve been wanting to go out with you for a long time.”
His words triggered her buried longing to be uniquely desired. Some part of her had lost hope that she would ever meet a man who would make her feel treasured, and seen. It was so hard meeting men, period, a part of her had resisted growing feelings. At first, Forrest’s little compliments had been hard to take because she didn’t know whether she believed them. They were harder now because she did.
“I’m surprised you didn’t take me axe throwing or something,” she quipped instead of telling him that she’d started to feel the same about him—like she needed to see him more and more.
“Axe throwing was supposed to be our second date.”
She laughed out loud because he was serious.
“What’s our third date going to be?” she quizzed.
“I was thinking Dollywood. It’s a real experience, especially if you’ve never been.”
Sierra had, indeed, not been to Dollywood, though it sounded just kitschy enough that she wanted to go. She recalled something he’d said minutes earlier: some things just needed the right person or else it wasn’t worth it at all.
“Sounds like you’ve thought this through. Do you have a whole sequence of dates for all your girls?”
He stopped in his tracks, which prompted her to do the same, then got close in a way that made her heart flutter.
“What other girls, Sierra? There’s only you.”
Sierra perceived the golden glow coming from above the orchard trees before they came upon the barn. Tiny lanterns lit a path between the illuminated building and the end of the lane. The twilight sky was darkening and the moon rose over wild-grown woods that stretched beyond. Music could be heard from inside.
Sierra had never thought herself underwhelmed when it came to going on actual dates. She’d been wined and dined by men she liked. She’d been yachted and hot-air-ballooned by suitors who weren’t slouches, even though their appeal hadn’t stuck. But nothing held a candle to dinner at sunset in the middle of an orchard. Nothing she’d ever seen was as romantic as this barn.
The approach to the double-tall, wide-open doors was strung with white lights that hung from trees, creating a canopy of magic. Inside the barn, cocktail tables took up half the floor. Place cards marked where each guest was meant to sit. Past a dance floor up on a stage sat a band.
“You like bluegrass?” Forrest helped her into her seat and pulled his own chair closer to hers.
She nodded and glanced at the band. “But I don’t know it well.”
Most bluegrass she was used to was up-tempo. She liked the liveliness and the sound of the fiddles and she especially liked it when people clogged. But the music the current band played was mellow. Their chairs being so close made it easy for Forrest to tuck Sierra under his arm once again. The angle should have been awkward, but she melted into him, lounging as her back was to his chest.
He told her about his father’s strained relationship with his family and Sierra listened quietly. He spoke of his religious grandfather, and the rift that his own father’s rebellion had caused. He told her about how the only times he ever remembered his father and grandfather not fighting was the two of them on his grandfather’s porch, playing bluegrass music.
“So your father was a rebel?” Sierra asked when he came to the end of his story. She liked the vibration of his chest and she wanted him to talk again. Everything about being close to him like this felt right.
“According to my granddad, marrying an Episcopalian was the worst my dad could’ve done. For years before I was born, they didn’t even speak. My sister being born was behind why they ever reunited. My grandma wanted to know her grandbabies.”
“Your dad sounds like a romantic.”
Forrest kissed her temple. “Oh, he is. Growing up, I remember him bringing my mom flowers, and them dancing in the kitchen. He’ll still tell ya … marrying my momma’s the best decision he ever made. Having the patience to wait for the right person is one of the biggest lessons he taught me.”
“I learned the same lesson for the opposite reason.” Sierra wasn’t sure she had ever said this out loud. “My parents are still together, but they never really got along.”
He angled himself to look down at her. “Not at all?”
“They function like a business team. They’re, like, these really efficient companions who like each other. But there’s no romance.”
What she also hadn’t said out loud was how adamant she was to not end up like her parents. And how, the older she got, the firmer she was in her decision not to settle. In her heart of hearts, she hoped it could happen for her one day like it did in the movies. Her biggest fear was tepidly ever after.
“Hey. You want to get out of here?” Sierra didn’t mind his subject change. Mention of her parents had turned her thoughts dark. “Unless you want dessert …” he hedged.
“I’m stuffed like a turkey,” she admitted.
“There’s a place I used to go when I was a kid. If we’re lucky, there’ll still be lightning bugs. I bet our dessert’ll be waiting right here for us when we come back.”
When they emerged from the barn on the other side, the air was a degree cooler. Sierra's dress was light and Forrest seemed to sense she had a chill. They walked at a pace that allowed for a comfortable stroll, even with his arm around her. As they walked down a path that said “Private,” Sierra started to see lightning bugs here and there.
They hadn’t strayed too far from the barn when they reached a tall oak that sat at the border of a pond. The sun behind them was almost set and the oak tree had a swing. The chirruping of crickets overtook the faintest hints of bluegrass still floating in the air. Forrest stopped just short of the swing.
“We don’t have lightning bugs on the West Coast,” Sierra said in a whisper, as if speaking loudly would ward them away. The more her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the more dots of glowing light came into view. She looked around herself as they seemed to float into all of the space around them. Delight prickled her cheeks and she felt herself smile. When she brought her gaze back up to Forrest’s, his was fixed upon her.
“They’re magical.”
She half-expected him to come in again with his low, quiet voice—to tell her another story about growing up in Tennessee—maybe even to tell her a story about having been a kid catching fireflies on this very pond. Only, he didn’t have a talking look. And that smirk he sometimes wore had disappeared.
“I want more with you, Sierra.”
He took a step closer and she forgot to breathe. He threaded his fingers in hers.
“One night isn’t enough … I haven’t even kissed you yet and—”
His eyes smoldered. She had known this moment was coming. A kiss had hung between them, suspended and waiting, all night.
“Why don’t you?”
Sierra remembered her own high standards. Every cell in her body had screamed all night that she belonged with Forrest Winters, but she needed a man who could kiss. Not an okay kisser or a passable kisser. Someone who kissed so good, she’d want to kiss him for the rest of her life.
Forrest wasted no time circling a possessive arm around her waist, as if the night itself would steal her if he didn’t hold on. His beard was soft as it grazed her cheek. But there was something raw and animalistic about the way he avoided her lips at first, nipping her shoulder and inhaling deeply as he ran his nose up the column of her neck.
“Sierra …” he whispered.
Only, it wasn’t really a whisper, except for the fact that it was quiet. It was desperate and hungry and it held an undeniable truth. It was abundantly clear in the seconds before his lips touched hers that she had been wrong about everything. She had sorely underestimated what existed between her and this man.
God, yes, all the good parts inside her murmured when his lips touched hers.
Forrest Winters didn’t just kiss with his lips—he kissed with his whole body, holding her in a way that pressed them together, somehow, from head to toe. Forrest had been easy with her that night—gentlemanly—making clear his own affections but letting things go at her pace, conscious of some unspoken boundary that whatever happened, happened when she was ready.
But now that she’d made it clear that she was ready for that kiss, he didn’t hold back in giving it to her. Forrest’s kiss was hungry, like no matter how much he drank her in, he couldn’t get his fill. His tongue stroked hers slowly and deeply, pulling her impossibly closer with the arm that was at her back. It made her feel utterly content and like she was crawling out of her skin all at the same time.
The half of her that didn’t want to be cocooned in his fold forever wanted to untuck his shirt from his jeans and bring her fingers up to fan out over what she was sure were fantastic abs. The short moan he let out a second before they pulled apart was nearly as sexy as the kiss itself.
“Sweetest thing I’ve tasted all night,” he murmured, a little out of breath.
It was a very Forrest thing to say. Only, his face didn’t register the playful look he got when he made light. In all her years of kissing, Sierra had never shared a kiss like this. Something told her that Forrest hadn’t either.
“Got room for seconds?” she asked, aware in some distant corner of her mind that tomorrow would bring a reckoning. Admitting how actively and desperately she wanted something with Forrest was an overdue task. But right then, right there, she had him in the flesh. Right then was a time for action.
“Hell, yeah,” he agreed before swooping in for another.
Tell me everything. Spare no detail.
Sierra burst out laughing the moment she got an eye full of Rick’s text, then second-thought the outburst after realizing that she was quite hung over. She had the day off, an ideal circumstance given that it had been a late night. After kissing under the big oak tree for a good, long while, she and Forrest had made their way back to the barn, where they ran into Chase again.
Sierra had always assumed the guys she saw Forrest with around town and around the park were his friends, but she’d seen a different side of him the night before. He and Chase were close. Hearing them talk had clued her into dimensions of Forrest’s life she had never imagined. Undoubtedly, Sierra would spend her day off not only recalling every lick of his kiss and every sweet and sumptuous moment of their date, but every tiny little brushstroke that had painted a more complete picture of him.
He passed the kissing test.
The memory of said kissing gave her body a tingle. She bit her lip against a smile as she tapped the message out. It was a swollen lip, by the way. That was how much they’d enjoyed themselves. It was another mark in his favor: not only did his timing and technique make Forrest a master of the lost art—she could tell that he really liked doing it.
What other tests did he pass?
Even though they were just texting, she could hear Rick’s voice in her mind. She had a good guess, too, as to the expression on his face.
He got an A in seeing me home safely and bidding me goodbye at the door like a gentleman.
Rick’s response was three eye roll emojis. The bouncing dots that had begun on the next line of the chat window told her he was typing again.
All right. Just remember. That “no sex ’til the third date” crap is for people who secretly hate themselves and resent their bodies.
Now it was Sierra's turn to roll her eyes. Rick was the poster child for sex-positivity.
She tapped back, I’ll keep that in mind. Call me this week for drinks.
With that, she got out of bed, brushed her teeth, made her coffee, and swallowed three Advil down. As she went through all the motions, she couldn’t help but relive every moment of what could never be erased in her mind as the perfect date.
You got what you wanted, a voice inside her whispered. It was an unfamiliar voice. The one that often spoke to her was grim—some inner manifestation of all her fears. It felt as if—for months—petty annoyances and disappointments had loomed. Only, this new voice inside her rang of hope.
Sierra was half a cup of coffee into meditating on that thought, seated outside on her back patio, looking at the creek below. When her phone rang, her heart gave a flip. Instantly, she hoped it was Forrest.
“Hey, Jaya …” she answered after the caller ID confirmed that it wasn’t. Her friend didn’t bother with a greeting. Jaya’s excitement was as palpable as the enthusiasm in Rick’s texts.
“Well? How’d it go? Where’d he take you? Tell me you took my advice and wore the gray romper. It makes your boobs look hot.”
The table in the orchards had been so picturesque, Sierra hadn’t been able to resist snapping a picture. Forrest had already texted Sierra the selfie he’d taken of both of them in the barn. It had captured a perfect view of the dessert table and the band setting up the stage beyond.
“Hang on …” she instructed Jaya, and took a second to send over both. “All right … I just texted you pictures.”
Sierra had to hold her phone away from her ear a minute later when Jaya screamed, “Holy shit! He took you to The Noble Pig?”
“You’ve heard of it?” Sierra was surprised.
“You haven’t?”
“His friend owns the place. I mean, he’s the chef and that’s his orchard. His name is Chase. He used to be a firefighter.”
If Sierra wasn’t mistaken, the words that issued from under Jaya’s breath were, “Lucky bitch.”
“So … what was he like? Was it awkward?” Jaya asked.
That had been Sierra's fear—that however flirtatious their banter in the park, it wouldn’t translate out of the office. She couldn’t admit how wrong she had been. After only a brief period of awkwardness once they’d got to talking, she’d felt like she could talk to him forever.
“Just the opposite,” she told Jaya. “Forrest is funny. He’s been places and done things and has all these strange, interesting hobbies. Like, he goes ice caving. You know, where you go snow hiking and instead of bringing a tent, you bring a shovel, then you dig out an ice cave to sleep?”
“Sounds awesome.” Jaya’s voice had gone a bit flat, as if ice caving didn’t sound awesome. Only it did sound awesome.
“Yeah. I know,” Sierra answered dreamily.
“So … how’d you leave things?” Jaya prodded.
“He told me he’d call.”
“Uh-uh,” Jaya protested. “No waiting around for him to call you. This is the twenty-first century. If you want to see him, make it happen.”
Jaya and Rick had a lot of opinions for friends who didn’t totally have their own love lives figured out. Sierra was about to say as much when a call came in on the other line.
“Shit. I gotta go. Call you later?”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Jaya demanded.
“I’ll call you back,” Sierra said hastily so she could click over before missing the call. Just before she did, she thought she heard Jaya murmur “lucky bitch” again.
“Hey …”
Her voice was much softer than it had been just seconds earlier, with Jaya.
“Hey, gorgeous,” came his deep voice, playful and flirtatious as ever, but sincere. “You sleep all right?”
She realized with alarm that she’d never talked to him on the phone. They’d texted before but that was it. As she listened to the deep richness of his disembodied voice, she tried to imagine his physical surroundings, what his house might be like, and what he might be doing.
“Like a rock. Though, I don’t think I’ll need to eat again for a month.”
“That’s a shame …” he said in a slow drawl. “I was hoping to entice you. Let me take you out again.”