And She Was Caught (Completed)

Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

My breath stilled inside my lungs as it seized working. We were back at the bluff, trekked our way there for more than thirty minutes. It was tough for me because I wasn't used to this but my body remembered doing this so it wasn't as tough as the first time.

It looked magnificent; the plains below us, the hills and the scattering of residences looked picturesque. It literally took my breath away.

True to his words, Jack did get me at lunch where I was waiting for him at the porch. He looked good, well not that it was news because he always looked good. Faded jeans, cowboy boots, cotton shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbow, he looked ragged, hot and raggedly hot. So when he walked up the porch steps, I was holding my breath.

"How could you look so good working on a ranch?" I asked him, my brain not catching up. I don't think I would ever get used to him, and I would gladly spend my life discovering how beautiful he was in so many different ways.

His lips quirked, "Am I supposed to answer that sweetheart?"

I shook my head, "No, you're not."

Jack started chuckling and that was fascinating too. "Good, because I wouldn't even know how to answer that." He reached me and dipped his face to touch his mouth on mine.

That earned him a belly flutter.

I rolled my eyes and pushed him away, "You are so goddamned cocky."

"What?" He asked, laughing, as he threw his arms away.

"Yeah, what." I gave him a half hearted glare to mask my own stupidity. "Where are we going?"

"Just wait, sweetheart." And I knew of course that he'd say that. It was just so him.

But when we reached that familiar trail where he parked his car, I already knew and I couldn't stop the wide smile from splitting my face.

I turned my smile at him. "Seriously?"

He chuckled, "Seriously."

And after the thirty minute trek and sweating buckets of water, we finally reached that bluff and it looked as magnificent as the first time I had been here. It was sheer beauty, I never saw anything as beautiful as this in my life.

I felt Jack return and I turned to look at him, then my eyes fell on the cooler he was carrying and the blankets. "Oh God," I groaned.

He raised an eyebrow, "Bad idea?"

"I think I am going to cry." I told him as I felt the familiar claw of tears in my throat and the sting in my nostrils.

We held each other's gazes for a very long while before Jack laid the cooler and the blanket on the ground and made his way towards me. I watched him do that not that I could do anything other than stare.

He cupped my jaw with his rough and large hand, "Sweetheart,"

"Don't call me that too because it's not helping." I said snappishly.

"Vanessa," He tried again and I swear I could hear his humor from his voice. I was too engrossed into studying his eyes and feeling this overwhelming emotion inside my chest that I wasn't paying attention to his grin.

"What?" I murmured.

"Hold it together." He commanded and I blinked. The overwhelming urge to bawl slowly dissolved as I took a breath through my nose.

"I am trying!"

He was chuckling now, "Try harder, honey."

I sucked in a big breath and held it in for a few seconds before I slowly let it go through a pursed lip. "Okay, I think I'm not going to cry anymore."