A Promise Is A Promise

[16] Claire

I turned into my brother's long, stone driveway and squeezed Kayla's hand a little tighter. Walker didn't know about us, but at least here, we were free from our parents' prying eyes. All I could hope was that K would let loose a little and stop worrying so much about being caught. I understood where she was coming from because I was concerned about the same thing, but there was no one here who knew anything about us except my brother and his girlfriend, Maggie. It almost felt like we could be whoever we wanted here and no one would know any different.

Once I'd reached a bigger part of the driveway that provided plenty of space to park, I let go of my girlfriend's hand and shifted the gear so we could get out of my car. Walker pushed open the screen door and held it for us while we were grabbing our suitcases out of the trunk. As soon as I'd dragged my stuff up the porch steps, I let go of the handle and threw myself into his arms. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too, Claire." When we let go of each other, he looked at the girl beside me and gave her a smile. "It's nice to see you, Kayla."

She nodded and her eyes darted to me before they settled back on my brother. "You, too. Thank you for letting me stay."

"Of course." He shrugged and gave a nod of his own. "Anything for my little sister and her best friend."

We went into the house and he led us up to the second floor where the room that K and I would be sharing was. The two of us were spending all of spring break with him and Maggie. I was already sure that this had been the best decision of my entire life because we weren't only sharing the room, we were sharing the bed.

My brother lived in an ancient farmhouse that he'd been able to buy a little over a year ago. Since then, he'd slowly been turning it into a ranch that offered riding lessons and even let people take horses up a couple of trails that ran into the mountains. Now he had enough people working on the ranch that he was able to leave whenever he needed to for his calf-roping events. Luckily, he didn't have anything this week, which was part of the reason we'd picked it to stay with him.

"You guys can get settled in and come down whenever you're ready. Maggie's going to be home in a little while. I'll be out back working on setting up the fire for supper, all right?" Walker pointed over his shoulder with his thumb and waited for us to let him know we were good before he went back downstairs.

As soon as I heard the door close, I pulled K's hand away from the zipper on her suitcase and laced my fingers with hers. "I'm so glad you came with me," I mumbled and leaned in to kiss her. We hadn't had the chance to be alone lately, so I was dying to be as close to her as I was now.

Our lips separated and met several more times before she said anything. "Of course I came with you. I don't think I could be away from you for so long."

"Yeah?" I grinned and pecked her nose, my smile growing when she scrunched it up.

"Yeah, I definitely couldn't do it." Her forehead rested against mine as her other hand moved to grip my waist.

"I'm sure there will be plenty of times where my brother and his girlfriend will be busy this week. And then we'll be left all alone to figure out a way to occupy our time." My body inched towards her even further, longing to be pressed against it.

"I think I can think of a way," she breathlessly responded and pulled me into her. Her tongue easily made its way past my lips and explored every inch of what it already knew.

My heart started to pound harder as we continued, my breath getting heavier. I broke away from her to tell her how badly I wanted to be with her. "Kayla—"

The sound of the screen door closing made us jump away from each other. I was halfway across the room before I stopped and let out a heavy sigh. My pulse was racing for an entirely different reason now.