Reed kissed me on the tip of my nose and whispered, “Do we go back and tell everyone?”

Without even thinking, I blurted out, “Yes! With this news and Whitley being pregnant, I think we need to—” I slammed my hands up to my mouth. Oh shit.

Reed’s eyes grew bigger. “Whitley told you? Oh…Layton is gonna be pissed. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”

I dropped my hands and tilted my head. “Wait, you know? Layton told you?”

Reed’s expression dropped. “Um…”

I pushed him back until he was lying down. “What do you mean, Layton is gonna be pissed? He told you? Neither one of them was supposed to tell anyone.”

Reed started laughing and pushed his hips into me. The friction his hard-on was causing instantly had me needing more. I began grinding my hips into him, and he let out a long, soft moan.

“Fuck,” Reed hissed.

I threw my head back and whispered, “Yes, please.”

Before I even knew what was happening, Reed was standing us up, pulling my panties down, and then unzipping his pants. He picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around him as he backed me up against the giant elm. The moment he brought me down onto him, filling my body, I felt instant relief.

“Reed, you feel so good.”

“What do you want me to do, Court?” he whispered in my ear.

“Please…move, Reed…God, please move,” I begged.

Reed pulled out some and then slammed back in, causing me to let out a moan so loud that I was sure everyone within a mile could hear it.

“I’d do anything for you,” Reed said as he fucked me hard and fast against the tree.

I never wanted this moment to end. Being with Reed was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I loved it more than anything when he made sweet, passionate love to me, but when he made love to me like this—fast and hard, like he just couldn’t get deep enough inside me—it drove me insane with desire.

I began to feel my orgasm building, and I couldn’t hold back when it hit.

“Reed…I’m coming.” I could hardly breathe. Every inch of my body felt like it was pulsing. “Holy shit! I can’t…oh God…oh God!” This had to be the longest orgasm in the history of orgasms.

I could feel myself squeezing Reed, and the way he was saying my name over and over was more than I could take. Right as I started coming down, I felt him getting bigger.

He pulled out and slammed into me again as he cried out with his release. “Courtney…oh God, baby, I’m coming. Feels…so…fucking…good.”

“Yes,” was all I could manage to get out.

I wasn’t sure how long we stood up against that tree. I could feel him twitching inside me as I held him closer to me. Nothing felt as amazing as having Reed inside me. Each time after we’d made love and he had pulled out, I would feel like I was missing a part of me.

“Don’t move. Please…I just want to stay like this forever,” I whispered.

“I love you so damn much, Courtney. That felt…”

We both said at the same time, “Amazing.”

I giggled and pulled back to look at him. “Will it always be like this? This incredible, this hot?”

He smiled as he nodded. “I’ll do everything in my power to always make it this way. Being with you, Courtney…” He shook his head and grinned bigger. “I just don’t even know the words to say how it feels when I’m making love to you.”

I closed my eyes to keep the tears back. I opened them and looked into his eyes. “I feel the same way, Reed. I hate that we wasted so much time by being so stubborn and fighting our feelings for each other. If we had only known how we would lead each other out of the dark…”

Reed pushed a piece of hair behind my ear and whispered, “And into the brightest light ever where there is nothing but love and hope for the rest of lives.”

I choked back my sob and said, “I’ve never felt so whole in my life.”

“Marry me, Courtney.”

I chortled and said, “Nothing would make me happier than to be your wife, and I’m pretty sure I already said yes.”

Reed leaned his forehead against mine, and I could almost feel all of the guilt, anger, hurt, and fear leaving his body.

He slowly pulled out of me, leaving me with that familiar empty feeling. “We better head back.”

As we started to make our way back, I had the most remarkable feeling wash over my whole body.

For the first time since I was sixteen years old, I was finally walking toward the light.

I pulled my truck up and parked behind Layton’s. He had called me this morning, asking me to meet him, because he had something he had to do and didn’t want to be alone for it.

As I walked into the barn, I saw Layton in Blazin’ Dreams’s stall. “Hey, dude. How’s he doing?”

Layton turned and looked at me with the biggest shit-eating grin ever. “I think this big guy is going to make some serious money. Lucky just brought him back this morning. His first race is in a month.”

I walked up to the horse and smiled. “He sure is one beautiful boy, isn’t he?”

Layton nodded his head as he gave the horse a few pats on the side, and then he began walking out of the stall. He ran his hand through his hair and reached down into a cooler to grab a beer. “Want one?”

“Sure, I’ll take one.”

Layton tossed me one and sat down on a bench.

I opened up the beer and took a quick drink before sitting down next to him. We sat there for a good two minutes in silence.

“Talk to me, Layton.”

He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to me. I took one look at it and knew what it was.

“The letter?” I asked as I looked over at him.

“Yep. He asked that I not read it until I found out I was going to be a father. I guess that means I have to read it now.”

“You haven’t read it yet?” I asked as I watched the pain fill his eyes. I hadn’t seen that in his eyes for some time now, and it gutted me to see it there again. I glanced down at the letter in my hands. Shit. What in the world did his father write to him?

“Nope, I can’t bring myself to read it, Reed. I can’t. I need you to read it to me.”

I snapped my head over at him and dropped my mouth open. “Huh? You want me to read it to you? Layton…I’m not sure…”

Layton stood up and downed his beer. “I’m well on my way to getting drunk, Reed. I was short with Whitley this morning, and I ended up walking out after a fight. I have been in this damn barn ever since. I had Lucky bring me a couple of twelve packs of beer. I can’t do this alone. I can’t read it.”