And then I saw her the following week as I walked past a classroom. She was seated in the front row, nibbling on the eraser of her yellow pencil and listening intently as the teacher droned on and on about Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
But the week after that, when I saw her smile for the first time as she laughed about something with her friend, I was a goner. She had a grin that lit up her whole face and sent my heart into an uncontrollable state of arrhythmia. I’d made the rookie mistake of telling my best friend I thought she was hot, and in true high school fashion, he purposely pushed me into her in the hall.
“There’s a community college near UK,” Dakota said. “If that’s something you might want to consider someday?”
I shook my head. She and I both knew academics were never my strong suit, and in my family, it had always been a given that the farm would someday be mine to run. I was two grades older than Dakota, and staying put in Darlington after high school was a no-brainer. I had a good job waiting for me and a pretty girl who made it damn near impossible to want to leave.
“We can try to do the long distance thing if you want? It’s only a couple hours from here. Long distance might not be so bad.” She shrugged a shoulder, her eyes waiting for my response, as if she wanted me to make the decision for her. Dakota was a pretty girl who’d blossomed into a level of ridiculously stunning beauty, and the thought of her turning heads on campus that fall sent my blood into an instant boil. I couldn’t sit back home in Darlington, working on my father’s farm and wondering if she was being asked on dates left and right by frat boys with ulterior motives.
“You know we’d crash and burn by Christmas,” I said, giving an apologetic huff. “We’ll just have to put things on pause.”
She leaned toward me and pressed her honey-sweet lips against mine once more. She was so excited about her letter that I doubted she could fully appreciate that it was going to be one of our last carefree kisses. “What are you going to do back home while I’m gone?”
I pursed my lips, staring over the dash. “Play music and work the farm. What I’ve always done. Got some gigs booked at some county fairs this summer. Who knows, maybe something’ll come out of those.”
“Come with me,” she said, her eyes sparkling and fearful all at the same time. “I don’t think I can do this alone. Without you.”
“Don’t say that.” I shook my head. “You got a full ride scholarship, Dakota. You’re going to make something of yourself and get the hell out of Darlington just like you always wanted. And I’ll be waiting right here for you when you get back.”
Her home life hadn’t always been that great, and the kids at school hadn’t always taken kindly to her on account of her living in a trailer and wearing faded old clothes that barely fit half the time. But damn if she wasn’t still the prettiest, smartest, kindest girl in all of Darlington. I knew she was going places in life, and I’d have been damned if I even considered holding her back. Dakota couldn’t help being driven and intelligent and ambitious anymore than Ivy could help being so damn optimistic all the time.
“You’re just going to stay here?” she asked, brows arched. “Waiting for me?”
“That’s the plan,” I said, knowing full well only idiots sold guarantees on the future. I could plan all I wanted, but I wasn’t a damn fortune-teller. “We’ll be together someday. When the time is right. That much I know.”
I couldn’t have Dakota resenting me someday for messing up her future or asking her to wash her hands of her hopes and dreams because we were too scared to be apart for a few years.
I kissed her that afternoon with the kind of fervor of a soldier going off to war, attempting to preserve in my memory everything about how she tasted and smelled and the way her soft cheek felt under the palm of my hand.
She pulled away from me, her eyes glassy, and she bit her bottom lip the way she did when she was stuck thinking about something.
“You okay?” I brushed a wisp of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.
“I’m scared, Beau,” she sighed, her eyes falling to the woven fabric of the bench seat. She picked at a loose strand with her fingers and tried pulling it up. “I can’t imagine my life without you. You sure you can’t come with me?”
“Baby, you’re going to be fine,” I assured her. “I can’t leave Dad without help like that. And you don’t need me distracting you from your studies.”
Her eyes floated up to mine and her lip trembled for a split second. “Can we talk on the phone every night?”
“You can call me as much as you need,” I laughed. “But I have a feeling you’ll be so busy you’ll forget all about me after the first week.”
She scooted closer to me, slipping her arm under mine and resting her cheek against my shoulder. I could’ve sworn I felt her breathe me in.
“Just don’t go looking for a Beau replacement,” I teased, though I wasn’t really joking. The thought of her looking at another man the way she looked at me twisted my insides, and picturing another man touching her the way I touched her made my blood boil with an unstoppable fury. I pressed my lips into her forehead, kissing her and branding her all at the same time.
“There isn’t any man who could ever replace you. You know that.”
“We’ll be together again,” I promised her once last time. “When the time is right.”