Читать книгу A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas - Maisey Yates - Страница 13
ОглавлениеMCKENNA COULD BARELY concentrate on the tasks at hand the entire day. Thankfully, the act of cleaning toilets was a relatively mindless one, and it gave her the opportunity to worry and look forward to the horse-riding endeavors she’d agreed to with Grant. She didn’t know anything about horses, except that of course she had gone through a phase when she was younger and had read books almost exclusively about kids who had them. Black Beauty. The White Stallion. My Friend Flicka. If there had been a horse and a scrappy kid, she had read it and fantasized about putting herself in that position.
But much like anything else, she learned early on that fantasy wasn’t reality, and it never would be.
She’d read Anne of Green Gables in one of her foster homes. Well, half of it. It had made her so angry she’d shoved it in a small space between the couch and the wall. When the foster mother had asked about it, McKenna had denied any knowledge of it, and had gotten a lecture on being more responsible with personal property.
McKenna was happy to take that one on the chin.
No one in that house needed to read that book.
It was filled with things that would never, ever happen. She couldn’t believe it. Not for one moment. No nice couple was going to show up at a train station and see a skinny, redheaded orphan girl they didn’t actually want, then take her back home and love her like a daughter. It wasn’t fair. Reading it had made her chest feel swollen, had made her cheeks feel prickly.
She had hated her. Anne with an E, who had unusual red hair and adoptive parents who loved her, and still complained about her life and her looks.
The horse books, she had decided, were a safer read. Because she didn’t harbor fantasies about living on a ranch or finding a beautiful, wild steed to ride. It had nothing to do with her life. It hadn’t even been anything she wanted. It had just been an escape. Something so different from the life she lived, being shifted between suburban neighborhoods.
A life riding horses over rolling hills with golden sun filtering through the trees. There was a lot of dappling sun in those books. And in McKenna’s mind, dappling sun was one of the most romantic images, to this day.
But it was a fantasy that didn’t get its claws into her soul, because it seemed impossible. Not like having a family someday, which seemed both impossible and like it should be as possible for her as anyone else.
It seemed surreal she was coming closer to actually having the horse fantasy than ever having the loving family fantasy. But who knew. Maybe the Daltons would fold her into their loving embrace.
The thought sent a sharp pang through her chest. Like she’d been run through with a shard of glass.
She stopped walking for a moment and stood, looking out at the mountains that surrounded the ranch. Maybe she had internalized that Anne stuff a lot more than she had realized. Because obviously part of her believed in it, even as she railed against it. Oh, that bright light of optimism that seemed to burn inside of her no matter what.
“Maybe I’ll fall off the horse and break my neck,” she said cheerfully, taking a step forward and kicking a pinecone out of the way. “Maybe the horse will hate me, and Grant will take it as a sign of my bad character and tell Wyatt to send me packing. Maybe this is all just a dream and I’m still sleeping in a hollowed-out cabin in the freezing cold.”
“Or maybe, you’re just about to have an uneventful riding lesson.” She looked up sharply, and saw Grant move onto the path.
“Good Lord, Grant,” she said. “Are you part puma? You scared the hell out of me.”
“Are you nervous?”
She flattened her mouth into a line. “I’m not the most Zen.”
“The horse I got for you could safely ride in circles at a kid’s birthday party.”
“Well. Now I feel condescended to.”
“Would you rather be condescended to, or did you want to get bucked off a horse today?”
“Condescension, please,” she said.
“Your horse is completely safe, and nothing is going to happen.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“Have I ever tried to make you feel better?”
“No,” she said, puzzling. “That’s the weird thing about you. You’re not too nice, but you’re not mean, either.”
“Is that weird?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s really weird. My experience is that when you have the kind of life I had, people either look at you like you’re a very sad little puppy that they pity deeply, or they want to lecture you about how something you’ve done has put you in this position. You haven’t done either thing.”
“Well, it sounds like you’ve had some things go down.”
“Understatement.”
“People end up in weird situations, McKenna. Situations they didn’t plan on. All the damned time. And anyone who doesn’t think that? They’re just scared. They can’t stand the idea that they might find themselves homeless, trying to find a cabin to sleep in on someone else’s property. If they don’t blame some kind of moral failing in you, then what’s to keep them from suffering something that puts them in the exact same place? It’s the same with a lot of life’s crap. Sickness. People always want to know what you did. If you prayed hard enough. If your body was alkaline, or you ate enough kale. They want to believe that in the end they would have been able to do something. And most of all, they want to believe that somehow you deserve something they don’t. Fact of the matter is I’m not sure any of us deserves to have good or bad things that happen to us. They just happen. So I don’t judge you. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t have a whole lot of reasons to pity you, either.”
McKenna blinked. “My mother abandoned me.”
“I’m sorry about that.” His face stayed that same shade of beautiful neutral it almost always was.
“But you don’t feel sorry for me.”
“If I did, would it change anything?”
She frowned. “It might... Affirm my feelings.”
His brown eyes were unreadable. “You don’t need your feelings affirmed. You just have to decide what you’re going to do.”
“Well, I’m here, so obviously I’ve made some decisions.”
She didn’t like the fact that he had now graduated to lecturing her. In fact, she preferred a little mindless pity over this.
“I speak from experience when I say that people feeling sorry for you doesn’t help you do a damn thing. Especially if they are sorry without offering help.”
“I guess you’re offering help.”
“That’s Wyatt and Lindy. I’m offering to teach you how to ride a horse.”
They approached the barn—one she hadn’t been in before—and walked inside slowly.
It smelled sweet. Dense and dusty, but not entirely unpleasant. She looked around and saw stacks of hay, and could just barely see the tops of a few horses’ heads in the stall.
“What’s the smell?”
“Everything,” he said.
“What does everything mean?”
“Shavings. Hay. Dirt.” He paused and looked back at her, his expression partly shaded by the brim of his cowboy hat. “Horse urine.”
“Well.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s a bit... Earthy.”
“Horses are. It’s not a bad smell, though.”
She inhaled, letting it kind of roll over her. “No. I guess it isn’t.”
“You’ve really never been around horses?”
“No. I mostly lived in the suburbs. In around different places in Oregon. Predominantly the Portland area. I guess we went to...pumpkin patches and things? And did hayrides? But it seemed like everything was...cleaner.”
“Probably because it wasn’t a working ranch.”
“Well, okay, probably not. But I always thought it was fun.”
“This will be fun for you, too,” he said.
“Unless I do fall off and break my neck,” she pointed out.
“I won’t let that happen,” he said, his tone firm.
“Are you going to rush to lay a pillow out on the ground if my steed starts to act up?”
His green eyes were unbearably serious when they clashed with hers. “I said I won’t let that happen. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, McKenna.”
“Are you the horse whisperer?” she asked.
“I already told you I don’t make mistakes.”
She couldn’t give him a hard time about that. His tone was so very grave, and mostly, it had nothing to do with his sensibilities and everything to do with the fact that... She just wanted to believe him. Everything in her wanted to believe that Grant Dodge was a unicorn. A good man who did what he said, and who just might keep her from harm. Which made her wince internally, if only a little bit, because if life had taught her anything it was that she had to be her own savior. Not hope that someone else might be. But then, if winding up sleeping in a frost-ridden cabin with nowhere else to go had taught her anything, it was that sometimes someone had to lift you up and help you stand on your feet, or you were going to end up a tragic, modern-day rendition of the Little Match Girl.
Grant walked down to the third stall from the door, and lifted his hand to the bars on the door. A horse came forward, pressing his nose against Grant’s hand. “This is Sunflower,” he said. “She’s going to be your...what did you say? Your steed for the day.”
He unlatched the stall door, grabbing hold of a horse leash, or whatever it was, and lashing it to the thing on her face, leading the large beast out into the main area. His movements were unhurried. Easy.
She was completely glued to his every motion as he prepared the horse for the ride. The horse was beautiful, a light caramel color, all the way down to her hooves, with a white mane and tail. And as for Grant...his hands were large and firm, his muscles working with an ease that she couldn’t help but marvel at.
He did the task with the skill of a person who had done something a thousand times. She realized then that she hadn’t done anything a thousand times ever. Nothing beyond the basics.
She’d never stayed anywhere long enough or had the time or inclination to learn anything like that.
She had a skill for picking things up quickly, because in her life, adaptability had been king. She prized that. But this was...
Grant made putting a saddle on a horse look like art.
Or maybe it was just because he was so gloriously...hot.
He went to another stall, and got another horse out, this one a black, glossy animal with slim legs and a longer nose than Sunflower. And she watched him repeat the process over again, watched as a line pleated the space between his brows, watched his mouth firm as he worked.
He lifted his hat up for a moment and wiped his forearm over his brow, then set the hat on a hook on the wall, leaning forward while he tightened the horse’s saddle. His hair fell into his eyes and she felt overcome with the desire to push it back into place, even more overcome by the desire to run her fingertips over his jaw, over the bristly-looking hair there.
She had known the guy for three days, and she was obsessing over him. She wondered if she was really just that sad. That all it took was a decently good-looking man being nice to her and she was halfway to buying him a rabbit just so she could boil it later.
In fairness to her, he wasn’t just decently good-looking. He was stunning. Like he belonged in a movie and not on a ranch. Except he wasn’t as refined or polished as any of the men in movies.
She wondered if Grant even had any idea of just how good-looking he was.
He didn’t have that cockiness that gorgeous men typically possessed. Hell, she’d known men with much less going for them than Grant Dodge. Men who had swanned around like they were glorious lights of masculinity put on earth to make women swoon.
McKenna was not given to swooning.
Grant didn’t posture. He didn’t swan.
He just was. In all of his glory. And it was a whole hell of a lot of glory.
“What’s his name?” She directed her focus to Grant’s horse.
“He’s a she,” Grant responded.
“Oh, really?” She crouched down slightly, taking a peek beneath the horse’s belly. “I suppose she is.”
Grant shook his head. “Just verifying that I was correct?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I imagine if he were a he it would be pretty apparent. The phrase hung like a horse doesn’t come from nowhere.”
His face did several things right then. His brows pinched together slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling down, before returning to their neutral, flat position all before she comment on any of it.
She smiled, hoping to diffuse whatever tension had just walked its way up his spine and left him standing there stiff.
“I expect it does,” he grunted.
“I would think you know,” she said. “Having been around horses for such a long time.”
“True,” he said. She gave him her best impish grin. Men often found that charming. Many people found it charming. She could be charming when she wanted to be.
He didn’t seem charmed. Instead, he continued to ready his horse in a rather taciturn manner.
“Her name?” she pressed.
“Guinevere,” he said.
“As in... King Arthur?”
“King Arthur. Lancelot. The whole bit.”
“Did you name her?”
“Hell, no,” he said.
She didn’t know why she found that vaguely disappointing. Maybe because it seemed, for a moment, that Grant might have something of a romantic soul. He did not. Apparently.
“Well, what would you have named her?” she pressed. “If given the choice.”
“I don’t know. Something less ridiculous than Guinevere.”
“What’s a nonsilly name for a horse?”
“Jessica?”
She let out a guffaw of laughter. “Jessica. A horse named... Jessica?”
“It’s a sensible name, McKenna,” he pointed out, his tone deadpan.
“Why did you say it like that?” she asked through a gasp of laughter.
“Why did I say what like what?”
“McKenna. You said it as if Jessica is sensible, while McKenna is firmly in the same column as Guinevere, which you do not find sensible.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a weird name.”
“Okay. Grant.”
He took his hat off the hook. Then he ran his hand over his head, sweeping his hair back before putting it in place. She was sad she wasn’t the one to do it. “Grant is a normal name.”
“Sure. I guess if you’re a film star from the 1920s.”
“I take it that’s a reference to Cary Grant. And he was not a star in the twenties.”
She lifted her hands, simulating surrender. “Fine. Grant is a sensible name. McKenna is King Arthur levels of silliness. I would lecture my mother about it but I don’t know where she is.”
“Mine’s dead. So I can’t exactly scold her for mine, either.”
Her stomach hollowed out. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I mean, I didn’t say that because I was trying to one-up you. Actually, I think your situation might be worse. My mom didn’t choose to leave.”
“No,” McKenna said. “I guess not. We can just agree it sucks. No one has to out-suck the other.”
One side of his mouth lifted. “Is that so? That’s not my experience with hard knocks. Typically, people want theirs to out-hard yours.”
“People with terrible lives so rarely have chances to go on and compete in the actual Olympics. Training is expensive, and all that. The Life Sucks Olympics is basically the best we’ve got. So, it’s understandable in some ways.”
He snorted. “I’ll share the gold-medal podium with you.”
“No,” she responded. “The gold medal is mine, Grant Dodge. You were not sleeping curled up on the hardwood floor a few days ago.”
“Fair play,” he relented. “I’ll take silver.”
“Silver would also be a nonsilly name for a horse, I imagine.”
“Not a black horse.”
She shrugged.
Grant took both horses by the reins and began to lead them out of the barn. She followed closely, watching as he walked between the two large beasts. He led them with no effort, without a single concern. It captivated her. The animals were huge, and they made her feel uncomfortable. Grant was guiding them around like they weighed nothing, like they were an extension of his own body.
The horses had to know that they were stronger than him. They had to. But they seemed happy to follow where he led.
When they got outside he put the reins into position, and gestured to Sunflower. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to help you get on, all right. You come up beside her and put your hand on her.”
McKenna froze. She wasn’t scared of much. Honestly, when you lived with the threat of hunger, possible rape and inevitable homelessness hanging over your head, it was tough to be too scared of the average, everyday nonsense in the world. But for some reason the big-ass horse scared her.
Grant reached out, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, and lightning scorched her. All the way down to her toes. If there were blackened footmarks beneath her shoes, she wouldn’t be surprised.
His green eyes were steady, giving no indication that he felt the same heat that she did.
He drew her closer to the horse. “I’m right here with you,” he said, his voice steady. “Remember I said nothing was going to happen to you.”
Calm washed through her, interspersed with crackles of lightning. A storm of epic proportions raging inside her.
He guided her as she pressed her palm flat against the horse. One of the horse’s muscles jumped beneath her touch, and McKenna nearly jerked her hand back, but Grant held her steady. Her heart was racing hard, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the feel of his hand, wrapped so tightly around her wrist, the touch of his calloused, bare skin against hers or because she was standing in front of a giant animal.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said.
She realized that he would be able to feel her pulse, pounding in her wrist, the way that he was holding on to her.
She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Now what I want you to do is put your left foot in the stirrup.”
“My left foot?”
“Yes.”
“It seems backward.”
“No. Backward is what you’ll be if you don’t follow my instructions. Now. Lift your left foot and put it firmly into the stirrup.”
She followed that direction. And he was still holding on to her wrist.
“Now reach up,” he said. “Grab hold of the horn.”
“I assume that’s the knob on the saddle?”
“You assume correct. Now grab hold of that and hang on to it.”
“Okay,” she said, extricating herself from his hold, and grabbing the horn of the saddle with both hands. “Now what?”
“Heft yourself up there.”
“Heft myself.”
“Yes,” he said. “Heft yourself.”
“I, sir, have never hefted myself in my life.”
“Better get started if you want to go for a ride.”
She lifted, using the muscles in her leg, and her arms, finding it surprisingly easy, and a little bit faster than she anticipated.
“Swing your leg up over her,” he guided. “That’s a girl.”
And then she found herself seated on the back of the horse, perilously high off the ground.
“This is terrifying,” she said.
“You’ll be fine.”
“What if I’m not?” she asked.
“You’ll be fine.”
She huffed, hanging on to the saddle horn.
“You can’t hold on to that the whole time,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he responded. “You’ve got to hold on to the reins.”
Grant handed them to her, his hands covering hers again as he guided her, showing how she was supposed to hold them. “This is a good beginner’s hold,” he said. “Eventually you’ll be able to do it one-handed.”
“That’s definitely what she said,” McKenna said.
“I’m going to ignore that,” he said.
“Great. Ignore that. But telling me you’re going to ignore it isn’t exactly ignoring it.”
He did ignore that. “Pull this way to go left, this way to go right. When you want to stop, you pull back. When you want to go, give her a kick.”
“A kick? That seems mean.”
“This horse could flatten you without giving it much thought. A little kick from your rounded heel to the flank doesn’t hurt. It’s a nudge. And that’s all you’re doing, because you’re just walking. A gentle nudge, and she’s going to go.”
“And pulling back is the brakes?”
“Pulling back is the brakes. But believe me. She’s an old girl. She’s not going to get frisky on you.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling nervous. “I guess I’m... Ready?”
“You’re ready,” he confirmed.
He went back over to his horse, mounted with complete ease. The grip he had on his reins looked different than hers, and he guided Guinevere into position as effortlessly as he had led the horses out of the barn.
“I’m going to lead us down the trail,” he said. “Give her a tap, and she’s going to start walking. Don’t freak out.”
“Hey,” she said. “Do I seem like the type of girl who freaks out?”
“In general? No. On a horse? Maybe.”
She breathed in deeply, giving Sunflower an experimental tap. And indeed, just like he said, the horse walked forward. She seemed to keep an effortless following distance between her nose and the ass on Grant’s beast. In fact, the horse might be a better driver than McKenna.
“There,” she called up to him. “I’m not freaking out.”
“Good job,” he said.
“Why do I get the feeling that wasn’t entirely sincere?”
“It was sincere.”
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she focused on the scenery around them. Many of the trees that were spread across the flat land were bare, their branches like bony fingers reaching toward the sky, just a few lone brown and yellow leaves clinging on for dear life.
But up ahead, and growing up the mountainside, was the thick blanket of evergreens that never withered or changed. The wind blew down the hillside, across the trail, kicking up the scent of pine, damp earth and moss.
She wondered if after today she would find comfort of some kind in smells like this. In the strange, heavy scent in the barn, and in the fresh woodsy scent of the pine.
The horse’s gait was strange at first, difficult to get used to, but after a while, she settled into it. Learned to move in her saddle along with Sunflower. They rode the horses into the thick line of pine, the trail continuing on up through the evergreens and to the mountain.
It was so quiet. There was no sound beyond the intermittent breeze, the swish and flick of the horses’ tails.
It was vast. Even now where they were, closed in on the trail, surrounded on all sides by trees, she sensed that vastness. She felt like nothing more than a tiny dot, in the center of the world.
It was a strange, heavy feeling.
McKenna was often the biggest thing in her own world. Her wants. Her needs. Her hunger. Her cold. And right now, she felt like nothing. Like gold dust. A glimmer of something, but not so substantial all on her own.
It wasn’t an awful feeling. It was clarifying.
Like a relief.
If she wasn’t the center of everything, then she didn’t need to strive quite so much. Then maybe she didn’t need to worry the way she often did. Maybe she could set down concerns for the future for just a moment and be here. With the strong silent cowboy riding in front of her as she lived a moment out of time that she could never have imagined she might find herself in.
She didn’t have to pretend to be anyone else. Didn’t have to fantasize about an alternate reality. She was the one existing here, free of concern, out in the middle of nowhere, on the back of a horse.
And she felt... The strangest thing, starting at the center of her chest and spreading outward like warmth. A still, calm feeling that was like nothing else she’d ever felt.
Was it contentment? Peace?
Had she truly come out to the country and found something she hadn’t been able to find anywhere else?
She would worry about being a cliché, but she didn’t want to worry. Not now. Not now. The trail wound around, narrowing slightly, boulders rising up on either side. She was worried for a moment that her horse might not want to go through, but Sunflower kept on going. Clearly, everything that Grant had said she was. The sound of rushing water grew louder and louder, and when they made their way through the rocks, there it was. Water rushing in a torrent, flowing over the side of a cliff.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Wishing Well Falls,” he said.
She stared at it, in absolute awe. The water was a wicked beast, churning and frothing as it spilled over the side of the rocks.
If she’d felt small before, this diminished her further. She was on the back of an animal that could dispatch her with one quick move, near water that could sweep her away before she could call out for help.
All those stories of people going into the wilderness and finding themselves made sense. You could find your own insignificance out here. Your place as a thread in the patchwork of the world, rather than imagining you were the whole damn quilt.
“Let’s ride the horses down to the swimming hole,” he said, tugging his reins and starting down the trail.
“What?” The trail up ahead was steep, and the very idea filled her with dread.
“They’ll be fine,” he said.
He urged his horse forward, and she watched as Guinevere made an easy trek down the path, surefooted even on the rocky ground.
Sunflower at this point didn’t have to be urged much by her, but kept on following her leader. McKenna held on tightly, leaning back and gritting her teeth as the horse made her way down the trail.
When they reached the bottom, Grant looked back at her.
“What do you think?”
Now that her heart wasn’t racing so quickly from the stress of making it down there, she was able to appreciate the beauty. “It’s like a secret garden.”
“Like a what?” he asked.
“It’s a book I read. When I was a kid. The Secret Garden. It’s about this girl. Her parents died. And she ends up living with her aunt and uncle. But her cousin is sick, so he’s not allowed to go outside. And while she’s wandering around trying to entertain herself she finds a secret garden.”
She hadn’t minded that book much. As books about orphans went. It was realistic enough in that no one had much cared about the girl, but had taken her in out of a sense of obligation. Granted, she had held out some hope for a while that she might discover she had a distant aunt and uncle in England, so that she might have a rambling manor home to wander around.
But alas. That was not to be.
Still, she had enjoyed that book. Because it was the orphan girl who’d had something to give to the boy who still had his family. Because she had been smart, and she had been valuable.
Sometimes she wondered if the reason she had hope in her heart was because of all the books she’d read. Because they had often depicted bleak things, and sometimes had shown her things she didn’t like. But they had also taught her things about herself, and things about the world. The terrible things people believed and did, and the wonderful things, too. And the ways in which people could triumph as long as they always believed in something.
Like magical waterfalls named after wishing wells, and cowboys who seemed good, straight down to their bones.
“Do you want to explore for a minute?” he asked.
“Will the horses be okay?”
“They’ll be fine.”
Grant dismounted, and then walked over to her, reaching his hand up. She was grateful, because she wasn’t sure she could manage the dismount on her own.
She reached down, taking hold of his hand, something that still sent a shock through her, even though their hands had touched several times that day.
She leaned forward, not quite sure how to proceed, and slipped just a little bit. But even she, in all her nervous state, wasn’t as terrified as Grant looked in that moment. His eyes went wide, and then he reached up, large hands grabbing hold of her waist, and lifted her down from the horse as though she were as light as a child. He was strong. Stronger even than she had realized. And when he set her down, her toes nearly touching his, their eyes met, and she realized that he was even more handsome than she had thought.
His green eyes were blazing into hers with absolute ferocity, his chest rising and falling with a hard, heavy pitch.
He felt it, too.
She couldn’t do anything but stare. She didn’t want to move away. She felt drawn to him. To his heat. His intensity.
His hands were still wrapped around her waist, the heat from them bleeding into her skin. He flexed his fingers. Almost imperceptibly. But the slide of the fabric from her shirt against her skin, and the rasp of heat from his fingers beyond, sent a shock of attraction straight to her center like a lightning rod. She looked up, her eyes landing on his lips. She was fascinated. By the whiskers there. She wanted to touch them. She lifted her hand, her fingertips brushing him, a shudder racing through her when her hand made contact.
And then, abruptly, she found herself being set away from him, his expression ferocious.
“That’s enough,” he said.
“I...”
“We should go back.” The words were hard, brisk.
“But why?”
“Because we’ve been out long enough.” The clipped explanation wasn’t an explanation at all.
“You said we were going to explore,” she said.
“That was before I realized how late it had gotten,” he said.
He was lying. She knew he was lying. And she felt... Like someone had taken a drawer full of expectations inside of her and turned it upside down. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, whether to be offended or relieved.
Apparently, even sun-dappled horse rides could turn into total messes when she was involved.
He didn’t want her to touch him. That much was clear. He didn’t want to chase the attraction that seemed to be building between them—and not just on her side.
That made him... That only made him better, she was sure of it.
Because he was in a position of power and he could demand anything from her, and in order to keep her job, in order to keep the roof over her head, she might feel compelled to say yes.
Except the problem was, she felt compelled to say yes because she wanted to. And he was being...noble.
There was a certain sense of triumph over being right about his goodness, but a hell of a lot of frustration over the way his goodness was making him behave.
“Okay,” she said.
She got back up onto the horse all on her own. She wasn’t going to touch him. Not again.
She spent the entire trail ride back stewing, not able to enjoy the scenery.
Somewhere in there, she felt like this was just her life. There might be horses, and a beautiful scene, there might be a moment of serenity, of feeling content with her place in the world.
But then the good man was going to push her away, and she was still going to be alone.
“You’ve been fine by yourself all this time,” she muttered as she entered her cabin. “At least now you’re not alone and homeless.”
She looked around the tiny room, and she tried to convince herself that—for now at least—this was enough.
