She rests her hand against my cheek and strokes over the skin there, with a tender look in her eyes. “You’re a prince of a man, Nathan Booth. You know that?”
There was a point in my life where I would have laughed the compliment off, and said something about how I was just a player. But the month at the rescue changed something in me. The month withherchanged me. I don’t think I’m the best man in the world—that title probably belongs to Beau—but Iama good man. The only thing that ever held me back from becoming one fully was myself.
“Being good for you is easy,” I say. “The easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why the change in career plans so suddenly? Your mind was set when you left.”
I sigh and take her other hand in mind. “As you know, I was worried about the ranch. I’ve felt responsible for it for a while now, but Cassandra convinced me that things there are really, truly okay when I saw her this week. I also wanted to keep being able to support the rescue.”
“What do you mean?” Her brown eyes are concerned.
“I’m the anonymous donor, Candice. I thought you would have figured that out by now.”
She blushes. “I had an inkling. But I assumed that if you weren’t mentioning it, you wanted to keep it a secret. Beau especially wouldn’t take kindly to any sort of charity, which I’m sure you know. I’m not so proud. Money is money and money saves horses. I’d be stupid to turn yours down.”
“Practical as ever, Viper,” I say with a smile.
“But seriously Nathan, you don’t need to factor helping us out into your career plans. It’s not your responsibility.”
“Well, if I have my way, one day it will be,” I say, stroking her fingers with my own.
“And I’m sure when that day comes, I’ll say yes,” she says, clearly understanding my meaning and making my heart stutter. “But for the time being, don’t take on more than you can handle. What doyouwant to do? Don’t think about me, or the ranch,or the rescue. Doyouwant to keep competing? Doyouwant to keep doing endorsements and brand deals?”
I think about it seriously for a moment. In truth, I enjoyed being off the road for a month. I enjoyed being in one place—hell, I even enjoyed sleeping in the bunkhouse, even if it was a damn sight more uncomfortable than the hotels I’ve gotten used to. Ballantine liked being at the rescue, too. He liked being outside for most of every day, instead of getting carted around every few weeks in the trailer he hates so much.
I liked having a place to call home.
I also like the rush of competition—of winning, but also of riding my best and my hardest, of being in sync with my horse.
I explain as much to Candice.
“I’ll keep competing, but I’ll stick to the biggest events, and that’s it. I’ll do brand deals if good ones come along, and the rest of the time, I’ll be at Star Mountain with you, working with the horses if you’ll keep teaching me.”
“We can work together. Expand the business, work with the local ranches...”
“Go to every horse auction between here and Wyoming and buy as many as we can fit in the barn.”
“I like the way you think,” Candice says, leaning in to nestle herself against my chest.
“Will you be okay when I have to leave?”
“I’ll have to learn to be. I’ll use the times when I can’t go with you to practice learning to trust that things will be okay between us, no matter what. Before, I was trying to protect myself from losing you by letting you go, as stupid and convoluted as that sounds. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“That’s not stupid, Candice. It makes a lot of sense given what you’ve gone through, and I’m going to work my hardest every day of my life to be your rock.”
“You already are,” she whispers against my chest.
We stand there in the quiet of the barn, Ballantine next to us in his stall, the smell of hay and horses all around us, until I whisper to Candice that my hotel is waiting for us.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” she says, pulling me towards the exit and out into the night.
45
CANDICE
Nathan’s hotelroom is in one of the nicest ski lodges in Bozeman. It has a deep marble bathtub, a huge king-sized bed, and its own roaring fireplace.
“Can we live here forever?” I murmur, sinking onto the edge of the bed.
