But my throat closed around all of it.
Two men.
Two heartbreaks.
One summer that wouldn’t stop echoing.
I dismounted and peeled off my gloves, then my shirt, sweat-soaked and clinging. The sun baked down, and the fight still buzzed like static under my skin. Hans’s words rang in my ears. The crack of my fist meeting his jaw. The ache in my knuckles. The discomfort in my ribs where he’d landed a solid punch.
I didn’t want to bring any of that home.
Especially not to Ivy.
I kicked off my boots, shucked off my jeans, boxers, every last stitch until I was bare. The air hit my skin like a blessing, and I didn’t hesitate but walked straight into the water, deeper and deeper until the cold shocked through me, and I dove under.
The chill cut clean through my fury.
When I surfaced, I shook my hair back and blinked at the sky. I swam out to the middle, the water dark and cool beneath me, and let myself float. Arms out, body weightless.
The silence out here had always been different. Not quiet, not really, but calm. Nature humming in the trees. The breeze whispering through tall grass. Dragonflies skimming the surface.
I closed my eyes.
Could’ve been any summer. Any year. Like the summer we were.
I could still hear it. Matty’s laughter echoing across the creek, the splashes of him launching himself in after me. The two of us, soaked and tangled, dunking each other under, kissing like the world would end before we came up for air. Rolling in the grass like idiots.
God, we’d been happy. Stupid and young andhappy.
My throat tightened.
The sharp cry of a horse broke the peace.
I jerked upright in the water. My horse galloped away from the edge of the clearing, hooves pounding the dirt in a blur of panic.
“What the—” I scanned the grass.
Matty was standing right where the horse had been.
He wasn’t chasing after it. Wasn’t yelling. Just…standing. Like he’d summoned the damn chaos himself. I wouldn’t put it past him so I would have to walk back to the ranch house.
Fucker.
So much for reminiscing.
I waded out of the lake fast, water sheeting off my skin. “What the hell happened?”
Matty didn’t flinch. Didn’t answer. He stared at me.
No,devouredme with his eyes. So blatantly I felt it like a hand sliding down my body. His face was unreadable. Cold.
And God, it gutted me.
Because I used to know what his every look meant.
I used to be able to read every flicker in his eyes, every twitch in his mouth, the way he bit the inside of his cheek when he was nervous, or the flare of heat that meant he wanted me—needed me.
But now?
