“That’s all you heard from all of that?” she asks.
I shrug. “I didn’t realize you’ve been watching me enough to know I’ve been riding off into the sunset on my horse.”
She scoffs. “I don’t watch you.”
I raise an eyebrow in her direction, shifting in my chair to lean in her direction. The smallest move just created the biggest energy shift. There’s still a table between us, but I’ve seemed to lean into her spacejust enoughthat I can smell her all over again.
Flowers and fucking honey.
Honeysuckle. That’s what she smells like.
“Need I remind you; I rescued you when you fell over your deck watching me?”
Her lips part for just a moment, and she locks eyes with mine. She zips her lips shut quickly, looking from my lips backto my eyes. A shiver racks my body at the idea of her lips on mine. Feeling those soft, pink lips, and tasting the air she breathes.
I’m losing all control.
“And I’ve seen you at the ranch,” I add.
“I—Uh,” she stutters, fidgeting with her hands. “I didn’t go there for you. Promise. Lily recommended that spot to me to just get away and feel some quiet peace for a little bit.”
I nod, keeping my focus on her face. I can’t look away even if I tried.
“I get that,” I tell her honestly. “That’s why I ride.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I sigh, adjusting myself in my seat so I’m leaning back, resting my head against the chair to lightly rock back and forth. “Seems like we’ve both been through some shit.”
She remains silent and I can’t tell if it’s because she doesn’t want to pry into my personal life, or she’s waiting for me to continue. I close my eyes, inhaling the crisp air of the night before releasing it.
“I was in love once,” I say.
I hear a gasp come from her direction, but I don’t turn to look at her.
I want her to know this part of me.
I want her to know why I’ve become theangry cowboyshe likes to call me.
“It was the first and last time I’ve ever loved a woman,” I continue. “We had a future planned out. I built this house for her. We were going to spend our life together.” I pause, swallowing past the anger and emotion stuck in my throat. “And now she’s gone. She apparently had this dream that she never told me about—of living in the city and becoming a writer for some fashion magazine. In my head, I thought she could do it from anywhere. It’s writing, for crying out loud, but she was determined to move.” I shake my head at the thought because it still pisses me off. “She asked me to go with her, but I was justopening the bar. I wasn’t ready to give up my small town life here for the high rises and traffic jams. Well, she left the next day as if our relationship meant nothing to her. As if…I meant nothing to her.”
“I’m so sorry you went through that,” she says on an exhale. “You didn’t need to tell me all of that.”
“Don’t be sorry, and yes, I did,” I say, turning my head to look in her direction. “I guess I needed you to know why I’m the way I am. Why I can’t stand the city, and why I hated you when you first got here.”
Her hand flies to her chest and she gasps. “You hated me?” she asks before her shocked face turns into a smile.
I offer her a lopsided grin, because that was cute.
“In all seriousness, I appreciate you telling me all of this,” she continues. “Seems like we both have terrible people in our past.”
The way she just put her husband—or ex-husband or whoever he is to her—in her past causes my heart to race in my chest.
Is shereallyhere for good?
Is that what that all means?
I can’t even find the words to reply to her, but Reginald barking in the distance snaps Blair out of this bubble we’ve created.
