Warner leads him past me toward the exit and I follow at a safe distance. “This is Titan.” Affection warms his voice. “I’ve been riding him for a decade.”
Given how much I already love Libby, I can only imagine how much love Warner feels for an animal he’s had for ten years.
The relentless Arizona sun reveals every muscle hidden beneath Titan’s shiny black coat. He is solid power, and he makes Priscilla’s potential energy look like child’s play.
“Do you know how to get on a horse?”
I nod. Between my one riding lesson when I was young and seeing it in the movies, I know enough to stick my foot in the stirrup and swing my leg over the saddle. I slip a booted foot in the stirrup, but Titan is large and I’m petite, making it difficult for me to haul myself up.
“Let me help,” Warner says. Before I can utter a word of agreement, Warner’s hands are on my hips. He lifts me, fingers digging into my jeans. It’s enough that I can use momentum to get my leg over. I’m pointedly ignoring the thrill of being touched by Warner.
“All good up there?” His voice catches on his question.
I look down at him. He holds one hand up to block the sun, and he looks conflicted. Something about all this, aboutme, is causing a disturbance in him.
“All good,” I echo. Warner’s up on the horse in mere seconds, his mount so quick and smooth I nearly miss it.
What I don’t miss is him behind me. The heat radiating off his chest has nothing to do with the sun. It seeps into my back.
“We’ll go slow, okay?” Warner murmurs. His voice is gentle, his assurance trickling over my shoulder. We’ve never been this close before, but I’m feeling greedy. It’s not nearly close enough. I know we agreed to be friends, but this attraction is a force that may be entirely out of my control.
Warner makes a noise, and Titan starts. Like Warner promised, we go slow. I’m rigid at first, and Warner instructs me to relax. “Don’t fight it,” he says, and I resist the urge to throw those words back at him. After a while, my muscles loosen. The height stops feeling frightening. Titan begins to feel like a friend with a soul, not a wild animal with an agenda.
Warner takes me through the pines, and down lower where they stop growing. “This is pasture twenty-six,” he says. I nod and look around, trying to figure out how he knows this. I don’t see a sign or any marking.
“Look.” Warner’s voice drops so low it’s nearly a whisper. He points out across the field. My eyes follow where he’s indicating, and I suck in a breath.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. The big eyes staring at us, the lovely grayish brown color. “What is it?”
“An antelope.”
It springs away, so graceful and buoyant, and just when I think it’s going to run into a bank of trees and disappear from sight, it stops. Looks back at us.
“Huh,” Warner says, sounding confused.
The antelope does the bound, stop, and look routine two more times.
“That’s weird,” he murmurs.
“What?” My eyes stay locked on the doe-eyed gaze of the animal.
“It’s like she’s trying to get us to follow her. I wonder if she has a baby over in the grass where she was standing.” Warner eases forward, nudging the horse, and he starts.
Warner guides Titan slowly through the tall grass. I keep my eyes on the mother. Her expression doesn’t change, nothing to indicate her fear, but I can’t imagine she’s not feeling something. If she cares enough to protect her baby by leading us away from it, she must be terrified watching us approach.
“There,” Warner says softly, and I look down into the grass.
“Oh.” I breathe the word, touching my lips with my fingertips.
It’s tiny, so tiny, with its limbs folded underneath it. It’s ears twitch as it watches us. “It’s adorable. How old do you think it is?”
Warner leans forward to look closer, pressing into me, and even as taken as I am by the baby antelope, I can’t help but be distracted by the feel of the hard planes of his chest.
“Probably not more than a week,” Warner answers, his deep voice drifting over my shoulder. “They don’t usually—”
The muscles in his forearms tense against my middle. “Fuck,” he growls.
“What?” I ask, immediately alarmed even if I don’t yet know by what. I lean slightly in the saddle just to get a side-eyed glance at his face. He’s no longer looking down at the baby, but staring hard at something in the distance. Following his gaze, I see what has him so upset.
