All that aside, I actually like the guy.
"Are you riding today?" Wyatt asks.
"If you don't mind," I answer.
He strides over to a honey-mustard-colored horse. I don't know the breed from sight. I'm still learning. I was lucky enough my riding lessons from when I was a kid came back to me.
"This girl needs some exercise," Wyatt says, grabbing a saddle from the tack and securing it onto her.
I thank him and lead her out into the sunshine. Before I mount, I run two fingers down her muzzle to say hello. When I'm on, I glance up at the main house. Jo stands on the porch. She waves at me, and I wave back.
This iswhere the stupid part comes in.
If someone caught me riding on HCC property, there'd be trouble. Maybe in the days of the Wild West, a cowboy would shoot me and leave me for dead. In this modern day, they might just kick me off the property.
I have no intention of being caught, because I'd like to keep coming back.
I'm not looking for anything in particular. There'd be no way to discern which tree my mother ran into. But it was here, somewhere along the road from the big house where the Hayden's live to the turnoff into town that my mother took her final breath.
I'm coming down over the ridge between the HCC and Wildflower when movement catches my eye.
A woman in a purple cowgirl hat rides across the flat portion of the ranch, about a mile from the Hayden home. And she isflying.
Hair the color of honey stretches into the air behind her, her body in perfect alignment, and she leans forward slightly. My attention is completely captured by this woman, and I feel oddly dazzled. Maybe it's the abandon with which she rides. Or her complete trust in the animal, and the animal's trust in her. They are a unit, a duo, an extension of one another. I'm almost positive I have never done anything so exhilarating.
She approaches the tree line at full speed. At the last second, she tugs the reins left, and the massive horse shifts sideways, slowing, then disappears into the trees. I wish I would've been able to see more of her features.
A long, heavy breath I didn't know I was holding seeps slowly from my lips. It's a good thing she disappeared from view, because I was beginning to feel hypnotized.
As if her ride has exhausted me, I lean back in the saddle. Rubbing a hand over my forehead, I push my lips together and imagine what a woman like that would be like in person.
I get the feeling she's wild. Audacious. Bold, with a smart mouth. She probably says the wordfucklike she means it.
The heavy hand of guilt slaps my cheek. It's the first time I've really thought about a woman since Brea died. I see women all the time, I notice when they are physically attractive, but that's the extent of it. Nobody has commanded my attention so thoroughly. Not like the rider, whoever she was.
I close my eyes, just for a moment, and let myself think a little more about the woman. The guilt is there, of course, but my curiosity overrides it. Maybe she—
"Who are you?"
My eyes rip open. There she is, fifteen feet away. Perched atop her horse, cheekbones carving out defiant lines on either side of her face. Her eyes hold my gaze, and in them I see the shortest glimmer of recognition. I recognize her, too. The woman from the diner. She regards me with haughty suspicion.
I get down off the horse, keeping the reins in my hand as I walk over. Her horse is at eye level with my chin. She gazes out at me, and says, "I asked you a question." Her tone is low but commanding.
"Sawyer Bennett," I answer, trying not to marvel at how beautiful she is. Her eyes, blue like a late afternoon summer sky, regard me with a touch of amusement. A low, uneasy feeling thrums through my stomach.
"I knew that already," she says.
My head dips sideways. “Then why did you ask the question?"
"I wanted to see if you were going to lie."
"I'm not a liar."
"Considering you're riding around on land you must know is not public, excuse me for not believing your loose interpretation of right versus wrong." She grips the bucking roll with two hands and leans forward. “Why are you here?”
I absolutely do not want to tell her the truth, and that claim I made two seconds ago about not being a liar? It goes out the window. “My hunt starts soon. Just glassing the area." I struggle to keep a straight face. I don't even have binoculars to support the fib.
She grunts a disbelieving laugh. "You can't hunt on Hayden land." She points at me. "And you can't be here right now. You're trespassing."
