He curls his fingers and lightly scratches my belly around his palm. “No. I’ll be here when you wake up and start again.”
There’s a stream of light in the dark water. It doesn’t appear so endless in this moment. With Rowe lying beside me, his hand on my body. I don’t need to count my blinks to distract my thoughts.
The soft strokes of his palm are more than enough.
26
ROWE
The day’scome and gone in a blink.
My feet ache from standing on the dirt for hours on end, still trying to acclimate this horse to being touched by someone without snapping his teeth. He’s as stubborn as he was that first day, but the aggression has slipped just enough that I let my hand linger on his rump for a second longer each time. We’ve made progress, even if it hasn’t been as much as anyone’s hoped.
My stomach is empty, and I’m fucking thirsty too. I should have left a while ago and gotten out of the heat. It’s feeding time for the horses, and here I am, avoiding leaving this pen as if what’s waiting for me outside of it is far scarier than the beast I’ve already stared down a hundred times.
Tilly was never supposed to affect me like this. Not before I went away, and sure as shit not years after I got out. She’s a figure from my past, a friend and someone who I thought would be a permanent part of my life. I wasn’t intending on kissing her, and it wasn’t even a possibility to me that I’d have her on her knees with my cock in her mouth. When I didn’t see her in thestable last week, and nobody I asked knew where the fuck she was, I panicked.
It was like walking out of prison and learning that she was gone all over again. Only she wasn’t gone. She was still here, on the ranch, just tucked away in her trailer. The pain she was in wasn’t something I’ve ever seen her weather before. Tilly’s not the type of woman who accepts help when it’s offered to her unless she really needs it. Everything I saw yesterday told me just how rough a shape she was in before I arrived.
There was no talk of what happened between us at the lake or admittance of how confused I am by everything. I kept my mouth shut and lay with her while she slept, then forced her to eat what little food she had in her fridge before leaving. Staying would have been the nice thing to do, but once she woke from her nap, whatever openness her pain had awakened was closed again.
Now, I’m even more confused than before. Past, naïve feelings are making themselves known, only somehow, they’re stronger than they used to be. I don’t know when they had room to grow after being locked away for years, but that doesn’t change that they have, and I don’t have a fucking clue what to do with themorher.
I was hoping that avoiding her would help me come up with an idea for what to do, but it only made everything worse. Instead of being able to focus on the things I’d been able to a month ago, she’s infiltrated my every conscious thought.
It’s pissing me off.
I lock my jaw and try not to let my emotions get loud enough for the horse to hear. He’s already on edge.Calm the hell down, Rowe.The rope on my shoulder has started to rub at the skin of neck every few times I move my arm. It’s time to leave and spend the night in a shower the same way I have for the last two.
The horse shifts away when I reach up to adjust where the rope is sitting. He really fucking hates it, which means desensitizing him to a lead is going to take longer than I’m wanting. Weeks, maybe. If I can keep him from ripping a chunk out of me in the meantime.
I drop my hand, abandoning the rope where it’s slid lower on my shoulder. “Fine. No goddamn rope today.”
His ears stay forward, another change from the last few days. They’ll twitch here and there, but never aggressively. More like he’s annoyed with my consistent, stubborn presence more than anything else.
The feeling’s mutual.
I draw my palm down his side again, testing the boundaries I’ve already jumped over. His muscles tighten as if he’s priming himself to take off, but he doesn’t move. Blowing out a breath, I nod to myself.
“Oh, shit. Uh?—”
“He’s over there. Are you sure you don’t want to?—”
The bang of something mixes in with the sudden voices. I try to step into the horse’s line of sight to keep his attention from moving to the commotion happening around us, but it’s no use. The peace he’d gotten comfortable in has shattered, and in a blink, he’s pinning his ears back. He sidesteps, nearly knocking me over with his shoulder before the whites of his eyes flash. I jump backward, twisting seconds before he’s launching his hind legs into the air in warning.
“Woah, woah, it’s okay. They’re not coming for you. It’s still just us,” I say, keeping my voice flat. “They’re just rowdy cowboys doing stupid shit. You’ve watched them enough to know they’re loud and careless.”
He doesn’t understand me. My words don’t penetrate deep enough. There’s not enough of a connection there yet. My chestheats as I move further back and snap my head to the side, searching for those responsible for putting an end to my day.
There’s no use getting him calm enough to work on any more tonight. It’s already too late, and he’s gotta eat. We both do.
A slam carries on the wind toward me, then another one. My nostrils flare wide. The horse isn’t interested in anything else I have to offer him tonight. He turns away and retreats to the far side of the pen, the place he deems safest. I let him be, taking a few more steps backward with my eyes on him before turning when he shows no sign of chasing after me.
It’s not until I’m facing the stable that I see the reason behind the commotion.
Tilly.
Sitting on the top of the fence post with her legs wide and arms crossed, she glares at me with a heat that threatens to set the dirt around me on fire. What she’s wearing doesn’t register right away. But then she drops her arms to grip the fence, and I stop, my boots stuck in the dirt.
