Fiddling with the paper again, I try to retain what it says. How much do we spend on fencing materials? I swear, I spend about eighty percent of my time working on that damn fence. If the cows-
“Good morning.”
Willow's sudden presence in the room causes me to jump out of my skin and let out the least manly shriek known to mankind.
Putting my hand over my chest, I feel my heart thumping rapidly behind it. “Christ, woman. Can you knock or something so I don’t keel over and die before my next birthday?”
She at least has the decency to try and hide her laugh. She tongues her cheek, but the crinkles around her eyes give her away. The longer I stare at her, the harder I find it not to laugh at myself. I just screeched like a teenage girl, that’ll earn me cool points for sure. Ugh.
Seconds later, the room is filled with our laughter, and God, it feels good to be laughing with her.
The laughter dies off, and I wonder if her thoughts are aligned with mine because the way she’s looking at me looks awfully familiar, but I am almost scared to think there might still be a chance, that there might be a smoldering ember I can fan back to life.
She clears her throat and breaks the trance we are both in by looking down. She shakes her head, and I get a chance to look at her. Her brown hair is down, her natural waves are making an appearance, andit’s on the tip of my tongue to compliment it, but I don’t want to push it. The skirts have been less frequent, even better, today, she’s in jeans, and damn, does she fill them out well. She was beautiful years ago, but now, she’s a smoke show.
“Are we still good to go do a walkthrough of the cabins today?” She takes a few extra steps into the office and sinks into the chair opposite me. It’s nice to see her getting more comfortable.
I clear my throat so I don’t embarrass myself twice before the day is really over, “Yeah.”“Great, I feel like I’m already really behind, so this will help give me a clearer picture for the contractors. They sent me an email a few days ago asking for the finished details, so hopefully I can get it typed up tonight and over before our final meeting with them on Friday. I need to have things finalized for them.”
It’s crazy to think she’s already been here almost three weeks. The contractors will be working on two cabins at a time, so we should still finish on time. I know she would have preferred they start this week instead of next, but it’ll work out.
I slap my hands down on my desk and get ready to stand. “Well, then let’s hit the road.”
I’m a man starved for her touch, without thinking, my hand lands on her lower back, guiding her out of the office. She starts to walk to my truck, but I have different plans for us today. “Where you headed?” I tilt my head and arch my brow.
She looks around, genuinely confused, before she hikes her thumb over her shoulder and points to my truck. “Uh...headed to the truck?” Her voice rises an octave at the end, and she looks at me like I’m crazy because we just talked about this.
“We’ll be using a different type of horsepower today.” I wink at her and my lips curve up in a smirk. Hopefully, this works out in my favor.
Her eyes go wide and she starts shaking her head. “Oh no. Immediately, no. I haven’t ridden a horse in twelve years.” Tilting my head to the side, I point out, “You haven’t driven a stick in twelve years and you did just fine with that.”Her lips purse together, and I can see her brain working overtime to find a good reason. “That’s completely different.”“Is it now?” I sing-song, unable to hide the smile coming to my face from satisfaction. I’ve got her right where I thought I would. “Elaborate.”She seems flustered now, sputtering out random words and mumbles while trying to get a complete sentence or even a word out. I raise my eyebrow and tilt my head toward her, waiting for anything.
“Well, there’s a lot of things.” She stares at the horses, a clear bit of fear glints in her eyes.
“Well, looks like we’re riding together if you don’t know how to ride anymore,” I challenge. If my life were a movie, I feel like this would be a good spot for an evil little laugh.
Her eyes widen, and I think she’s more afraid of riding with me. My new method of winning her over is going to be forcing her to be around me more; I’ll let my super charming personality do the work. It’s irresistible. And I will show her she can trust me. And then maybe things can be a little bit like they used to be. Getting my hopes up for that seems like a one-way trip to heartbreak lane.
Not giving her time to think about it, I lead my horse, Buster, out of the pen and work on getting him saddled up and ready to ride. She makes mumbled, incoherent sounds that I think are supposed to be words before me, but I have the bottom leather strap going through the saddle, anchoring the saddle to the horse. Grabbing her hand, I marvel at its softness, its warmth. The way her breath hitches when I do doesn’t go unnoticed. Maybe I get to her as much as she gets to me.I lead her up to the horse; she all but digs her heels into the dirt below us.
She looks from me to the horse. “Shouldn’t you go first?”“Buster isn’t going to hurt you, I promise.” I scooch her closer to the horse; she goes a little more willingly this time. Maybe this will end up being a good trust-building exercise, too. Two birds, one stone, if you will.
She stares at me as if she’s assessing whether I am telling the truth. She must think I’m telling the truth because she turns toward the horse and puts her foot in the stirrup and grips the pommel.
I reach out to help her, but she stops me. “I do not need your help getting on this horse, keep your hands to yourself, Weston.”
I put my hands up in surrender and back away, letting her do all the work. The way her brows knit together, she looks too damn cute for her own good. It’s killing me.
She does the cutest round of little hops before she gets enough momentum to swing her leg over.
I follow behind and sit right behind her. The warmth of her seeps into me and fuck. I have to close my eyes and focus so I don’t get ahead of myself. It’s like my body remembers every piece of her and has missed her as bad as my heart has.
“I should have just ridden my own damn horse,” Willow mutters as she shifts uncomfortably, and my hands shoot to her waist, stopping the movement.
“I’m going to need you to quit wiggling like that.”
“Why?” I hear the sass in her tone before she realizes why.
Her perfect backside rubbing against me isn’t what I had in mind with this whole horse ride. I wanted her close enough to talk, and just to have her close because it’s the only time that broken piece of me feels any peace. Now, we’ve got a whole other problem.
