I can feel him watching me.
Then he says quietly, “If you need anything… you can knock on the barn door.”
I glance at him over my shoulder.
His face is neutral. Nothing in his expression suggests he’s spent any part of the night dreaming about pressing me against a stall door and kissing me senseless.
Of course he hasn’t.
Why would he?
The idea makes my stomach twist in the strangest mix of relief and disappointment.
“Thanks. I’ll… remember that.”
He nods once, then slips out the back door, the cool morning rushing in to fill the space he leaves behind.
I stand there, alone in the kitchen, the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the old clock the only sounds.
“Off limits,” I whisper to myself again.
But as the coffee machine starts to gurgle and light slowly creeps into the sky, one unwelcome truth settles in the space behind my ribs:
Off limits doesn’t mean I don’t want.
It just means I can’t have.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Boone
The house isquiet when I wake.
It usually is early on Saturdays. Sadie will sleep in a bit, which buys me an hour or two of work before the day really starts.
I look at the list waiting where I dropped it last night.
Feed inventory.
Fence line repair.
Call the contractor.
Two mares due to foal.
Carol Spence and her damn Mother’s Day agenda…
Coffee.
I need coffee.
I walk toward the kitchen expecting stillness, the familiar ache of a house that hasn’t felt truly alive in a long time.
Instead, I hear laughter.
Warm, unrestrained laughter.
The sound hits me square in the chest before I even turn the corner.
