A tremor of fear shook his voice when he said, “Like what?”
She pressed her lips together, and they burst with a dark shade of pink when she stopped. “Let’s eat first, and then I’ll tell you.”
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to swallow a single bite with her right there in the farmhouse. Right there in the farmhouse, holding his hand. Talking to him. Gazing up at him like she wanted him to kiss her the way he used to.
He fell back a step, then two, and dropped her hands. “All right. How long until dinner’s ready?”
chapter
eight
Farrah choked down halfa pork chop and a few mouthfuls of mashed potato before she leaned away from her plate. Darren didn’t seem to be in his usual eat-anything mode, because he finished only moments after her.
Without speaking, she stood and collected both of their plates. The sink was the same as it had been when she used to stand next to Jamie and get lessons on how to bake chocolate chip cookies.
She turned away from the memory and said, “I used to sleep in the bedroom at the top of the stairs sometimes.”
Darren jolted like she’d connected him to a live wire and sent a hundred volts through him. “You did?”
“I participated in horse shows out here all the time. I had lessons every day after school. I was the female junior champion for four straight years. Sometimes, on the weekends or in the summer, I’d just stay here instead of going back into town.” The words spilled from her like water over a dam, flooding out and staining the lowlands surrounding it.
“I sleep in the bedroom at the top of the stairs,” he said, his voice strangled and hoarse.
Farrah’s blood turned to ice for two heartbeats, and then raced like hot lava through her veins. “Are the walls still purple?”
He shook his head. “Pale blue.”
“Ah. Someone painted then.” She swallowed, everything in her urging her to flee this place, but the man in front of her was begging her to stay, to tell him everything. Reaching for his hand, she said, “Let’s go for a walk, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Her hand fit in his like they were nesting dolls. His large and all-encompassing, hers just small enough to fit inside comfortably. The warmth from his skin sent chills along her shoulders and down her arms. She’d spoken true when she’d said she missed him, and she could feel his emotions for her in the personal bubble that surrounded him.
A dog waited by the back door, perking up when Darren exited the house. “C’mon, boy,” he said, holding out his hand for the Australian shepherd to sniff. He ambled to his feet and trotted along beside them.
Farrah faced the fields, the barn, the show arena. She drew a deep breath of the country evening air that had so often soothed her. “I loved this place.” She noticed the past tense use of love, and she was sure Darren did too, but he said nothing.
“How many horses do you have right now?”
“We’re slow in the summer,” he said.
“Jamie used to be about half-full in the summer.”
“That’s about where we are.”
So twenty horses or so. Their feet crunched on the gravel as they left the backyard and walked parallel to the back barn. “Personal horses still kept in the back here?”
“Yep.”
“Want to show me yours?”
Darren stilled and studied her, and Farrah hated that she’d never let him introduce her to his horse. That was a big deal fora cowboy, and she’d flat-out refused to do it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I want to meet him, Darren.”
He reached up and touched her lips with his forefinger, sending her emotions reeling and her hopes toward the heavens.
“You never say my name,” he said, closing his eyes. “Say it again.” He cocked his head as if listening for a great secret or a hidden sound.
“I’d like to meet your horse, Darren.”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, drawing her attention there. The gravitational pull between them intensified until Farrah thought sure she’d snap in half. He opened his eyes and said, “Let’s go meet him then.”
