He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “Follow me.”
At the porch, I pause as he grabs a large, khaki cargo bag.
“Military?” I ask.
“Marine,” he answers, following me up the squeaking stairs.
“Careful,” I warn, pointing toward one area of planks. “Needs patching, about to give way.”
“I could do that for you,” he offers.
I chuckle, eyeing him curiously. “Let’s see how much work you feel like doing after a full day in the saddle.”
“Won’t bother me.”
I stop dead in my tracks. “Should it?”
He rubs a hand over his beard. “Figure of speech.” But his jaw locks, like pain is something you’re not supposed to admit.
After black coffee and grits with scrambled eggs, I can barely hold my tongue. He clocks exits and windows as if he’s on a security detail. He speaks and moves in ways I’m not used to… too refined, maybe? Too educated?
In the stable, I side-eye him as he tacks up Thunder, a black Arabian gelding. A little too slow, a little too precise. Not like he doesn’t know how to do it. More like highly practiced.
When he mounts, he winces, and I can’t take anymore. “You don’t sit a saddle like a man who grew up in one.”
He swallows loudly. “Military’s good at tearing up bodies… not leaving them the same.”
That’s when I notice the silvery sheen of scar tissue running along one side of his neck. The kind that doesn’t come from ranch work. The kind that comes from places men don’t talk about.
My breath hisses as I suck it in. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean?—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He avoids my gaze, urging his mount forward.
Chapter
Two
ARLO
Ihate using my wound as an excuse. Shame sours my stomach. But this has to be believable… at least until I sort things out.
I grimace, aware of the stretch of scar tissue, the way it pulls at my shoulder as my mount moves beneath me. Nothing feels natural about this. Hell, I only learned to ride months ago.
But orders are orders, and assignments are assignments. Besides, as Sheriff McLeod warned, the last thing we need is a land war and the Feds coming down on Rough & Ready Country. All because two stubborn ranchers can’t abide sharing a fence line.
Leonora Winchester wasnotwhat I was expecting, though.
I sneak a glance at her, so relaxed in the saddle. A natural. Her black hair is knotted in a thick braid down the middle of her back. Lustrous in the sunshine and infused with sandalwood and something more fragile—rosebuds.
Her round cheeks have deep dimples when she smiles. Her face heart-shaped with ebony eyes framed by thick fringes of lashes.
Too poetic for a law enforcement description. But no less accurate.
“Fences need mending,” Leonora’s voice cuts in, sweet like birdsong, but with a sharp practical edge.
I nod once.
