“I might say the same about you, Lara.”
Her cheeks went pink and she looked away, toward the water drill—but only for a second. Then those blue eyes were back on him, narrowed just slightly as a smile played upon her face. “I don’t recall giving you permission to call me by my Christian name, Mr. King.”
“I don’t generally ask permission for much of anything.”
Her eyebrows shot up, and those little spots of pink in her cheeks turned red. It had been a risky sort of thing to say, but he’d say it again to catch her off-guard like this.
And to Lara’s credit, she didn’t back down. Instead, she took a step forward, and then another, until she was so close he thought he could feel her breath against his neck. “That’s an awfully interesting statement,Mr. King. One might wonder what other kinds of things you didn’t request permission to do.”
His heart thumped like it had taken on a life of its own. He was treading on a very dangerous line on multiple levels. And yet he didn’t back away. He didn’t apologize. Instead, he let a smile turn up his lips. “Well,Lara. I suppose you’ll have to get to know me better to find out.”
She lifted her chin and a vision of his hand resting against her jaw, pulling her closer and closer until there was no space left between them, roared to life inside his mind. Mitchell’s fingers flexed involuntarily as he forced them to stay put against his sides.
“I’ll accept that challenge,” she said, smiling so prettily that he nearly forgot how badly he needed hernotto get to know him better.
What had he done?
She dipped her chin and stepped back, and the space between them finally allowed Mitchell to draw in a breath.
“I’ve already figured out one thing about you,” she said.
His stomach lurched upward, imagining all the bits of his past she could have somehow dug up.
Lara poked a finger at his chest. “You aren’t the hardened, rough man you’d like everyone to think you are.”
“I’m not?” He shifted his stance, wondering where exactly she was going with this.
She shook her head. “You’ve a heart in there, Mr. King. A soft heart that loves children, your family, and your horse. I know there’s a lot more to you than that, but I think that at the end of the day, your heart rules everything you do.”
And with that, she turned and made her way toward the water drill—leaving Mitchell to stand there, feeling more dumbfounded than he’d ever been in his life.
Chapter Nine
Stars shone above,bright and numerous in the inky sky with no moon. Lara breathed in a lungful of the dry air. Sometimes she wished for rain so badly she thought she could feel it against her skin.
But when she opened her eyes, it was still as arid as it had been for the last two years. Who knew that merely six months after her arrival in Last Chance that everything would have gone so wrong? She and Belle had arrived here, hopeful and full of dreams. And now she prayed each day for something as simple as rain.
