Claire touched the block of text on her screen as if she could reach through it and touch him. His sincerity pulsed in every word. The tension across her shoulders, which had latched on when she saw his earlier text, let go all at once. She began typing.
To be clear you’ve never made me feel this way. It was part of me before we ever met. But I appreciate you hearing me out. And I think I’m okay with it now. I think I just needed to say it and hear you say that’s not what this is while also not getting pushy or offended.
Tai:Good.
Turns out, I really trust you, Tai Aksel.
And I love you.She hadn’t said it yet. She’d almost bitten his neck, which was a louder declaration than anything she could ever say to him. But she wanted the right moment to say the words too. Soon.
On Saturday, Claire dressed practical: jeans, a pink-and-blue-plaid button-down shirt, and the heelless leather ankle boots she always wore when riding. She threw a jacket into her car just in case the breeze picked up enough to make a vampire chilly despite the seventy-degree, sunny forecast. Then she drove overto pick Tai up at his place. If they weren’t going to one of his formal work events, they tended to alternate driving, since they both enjoyed it.
He strode up to her car wearing dark-wash jeans, sturdy work boots, and a royal-purple Keane hoodie. Tuxedo or band-merch hoodie and jeans—Tai Kristiansen was equally attractive in both. The minute he shut the passenger door, Claire leaned across the console, and he leaned too, and they kissed.
“Missed you,” he said.
“You saw me two days ago.”
“Exactly.”
She leaned in for another kiss. “Missed you too.”
“So,” Tai said when they finally stopped kissing long enough for Claire to start driving, “when did you last go horseback riding?”
“It’s been about four months, which means I’m past due. I like to go at least once a quarter.”
They talked the whole way there, mostly about a recently released folk album they’d both been listening to—dissecting stories and ideas in the lyrics, analyzing the individual music tracks. Though he’d once considered a degree in music, Tai never wrote off her musical opinions when they differed from his. Sometimes one of them convinced the other; sometimes they agreed to disagree.
Before she knew it, she was parking in the gravel customer lot in front of the ranch office. They checked in and signed release forms, then went to the barn to meet their guide—and their horses. Approaching a barn full of horses always made Claire feel like a girl again. She bounced up on her toes once, and Tai laughed in a way that enjoyed her silliness, didn’t make fun of it.
Their guide was human, a woman around twenty-five years old with an auburn braid down her back, wearing knee-highblack riding boots, jodhpurs, and a yellow Warbler Ranch T-shirt.
“Hi, I’m Kayla, and I’ll be your trail guide for today. You’re Tai and Claire, right?”
“That’s us,” Claire said.
“I didn’t know y’all were vampires. That makes my job a lot easier,” she said with a chuckle.
“Sorry, how so?” Tai said. “I’ve never ridden before.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t put you on a bucking bronco, but I’ve never had a vampire guest lose their seat yet. I think it’s your better balance? Plus horses seem to want to make you happy from the minute they meet you.”
Kayla was all smiles as she explained, but she didn’t seem awestruck. If Claire had to bet, she’d say Kayla knew a few vampires in her personal life as well as from work interactions. That was nice. Encountering a random human who fawned always felt itchy, wrong, as if Claire had been handed a huge burden of power she didn’t want or know what to do with.
In the barn, she went straight to the stall of her long-time favorite, hoping he wasn’t out on the trail with someone else. The big black gelding snorted when he saw her.
“Hey, Pitch. Long time no see.”
“You’re welcome to ride Pitch if you’re familiar with him,” Kayla said.
“Yes please,” Claire said. “I haven’t been here in a while, but we’ve always gotten along.”
“Why are you calling him Pitch?” Tai said. “The plaque on the door says Sonny’s Blues Lick.”
“Oh,” Kayla said, “that’s his registered name. Pitch is his barn name.”
“Horses have two names?”
Claire nodded. “Think of it as their legal birth certificate vs. the nickname everybody calls them at home.”
