I meet his gaze. “Maybe not,” I say. “But I know what it looks like when something’s been pushed too far for too long.”
Silence stretches between us. Thick. Heavy.
The horse shifts, breaking it.
Levi steps back. Distance again. “That’s enough for today,” he says. “You can head out.”
“Or I could stay.”
His jaw tightens. “Why would you?”
Because something about this place feels right. And something about him feels unfinished. Like he’s not as untouchable as he wants to be.
I keep that last thought to myself. Instead, I say. “Because I want to learn.”
I study him now, skin tanned brown by the sun. Build slightly shorter than some of the other cowboys here. Still a good six foot two or three. Jaw thick and angular, felted by a thin sheen of stubble. Nose blunt but proportional. His chin has the faintest touch of a cleft, like a kiss that didn’t land right.
And his shoulders are too broad. Rippling muscles beneath a rumpled black-and-gray button-down shirt with pearl buttons.
His gaze fixes on me as if he’s weighing something.
“Tomorrow,” he grunts. “Same time.”
It isn’t an invitation. And it’s not quite a dismissal. But it’s something.
I smile. “I’ll be here.”
I turn toward the door, then pause. “For what it’s worth,” I add, glancing back, “you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“You don’t work alone.”
His gaze sharpens. Before he can answer, I step out into the sunlight. And I feel it.
That pull.
Like something just shifted under my feet.
Like this place and that man might matter more than I planned.
Chapter
Three
LEVI
Ishouldn’t let her come back.
That’s the first thought I have when I hear the barn door open again the next morning.
Second thought?
Too late.
I keep my back to her, hands steady on the buckle I’m tightening, like I didn’t notice. Like I don’t feel the shift in the air the second she steps inside.
It’s different with her here.
