She’s not for you.
He released a breath, his shoulders slumping. He needed to get his shit together. Needed to stop thinking about Enya, about the way she’d looked at him, about the way she hadn’t. He needed to focus on the task at hand. The feedstore. Groceries. The fucking steaks. Not Enya, or Enya in a towel. Or those seriously sexy freckles on her shoulders.
Freckles aren’t sexy.
They fucking are now.
Fucking hell. I’ve regressed to twelve years old.
He pushed off the counter and grabbed his keys from the hook by the door, the metal jingling in his hand. He had shit to do, and he was going to get to it and stop allowing his cock to lead the whole damn show.
“Enya,” he yelled down the hall, “I’m starting the truck.”
He stepped outside, allowing the screen door to slam shut behind him, and slid his sunglasses on, the world darkening to a more bearable shade as he headed for his truck.
“Rowan?”
Her voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned, slowly, his heart pounding in his chest. She stood on the porch, her hair stilldamp, her cheeks flushed. She was wearing jeans, and a faded t-shirt that clung to her curves.
He swallowed. “Yeah?”
She took a step forward, her hands twisting together. “I—I’m ready to go. If you still want me to.”
Rowan looked at her—at the uncertainty in her eyes, at the flush of her cheeks—and he knew.
He was fucked. Completely and utterly fucked.
But he nodded, his voice steady as he said, “Let’s go.”
The truck roared onto the main road, and his grip on the wheel tightened, his knuckles flexing as if he could strangle the tension coiling in his gut. Enya sat beside him, rigid, like she was bracing for a collision or for him to open his mouth and say something that would make them both uncomfortable. The cab smelled of worn leather, damp hay, and—damn it—that faint floral trace of her shampoo. The same scent that had wrapped around him last night, the same one that made his fingers itch to reach for her hand now. He jabbed at the radio before the silence could settle in like a suffocating weight and bit back a sigh of relief when static hissed through the speakers.
He flicked a glance towards her, and there she was, twisting the hem of her shirt between her fingers, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
Christ.
A wry smile tugged at his mouth before he could stop it. “You gotta help me out here,” his voice was rougher than he meant it to be. “I can’t stand country, but Gael got mad at me last weekand did some shit, now I can’t change the fucking station. Got any ideas?”
Enya’s eyebrow arched. “You don’t like country? Isn’t that, like, a felony in Kentucky?”
A laugh tore out of him. “Hard rock’s my thing. But even I won’t argue with Cash or Strait. But anything else is pretty much a no from me.”
Her laugh was real, warm, and unguarded, and something in Rowan’s chest loosened, like a rusted bolt finally giving way.
“Let’s find you something that won’t insult your ears,” she said, leaning forward to twist the dial. Her fingers brushed the knob, and fuck, he couldn’t look away. She studied the stereo and frowned before fiddling with the buttons. A CD jutted out of the player. She pulled it free and turned it over. “Hah.”
“What?”
“He put a disk with a country station recording on it in the player.”
“He did what?”
“Well, it’s a disc, and if you were hearing a country music station, then it has to be that.”
“Imma going to beat him.”
“I have to remember that trick next time someone makes me mad.” The static cleared, and George Strait’s voice filled the cab—some old song about heartache and backroads. Enya’s face lit up. “I love this one.”
Rowan listened, his thumb tapping an uneven rhythm against the wheel. Strait wasn’t terrible. Not his usual music, but therewas something honest in it. Raw, like the way she’d looked at him last night?—
