No, don’t go there!
He glanced at her again and saw her lips moving slightly as she hummed along. Before he could second-guess himself, his voice joined hers. He was more than a little rough and off-key, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter right now.
She turned, eyes wide, her smile faltering for just a second. “Wow. Rowan. You’ve got an amazing voice.”
Heat crawled up his neck.
Shit.
He shifted in his seat, suddenly too aware of how small the cab was, how close she sat, and how good she smelled. “Nah. Just good at shouting. Comes with the job. I yell at horses and idiots all day.”
Enya shook her head, still grinning. “No, really. You should sing more often.” And there it was—that tone, the one that made his pulse kick up. Like she wasn’t just talking about the song.
He shrugged, forcing his eyes back to the road.
Don’t read into it. Don’t.
“Maybe. Or I’ll stick to shouting orders at Gael, and make him pay for screwing with my tunes.”
She turned up the volume, just a notch. The music swelled between them. “You should sing,” she said, like it was a God-given fact. “But for now… let’s just enjoy this.”
Rowan stole glances when he thought she wasn’t looking—the way her fingers tapped her thigh in time with the beat, the way her eyes sparkled when she caught him watching, the way her lips curved into a smile that made his stomach clench. As if she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
The highway stretched ahead, the feedstore still thirty minutes out. But for once, he didn’t mind the drive. Not with Enya beside him, or with the way she hummed along to the songs, her voice slipping through the cracks in his defenses like water through scorched desert sands. Not with the way she looked at him sometimes—like he was more than just the guy who’d pulled her out of hell. Sometimes Enya looked at him as if he was someone worth looking at, and for a man who’d lived his life taking the scum of the earth out of commission, it brought a sharp pang to his chest, every damn time.
Don’t think about last night.
Don’t think about the towel, or the way she’d kissed me like I was the only thing keeping her from losing her mind.
Never mind her losing her mind, what about him? He was beginning to want things he had no business wanting. Determined not to ruin their trip and the easy, relaxed vibe that filled the cab of his truck, he decided that for now, he’d just take this—the music, the road, and the way her voice blended with his, rough and sweet all at once. He would just ignore the way she looked at him like he was worth something.
Also on his ignore-list was his cock. That bastard hasn’t been invited to this car ride, so it had exactly zero business standing up, looking for attention.
The truck’s tires hummed against the asphalt, the rhythm steady, hypnotic almost, as the miles slipped by beneath them. Rowan lowered his window and leaned his elbow on it, while his fingers held the wheel. His other hand dropped onto the gearstick as the landscape blurred into a haze of green fields and weathered fences. Every so often, Enya’s fingers would brush against the seat between them, just barely, like she was testing the space, testing him, and every damn time, his pulse jumped like a spooked colt.
She’d stopped humming along to the music a while back, but the silence between them now wasn’t uncomfortable. It was charged with something that felt like the air before a storm, and thick with things unsaid. He could feel her eyes on him sometimes, quick little glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. He’d catch the flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, the shift of her body as she turned just slightly in her seat. Each time, he’d have to fight the urge to look back, to meet her gaze and see what the hell she was thinking. Because if he did that, if he really looked at her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to remember all the reasons why acting on the attraction growing between them was a fucked-up idea.
Instead, he focused on the road, on the sun slanting through the windshield, casting shadows across the dash. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension knotted between his blades. “You ever been to Six Crosses before?” he asked, his voice rougher than he intended. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Town, I mean. Where everyone knows every damn thing about every damn thing.”
Enya shook her head, her fingers tracing idle patterns on her thigh. “No. At least not when anyone was awake. It was themiddle of the night when I drove through on my way to your place.”
“Well, Hay at the feedstore’s got the best damn peanuts in the county. If you’re nice, I’ll buy you a bag.”
That got him a small but real smile. “Peanuts, huh? That’s your big sell?”
“Hey, don’t knock ‘em ‘til you try ‘em. Salted, still in the shell. You crack ‘em open right there in the truck, toss the shells out the window. It’s an experience.” He grinned, despite himself. “Besides, what else you gonna do in a feedstore? It’s not exactly a thrill a minute.”
Enya laughed, the sound bright and unexpected, and something warm unfurled in Rowan’s chest. “Alright, you’ve convinced me. I’m in for the full Hay’s feedstore peanut experience.”
“’At’s my girl,” he murmured, and then immediately wanted to kick himself, because’at’s my girl, cut a little closer to the bone than he’d ever admit. But Enya just leaned back in her seat and offered him a smile he felt all the way to his boots, and he told himself to take the win. Even if it did make his skin feel too tight, his cock too hard, and his thoughts too loud.
The speed limit dropped as the truck rolled into town a few minutes later, and the squat, utilitarian shape of Hay’s Feed & Supply loomed up ahead. Rowan drove around the back and reversed the truck up to the loading bay and killed the engine. The sudden silence was almost deafening, the absence of the music leaving a void that felt too big, too obvious. He turned to Enya, ready to ask if she was coming in, but the words died on his tongue when he caught the sparkle in her eye the moment before she looked away, her cheeks flushed pink.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The bellabove the feed store door jingled as Rowan pushed it open. Enya hesitated for a split second and inhaled a breath, allowing the familiar scent of grain and molasses to remind her that there was nothing to fear here. She’d been in and out of feed stores almost since the day she’d been born. Her momma liked to tease her dad about how he’d stopped at the local feedstore on the way home from the hospital when they’d brought her home for the very first time.
Guess I was always destined to have horses be part of my soul.
