“You guess, huh?” I raised an eyebrow and grinned.
“Yeah, I guess.” She looked across to the barn and for a while neither of us spoke.
In the distance, we watched the lights of the prospects’ bikes carrying across the land, and it felt reassuring that even from this distance we could see them. That maybe, if anyone else was coming, we would be able to see them before they got here too.
The horses shifted in the barn, a soft whinny carrying on the breeze.
Rowan turned her head, a small frown puckering between her eyebrows. “They’re restless.”
I pushed up to my feet. “You wanna go check on them?”
“Please. They probably just need to be ridden is all, but I won’t be able to relax until I know for certain.”
We stood up, and together we walked across the dirt, the ground still warm under our boots, until we reached the barn. Inside, one of the horses nudged closer to the stall door, its nose pushing over the top. It snorted when it saw Rowan and Rowan smiled, her whole face softening in a way I hadn’t seen before.
“When I was little I used to come out here with my dad,” she said quietly, using her good hand to scrub at the horse’s nose. “He’d lift me up to see them and tell me I had to be still and quiet or they wouldn’t trust me.”
I leaned beside her, close enough to feel the heat of her body. “Did you ever listen?”
She huffed a small laugh. “Not even a little. I talked the whole time. Just nonstop talking.”
“Sounds about right.”
She nudged me lightly with her shoulder. “My mom would stand on the porch and yell at him for letting me get too close to them.” Her voice softened. “He always said, ‘She’s gotta learn sometime,’ and she would argue back that she didn’t want me getting attached to the horses because that wasn’t the life for me. I never understood it, but I do now. Now it all makes sense.”
The words lingered between us.
Something about the way she said it. Like it meant more now. Like maybe it hurt.
I turned my head, noting that she was already looking at me.
She was close. Too close.
Her breath hitched slightly, though mine wasn’t much steadier.
My eyes dropped to her mouth without meaning to, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from her full, soft, pink lips, just waiting to be kissed.
My hands twitched at my sides, every instinct in me telling me to close the distance between us. To reach out and cup her face and lean down…to kiss her.
To finally seal the deal and take what I so desperately wanted.
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
I stopped my thoughts in their tracks, because this wasn’t some bar, and she wasn’t just some woman.
Besides, even if she wanted me like I wanted her, what future could we have?
I exhaled slowly, dragging my gaze back to hers.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her words loaded with meaning. She reached out a hand, placing it on my forearm and I felt a tingle go up my arm like a current of electricity. Everything in my body was telling me to reach for her.
To hold her.
To wrap my arms around her and kiss her like my life depended on it, but instead I let my expression harden and I pushed away every other feeling.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Are you sure? You look like you’re contemplating something heavy there, cowboy.”
