Still could be talking to either of us.
My next breath comes easier. Shadow blinks her long dark lashes and doesn't rush me.I wipe my cheeks, and instead of being embarrassed that I started crying in front of Zane, I feel an odd sense of relief. I cracked, but I didn’t break wide open.
I felt the wave of terrifying emotion and it didn’t push me down to the ground this time.
And as far as audiences for my panic goes, Zane is pretty understanding, actually.
“I shouldn’t have said it like that.” His voice is slow and steady. “I was distracted, thinking about… Well, that don’t matter. I’m not tracking you, Hope. I just accidentally noticed you today.”
“I need the phone in case Luna calls,” I manage to say, my voice shaking.
“Of course. We can turn off the tracking if you want. It’s something we rely on a lot, but it’s optional.” He takes a deep breath. “From my perspective, it’s great when my brother's up in the foothills checking fence lines and we don't hear from him for six hours. My mom finds it reassuring when Dax is driving home from a rodeo at two in the morning. It's because there have been times in the past when we’ve felt like we were going to lose each other, and that’s scary to us. But I should have realized what’s reassuring to me might be scary for you for different reasons.”
I close my eyes. Shadow nudges me again, and I lean my whole face against her cheek.
Didn’t know I was a horse girl until this moment, but I think I’m in love.
“He hid air tags in the car,” I finally say once my voice is more solid. “I knew to look for them before we got on the ferry.”
“Smart girl.” His voice takes on a hard steely edge to it. “What did you do with them?”
“Threw them in the water. But it was still terrifying to hold them in my hand and know that he’d be able to track us that far.”
“That’s completely understandable. Fuck, I’m sorry. Nobody's going to be watching you, Hope. I just saw that dot come down the driveway and I?—”
I press my forehead against Shadow's. "I know," I whisper. "I know that. I do."
"I’ll turn the tracking off on your phone," Zane says. "Right now. I should have mentioned it when I gave it to you. That was thoughtless."
Fingers shaking, I pull the phone out of the snug pocket on the side of my leggings and hand it over.
His fingers brush mine, just for a second, and the warmth should startle me, but it doesn’t.
I find myself wanting another comforting touch, and when he hands the phone back, I don’t try to avoid touching him. He exhales audibly as my fingers slide against his, the contact more extended this time.
“How’d you turn that off?” I ask. My heart beats wildly. “Just in case I ever need to turn it back on.”
He steps closer, his shoulder brushing mine. “Here,” he says roughly. “In the settings. And if you go…” He flips to another app. “Here, you can see where I am, where everyone in my family is, even if you don’t have your location turned on. Okay? So we’ll never sneak up on you.”
"Okay," I say, mostly to myself. It is okay. This is okay. My voice is steadier now. "Yep. I'm here to learn. So teach me something, Cowboy."
Zane studies me for a long second, his mouth doing that thing where it wants to smile but he's making it behave. I think he likes the nickname.
"All right, City Girl," he says. He pulls a pair of gloves from his back pocket and slides them on as he walks backwards to the paddock. “I accidentally bought six new coils of rope this morning, so we might as well teach you a few things while we break them in.”
“Accidentally?” I follow him into the sunshine. “How’d that happen?”
“I interrupted the town gossip being a busybody in front of the rope, and loading up the store clerk’s arms seemed as good a plan as any to disrupt them.”
I laugh. “Do you hate gossip that much?”
He leans over and picks up a coil of rope from the ground. “Saw it make my brother’s life a misery in high school, so yeah. I do. But we always need rope, so it wasn’t a waste.” He unfurls it, then doubles up the end and slaps it against his palm with a satisfyingthwack. “Plus it’s fun to take my frustrations out on. Feel this.”
He holds it out, and the rope is stiffer than I expect.
"New rope has zero give," Zane says, looping it around a fence post. “So the first thing I do is start bending it, breaking it in. Hooking it over and over again, pulling on it so it goes from stiff and brittle to soft and supple.”
He plants his boot and tugs, the muscles in his arms straining from the effort. Then he slides the rope through his gloved hands so a new part of it is against the post, and he pulls again. Again and again, until he’s halfway through the coil.
