"I jumped the gun a bit, here. Acted on impulse. That’s so unlike me," I say.
I feel him smile against my hair, and I almost tip my face up and start the whole thing over. But I make my palms flatten on his chest, then step back, one shaky boot at a time. “I need some time to think.”
He lets me pull away, watching, dark-eyed, hair sticking up from where my hands ran through it.
"Take all the time you need. I’ll be here," he says.
I nod and turn around, walking back toward the house on shaky legs.
What’s gotten into me?
CHAPTER 5
BECK
The clouds are starting to roll in, dark and ominous.
I've been on the porch for maybe an hour, with a length of busted leather rein draped across my lap and a punch in my hand. I should be fixing the rein, but I'm watching the sky over the ridge.
The forecast said we’d get some weather thisafternoon. Saidscattered. Saidthirty percent, which in mountain weather is really just a coin flip.
The clouds stacking up on the western edge are low and heavy. They’re moving faster than they should. There's that faint greenish underside the old-timers around here used to callbruise sky, and my daddy taught me to watch for it before he taught me to ride.
Laurel’s out there on Riot, trail-riding. She left this morning and said she’d be back before the weather turned.
I’m trying to be calm and not act like a nervous Nellie.
But I can’t seem to stop thinking about the woman in every way.
I mean, she kissed me up against the barn wall. She had her tongue in my mouth, her ass in my hands, and when she rolled her hips against my thigh, I lost my self-control in seconds.
Then dinner was the quietest of my whole goddamn life.
I wanted to say a hundred things, but she'd asked for time, andtimedoesn't meanBeck, fill the silence with your over-the-top feelings,so I kept my mouth shut, which is maybe the first time in all my forty-four years I've ever managed it.
Even later that night in bed, I thought about knocking on her door more times than I can count. But if I’m going to be the man she wants, I have to follow her rules.
This morning wasn’t much better.
We made pleasant chit-chat, two grown adults pretending we hadn't had our tongues down each other's throats mere hours before. She did look at me, once, just for a second, over the rim of her mug—and whatever was in her eyes, soft and conflicted, was enough to keep me on my best behavior all the way through her second cup.
Then she said she was taking Riot up to the high meadow. The ridge trail. I told her about the weather and to take a coat, and she rolled her eyes.
But she smiled, and I considered it a win.
So now I'm here worrying on the porch.
I text her, but it’s not delivering.
Then I call and it goes straight to voicemail.
I try again to more of the same.
"Goddammit." I push myself up off the rocker, hobbling for the kitchen, snatching my keys off the hook and my hat off the peg.
She's a grown woman who knows how to handle herself. She's a Montana girl. She's got a good head on her shoulders and a horse who could find his way home blindfolded.
I know all that.
