“Cody,” she said, turning her head toward him just slightly, like she had read his mind just now. “How did you end up being a cowboy?”
“That’s a long story,” he said.
“Well, I want to hear it.”
“I’ll tell you.”
When they were alone again. He’d tell her. He’d show her a few things about him…not because it would change anything, just because she was the only person who’d ever known him like this.
He wanted her to understand him. Just so there was one person in the world who did.
They rode up to Painted Ridge, the spot that he had taken her to that night they’d been together in the truck.
He smiled, staring at the back of her, the elegant line of her spine, her ponytail bobbing with the movement of the horse. He had memories of her here. And that felt good. Felt good that there were parts of the ranch that were theirs.
He’d never been a sentimental person. He felt like he might be now.
The herd was down below, milling around, and the guests gasped with delight, watching the wild horses move in a group, such a rare sight these days.
Nolan paused to give a talk about the horses, about the efforts to round up wild horses, and why the stance of Painted Ridge was to leave them wild.
Marlowe looked at him, like she was proud. And right then, he felt a little bit proud.
And he let the feeling linger.
Chapter Nineteen
The next few weeks were busy, but Marlowe managed to make time for her doctor appointment and had gotten a clean bill of health, and getting that worry taken care of meant more than she had realized.
She was dragging her feet with the divorce papers, not because she didn’t want to do it, just because she hated thinking about Aiden at all. It was nicer to pretend that her life had started the day she first came to Mustang River. The day she first came to work at Painted Ridge Resort. Because everything since then had been so good.
Don’t go turning it into a fairytale.
It was a good reminder. But it felt like a fairytale. She was a little bit saddle sore from the trail ride up the side of the mountain. Now she knew what that meant. It was not a pleasant sort of soreness, she decided.
Especially not because she would like to ride Cody later, and the pain in her thighs and rear might make it challenging.
Of course, he was nothing if not creative.
He could bend her over something, or have her up againstthe wall…
It took her a moment to realize she was sitting at the front desk, daydreaming about fucking her boss.
How funny to think of him that way. She didn’t really. Not anymore. He felt like a partner.
A sliver of dread wormed its way into her heart, and she pushed it away.
It was just because they worked together. And because he wasn’t high-handed or anything like that. He didn’t act like he needed to tell her what to do to affirm his status every few minutes.
He just wasn’t that guy.
But when she saw his truck pull up to the hotel, her heart jumped into her throat.
When he came to visit her for hookups, he didn’t come through the front door. Or if he did, he waited to slip up to her room until no one was around.
His family knew, but she really didn’t want her employees to know. It would make her seem unserious. And slutty. And she was fine feeling slutty in a fun way when she was with Cody, or sneaking around, but she didn’t want her newfound sexual freedom to undermine her position.
But he was walking right through the front door, and he looked like he had a mission.
