I turn my head, and sure enough, there he stands in all his sexy cowboy-ness. Jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a cowboy hat, pulled low. He ties his horse off to one of the poles that locals have put in for this.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I get to my feet.
“Came here to think.”
I laugh. “I’ve been here hundreds of times, and I’ve never seen you here.”
“Same,” Tristan says as he walks toward me. “What are you doing out here?”
I smile. “I came here for solitude.”
And to forget you.
Seems I’m already failing at my new vow.
“I can leave…”
“No, you can stay,” I say quickly. I instantly regret it, because I should’ve said,Yes, Tristan, please go.
“All right.”
I let out a breath through my nose and walk over to Olympia, tying her off now since there’s another horse here that she doesn’t know. Once I finish, I move to where Tristan’s sitting, the same flat grassy spot I was at before.
I sit beside him, letting the silence settle around us. I glance over at him, and when he turns his head, I look away, hating that he caught me.
Focus on the vista, Lark.
But the view beside me is lovely too. You can’t blame a girl for wanting to stare at him.
Still, I keep my eyes forward.Oh, look at the pretty hill—I wonder if I could climb it.Then I look down.Hmm, I bet I could hike down that trail to the left, if I had a death wish.
After what feels like eternity, I give up and turn to him. “Thanks again for driving me home last night.”
He grins. “You’re welcome.”
“And you know…helping me when I was literally fall-down drunk.”
“How was this morning? I’m sure you had a hell of a headache.”
I nod. “That and I wanted to cry when the sun so rudely rose before I was ready for it.”
“Next time when Mary Lou says to do a shot, fake it and toss it over your shoulder,” he suggests.
That probably would’ve been the wise choice. “I might just do that.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a bit. I guess now that we got that awkwardness out of the way, we can be normal. I lean back, arms straight, head turned to the sun. It’s still early enough that the sun isn’t blistering, but it won’t take long before I’m roasting.
As we don’t talk, my mind goes a million miles a minute, trying to decide whether I should bring up the almost kiss. Do I let it go? I mean, he’s not saying anything. Maybe he forgot about it.
Maybe that’s what I should do.
Just forget it even happened.
Like there’s a chance of that.
Still, we don’t have to talk about it. I can at least pretend like I haven’t replayed it over and over, changing a move or kissing him earlier—I’m so not doing that right now.
I push back up to sitting and sigh.
