When he shook his head, I sucked air into my lungs, trying to find the courage to admit that I’d once again done wrong by him.
“I was horrible to you earlier,” I started, but I felt myself falter when I watched a stoney mask slip onto Jackson’s features.
“I messed up and deserved to be reprimanded. It’s fine,” he said, pushing off the fence and trying to brush past me, but I shot my hand out to grip his arm.
“It wasn’t fine. I’m genuinely sorry, Jackson.” My tongue felt numb as I tried to get the words out, something in the pit of my stomach roiling at the unfeeling expression he wore. This wasn’t the sunshine hand I’d hired.
Those green-brown eyes lowered down to where my hand was wrapped around his forearm, but instead of letting go, I gripped it tighter despite the flare of pain that shot up my arm from the action. Every fiber in my body was telling me that I’d regret letting him walk away like this, and for whatever reason, I wanted to listen.
“If you want to yell at me, cuss me out, or whatever, I’ll let you. Say your piece, and I promise it won’t come back on you.” I tried steeling myself for the contempt that might be thrown my way.
But when his normally vibrant eyes trailed up to meet mine, shimmering in the moonlight, I almost felt my knees give out. How could someone look so beautiful so close to tears?
“I’ll forgive you,” he started, his voice stronger than I expected with drops glistening on his lower lashes. “If you admit you feel it too.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JACKSON
Ifelt like I’d been going crazy.
From the moment Tucker Legare stormed off from me outside the barn, I’d done my best to convince myself that whatever happened in the paddock had all been in my head. There hadn’t been any attraction simmering behind his eyes as he’d been trailing his hands over my upper body. He hadn’t stood there with a hand over my heart like he’d been taking a moment to relearn the sensation of a beating organ under his fingertips. We hadn’t been sharing the same breath, both of us waiting for whatever was brewing between us to finally boil over.
None of it had happened. It had all been my wishful thinking, because a man like Tucker wouldn’t be interested in someone like me.
When dinner had come around, the anger still seemed to roll off him and only helped solidify those thoughts. So naturally, my brain once again focused on my job. For the second time in a week, I was finding myself worried that I would be losing my position at Juniper Grove.
This time, though, the daggers of concern that sliced through mefelt so much sharper. They held more weight, because even though it’d only been a short time, I’d grown attached to this place.
The people. The land. The animals. And Tucker.
They all meant something to me, and having to give that up was going to burn more than losing any other job would have. I was on the verge of spewing Tallie’s cooking all over the concrete with the anxiety swirling in my gut when we were in the barn. Tucker’s stare had bore a hole through me while I tacked up the horse he’d chosen for me. I couldn’t fault him for it—in fact, I understood it. I’d fucked up royally, and it made sense that he would be questioning if he could still trust me around the horses after the severe lack of judgement I’d had earlier.
But the weight of that stare felt ten times heavier the longer it went on. As we all got into the saddle and started making our way along the trail as a group, I wondered if the combined burden of my failure and Tucker’s constant watch would be too much for the bay mare below me to handle. But Sky had meandered on, cool as a cucumber as she followed the string of her companions to a destination everyone but me already knew the way to.
I thought, maybe, when we finally made it to the cozy grove of trees with the firepit square in the middle that I might finally get a reprieve. But the sensation under my skin hadn’t gone away. It was such an odd thing; the feeling of eyes on you, tracking your every move. The way it tickled at the corners of your brain, and the spacial awareness you suddenly acquired to be able to hone in directly to where those eyes were located.
Funny how it didn’t give you a single clue ofhowthose eyes were looking at you, though.
Anger? Resignation? Disgust? Interest?
That last one had my heart rate picking up slightly. There was a stupidly hopeful part of me that was still pushing; still stuck on the possibility of what could be with a man like Tucker. It was that same hopeful part of me that had me looking toward the source of all thisinner turmoil; just to know. Just to finally quell the gnawing feeling inside me.
Tucker was laid out on the ground, his upper body perched against the log to his back, with his hat on his head and the embers of the fire flickering before his face like taunting interruptions. Those whiskey colored eyes were burning bright from the flames before him, and damn if he didn’t look like every sexy cowboy ad I’d ever secretly ripped out of magazines as a teenager.
His features had their normally grumpy edge to them, but his brows were pulled together like he was trying to solve all the world’s troubles. And I knew in an instant, this would be the image of Tucker Legare I’d hold in my mindseye for the rest of my life if I never saw him again. Splayed out, in his element, and looking like the one thing I could never have.
It’d only been a second that I’d allowed myself to indulge—just a brief glance at him to finally confirm if he was staring daggers into me or not. But I knew I would have continued to watch him like that until the Earth reclaimed our bodies only to leave the cracked and dusty bones we’d leave behind. Though maybe even then, my unseeing sockets would be trained on Tucker, forever locked in this stare of longing desperation for a man I’d never have.
So, I’d turned back to Dillon to continue our conversation and resigned myself to either getting over this brewing crush or learning to live with the tug I felt for a man who wouldn’t reciprocate it. But then Tucker had been beside us before I could blink, acting like I had no choice but to join him on this “walk”.
At first, I thought this was the moment he’d take me aside to privately pull the plug—tell me that my time at Juniper Grove had come to an end. When I’d caught sight of a rosy flush peaking out from between his beard and jacket, slowly creeping its way up his neck, I knew this was something else entirely.
Tucker was a no-nonsense kind of man. He didn’t beat around the bush, and I knew first hand he had no issues with confrontingsomeone. If he was going to terminate me, he wouldn’t be turning into a near babbling fool trying to come up with a cover story.
So there went my heart, pattering away in my chest again, like the damn fool that it was. It thrummed and thrashed around in my chest as I followed his wide back through the cricket song and tall grass, and it fed silly little ideas to my brain about the romance of the moment as he let me in on another small sliver of life on this farm. Except when it finally came down to it, it wasn’t words of whispered attraction that fell from those full lips; it was another damn apology.
“I’ll forgive you if you admit you feel it too.”
