Page 106 of Slow Hands Cowboy

She nodded slowly. “Getting rid of them is just trying to force the town to be all the things that you want, isn’t it? Trying to maintain a facade. It’s like the way that people treated your family. Like they didn’t want you around, because they didn’t want reminders of the fact that they had too much and other people didn’t have enough. So they made you into enemies instead, just like these horses.”

“Maybe that’s why I’ve always liked them,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around his arm, sat there for a long moment, staring at them. “Thank you for bringing me here. This is just the best experience I’ve ever had.”

She wanted to tell him then. That he had changed her. That this had changed her.

But it felt too exposing right then. It felt like she was going to have to dig deeper into things that she didn’t necessarily want to explore right now.

But she was going to have to get there. She was going to have to let herself get there.

But right now, all she did was sit in silence with him, and the mustangs.

And all of the new truths that were blooming inside of her, like a field of wildflowers, more beautiful and brilliant than what had been there before.

She had always been afraid of change.

Afraid that it would prove that she was actually someone flawed.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment.

She was flawed. Messy. Full of need and wonder and bad and good.

And maybe that wasn’t actually the scary thing that she had been led to believe.

Chapter Twenty-Two

She was all he could think about.

It had been over a month now since she’d moved into his place and he was enjoying having her with him – not something he’d ever thought he’d feel.

But it was nice to have someone to cook for, to talk to. Someone to take a shower with. A body that was becoming as familiar as his own – but never boring because of it. Only sweeter, richer, more fulfilling each and every time they came together.

She bought groceries. She brought vegetables he’d never think of, wine he wouldn’t choose to drink and he teased her about never drinking too much.

I can’t be drunk, Walker, I might lose control.

He’d known that. Even back during her bachelorette party when Marlowe had mistakenly said she was wine-drunk, Walker knew that.

But he got her silly one night and showed her losing control was only ever a good thing when they were together.

They watched movies together sometimes, sat out on the deck and talked about nothing sometimes. And they made love on every surface in the house.

Then when they were finished he left her sleeping in his bed and he crashed on the couch. But he was alive with the intensity of it. The intensity of her.

It made him feel like he was in high school again. Which was a damned weird thing. Even weirder, he didn’t hate it.

He did hate Cody remarking on his change of mood, though.

He was about to get into his truck to drive back to the house to ask Addison if she wanted to go out for dinner tonight—on the excuse that it was good that people see them together, but in reality, he just wanted to be with her, and Cody intercepted him.

“Hey. Everything going good with Addison?”

“What?”

“Hey, if we’re going to have her fundraiser at the ranch I need you to stay good with her, or be chill if you aren’t because I can’t be dealing with a whole other aborted event.”

“For God’s sake, Cody. You know me better than that.”