Page 255

“You could say that.”

The timer on the oven ticks loudly. Clint leans against the counter, arms folded over his bare chest. The question comes casually enough that I know it isn’t casual.

“So, are you really leaving tomorrow?”

I look at the oven door instead of him. “I don’t know.”

The cake smell has started to fill the kitchen, sweet and warm and impossible to argue with.

“Are you set on staying?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Clint says it without looking away. “For a while. I need to figure myself out where nobody already decided who I am.”

I understand that too well.

He rubs one hand over the back of his neck. “Wouldn’t mind company, though.”

My chest tightens.

“There’s room,” he says. “Obviously. We could keep working on whatever this is.”

Whatever this is. I want to say yes. I want to stay naked in this kitchen and eat cake and sleep beside him and pretend Riverside is a story that belongs to someone else.

But Puerto Vallarta only matters if it’s chosen, not if it’s a hiding place.

Clint’s face shifts. “You don’t have to answer right now.”

“I know.”

He waits anyway. Flour on his stomach, patience in his eyes.

My throat works around words I can’t use, so I reach for easier ones. The first that come to me.

“Do you like horses?”

Chapter forty-one

Good Horse

Clint

My horse is trying to kill itself, and I’m along for the ride. We’ve been on this beach for maybe twelve minutes, and already the animal has attempted to walk directly into the ocean four separate times.

Five, counting this one.

“Good horsey,” I say, in a way I hope sounds reasonable. “Good horsey. Good—hey!”

Into the surf we go. I pull on the reins, and nothing. I pull harder, and her ear flicks back, as if offended by the suggestion that I be involved in this decision.

“Knock it off,” I tell her. “This isn’t a suicide pact.”

Up ahead, Paul laughs, and I hate him a little for it.

Why did I agree to this upper-class bullshit?

Because Paul asked if I liked horses. My brain, still swimming with warm cake scent and emotional damage, decided the correct answer was sure. Not I have never been on one. Not isn’t horseback riding what rich women do through vineyards in movies? Just sure, Paul, let’s put my six-foot-three body on top of a farm animal and see what happens.

The guide rides ahead like it’s all just part of the experience. Paul sits on his horse like he’s done this a million times, which annoys me more than it turns me on. Paul has probably ridden horses named after expensive liquor.