The Devil in the Saddle

by Julia London

  “I’d say about ten years,” his father said.

  Hallie laughed. “Has it really been that long? Even more reason to get back in the saddle, right? Remember how we all used to ride? We were all cowboys then. Even me.”

  “I remember,” Rafe’s dad said.

  “So?” she said to Rafe. “Want to go look at some chickens?”

  Rafe’s mother and sister turned to look at him, Angie with that look of suspicion again.

  Why did he feel so clammy all of a sudden? “I’d love to, Hallie, but I’ve got to study for my last final,” he said, gesturing to his stack of papers and smiling apologetically.

  “Oh. Sure. I understand.”

  Dammit if she didn’t look a little crestfallen, even while managing a weak smile for his sister. “You want to ride, Angie?” she asked.

  Angie laughed and gestured to the three children clustered around her. “I don’t think so.”

  “Rafe can go,” his mother said. “He could use some air, too. He’s had his nose in a book all day.”

  “I sat down an hour ago,” Rafe said.

  “You need some air,” she said again, and gave him a pointed look. “You do.”

  “Oh no, that’s okay,” Hallie said with a wave of her hand. “I mean, I busted in here and interrupted everyone’s day.” She abruptly stood. “I’m going to go so Rafe can get back to studying.”

  “You didn’t interrupt us, Hallie,” his mother said firmly. “We’re family.”

  Well, that was a stretch, and judging by the look on his father’s face, he thought so, too.

  His mother turned her back to Hallie, and with her eyes and brows, she gave Rafe a look for which there was no other interpretation—she wanted him to go.

  Four-year-old Abigail chose that moment to shove a doll up at Hallie’s face, distracting her from her good-byes. “Oh, how pretty!” Hallie exclaimed, and squatted down to discuss the doll with Abbi.

  Rafe’s mother took the opportunity to lean over him under the pretense of picking up the salt and pepper shakers. “She just had her wedding called off. She’s lonely. Go ride with her,” she whispered hotly.

  Rafe was not the son who would say no to his mother’s few wishes, but he did not want to ride with Hallie. He didn’t want to be near her. He needed to keep a distance between them, an ocean if he could, because that was the only way he could keep old yearnings from bubbling up and making a mush of his brain.

  But his mother was glaring at him, and he rolled his eyes at her, but he stood. “Yeah, Hallie, let’s take a ride.” And then he instantly wanted to punch himself in the mouth, because her face lit with delight. He didn’t want her to be delighted.

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “You bet,” he said, and ignored his mother’s overly pleased smile at having made one of her children bend to her will.

  “I should warn you that I’m not really sure what we’re looking for.”

  “Chickens!” Izzy said.

  “Chickens,” Hallie agreed with a smile for Izzy. “But for all I know, they may look like sparrows.”

  “Sparrows?” Rafe repeated.

  Hallie shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen a feral chicken. Thank you so much for the tea, Mrs. Fontana,” she said to his mother. “Good to see you, Angie.”

  “You too, Hallie.”

  “Good-bye, Martin! See you at the house!”

  “Take care,” his father mumbled, his attention on the game.

  Hallie smiled happily at Rafe in the way that sent little sparklers shimmering down his spine. “Meet you at the stables in an hour?”

  “For chicken hunting,” he said disbelievingly.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  His mother saw Hallie out. When they heard the door close, Angie whipped around to him. “What just happened? Since when does Hallie Prince come off her throne and pay us a visit?”

  “Watch your mouth, Angie,” his dad said. “The Princes have made it possible for you to have the life that you’ve lived.”

  Angie snorted. “I’m just saying, since when does one of them deign to come around us? It’s always about how we can serve them.”

  “She brought my gloves,” Rafe said, and walked back to his old room to get a few things. He understood where Angie was coming from—the Prince family had always been held out as gods among mortals, either by themselves or by others.

  But Hallie wasn’t like that. Hallie didn’t have an arrogant bone in her body. She was definitely one of a kind.

  She was everything.

  Chapter Five

  Hallie dressed in jeans and western boots—the cute black ones with the big splashy yellow flowers—and made her way to the stables. She was surprised to see Rafe already in the paddock with two saddled horses. He was leaning against a post, his arms crossed, waiting for her. He watched her walk through the gate and make her way across the sand and loam. “How’d you get here so quick?” she asked.

  He glanced at his watch. “You said an hour. It’s been an hour and a half.”

  “It has?” Well, that was the fastest hour and a half she’d spent in some weeks. She’d been trying to decide what to wear. This was her first foray out of the house in something other than yoga pants, and after last night, she’d wanted to look nice. She wanted to remind Rafe that she didn’t always look like she’d been living behind a fast-food restaurant near the highway.

  “Nice boots,” he said.

  “Thank you. I got them at Allen’s,” she said, referring to a boot shop in Austin. She turned her ankle and dipped into a little curtsy so he could see them.

  “I didn’t realize I was supposed to put on my fancy boots to look at chickens.” He eyed the flowers on her boots. “Quite the garden.”

  “It’s always important to look your best,” she said with a bat of her eyes.

  He smiled down at her, his expression indulgent. Much the way her brothers often looked at her. Whatever, Hallie, you’re a dork, they’d say.

  “That one is yours,” Rafe said, using his chin to indicate the taller horse of the two.

  That horse checked her out with one enormous brown eye. He looked less than thrilled that she’d been assigned to him. “Why that one?”

  “Because you haven’t been on a horse in a long time, and he’s pretty forgiving.” He pushed away from the post and walked to the horse.

  Hallie put her hands on her hips. “I think I ought to be insulted by your presumption that I will need to be forgiven, but I am feeling magnanimous at the moment and I will ignore it. Your caution is duly noted, but I will point out that it hasn’t been that long.” She bowed majestically, then straightened and walked over to stroke the horse’s nose.

  The horse tossed his mane.

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” Rafe put his hand on the small of her back to usher her forward. “Just try not to get thrown, okay? I don’t want to have to pick up the pieces.”

  The way he was smiling down at her all sparkly-eyed and dimple-cheeked beneath that shadow of a beard made Hallie think she wouldn’t mind at all if Rafe picked up her pieces. “You try not to get thrown,” she said, sounding like a six-year-old. When had he gotten so dreamy, anyway? While she was off planning a Big Society Wedding, Rafe had turned into a drool-worthy rock of a man in his jeans, long-sleeved tee, and flannel shirt.

  He chuckled as he cinched the saddle belt on the horse. “You going to mount this bad boy, or are you going to stand around staring at me all day?”

  Was she staring? Oh, she was staring a little. She could feel a blush creeping into her cheeks and pushed past him. “Move aside, cowboy, I’ve got this.”

  Except that she didn’t have it. She could hardly bend her leg enough to fit her foot into the stirrup. This is what happened when one stopped dancing—one lost all flexibility and tur
ned oneself into a two-by-four piece of wood.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” Rafe said as he watched her.

  “Shut up,” she said through a huff of breath at the exertion.

  “I’ll get a stool,” he suggested.

  A stool is what they used for children who were just learning to ride, and Hallie was appalled that he thought she was that raw. “I’ve got this. I don’t need a stool.” She stubbornly tried to hop up with one leg and pull up with her arms at the same time. She managed to get halfway up the horse before promptly sliding down.

  Rafe tried to hide a laugh, but when she glared at him, it busted out of him.

  “It’s not funny!” Hallie insisted.

  “It’s hilarious.”

  “It’s not my fault I lack upper-arm strength.”

  “It’s totally your fault. Anyone can improve their strength if they are so inclined. Stay right there and I’ll get a stool—”

  “Forget the stool! Give me a hand,” she said, gesturing for him to help her. Her foot was still in the stirrup, for Chrissakes, and there was no way she was going to dislodge it without some intervention. The horse shifted to one side, and she feared she would be rent in two. “Rafe, help me!”

  “I don’t know if I—”

  “Just push me up,” she insisted.

  “Why are you so stubborn?” he demanded, and planted his hands on her bottom so firmly that Hallie gasped. His fingers dug into her flesh, and with a grunt of effort, he vaulted her up onto the saddle with such force that she almost went off the other side. She quickly righted herself and turned a beaming, breathless smile down to him. “You didn’t have to throw me.”

  He put his hands on his hips and looked at her as if she wasn’t speaking English. “Yes, I did,” he said. “You can’t willy-nilly disregard the physics that an assist like this requires.”

  Hallie’s mouth gaped. “Okay, so I’ve gained a few pounds!” Actually, it felt like a lot. She really had to stop planting her face and her misery in buckets of ice cream.

  “You don’t look like you’ve gained an ounce, but that is not the point. The point is, you should use a stool,” he said, not unreasonably.

  “Whatever.” She leaned over the horse’s neck and patted him. “You remember me, don’t you, Billie? He didn’t have to throw me, did he?”

  “That’s Brutus,” Rafe said, and turned to the second horse.

  “No way,” Hallie said, and sat up, staring at the ears of the horse. “Billie has a star between his eyes.”

  “Billie is a mare and she has socks. Brutus has the star.” He easily tossed himself up onto the back of the second horse without any apparent regard for physics.

  “Billie and Brutus,” Hallie said. “Sounds like a rom-com.”

  “A what?” Rafe asked as he gathered the reins. He made a clicking sound to the horse and spurred him forward.

  Brutus obediently followed. “A rom-com,” Hallie repeated.

  “Not following you,” Rafe said as they rode out of the paddock.

  “Are you serious right now?” Hallie said. “Romantic comedy. Like Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

  Rafe shook his head. “Feeling good in the saddle? Can you handle it?” He turned a studious eye to her form and frowned when he looked at her feet.

  “What do you mean, ‘can I handle it.’ Riding a horse is like riding a bike, Rafe—you never forgot how to do it. Once a cowgirl, always a cowgirl—”

  “Okay,” he said, holding up a hand. “But for the sake of accuracy, you were never a cowgirl. More of a sidekick.”

  He had a point. “Details,” she said flippantly. “So come on, seriously, you’ve never seen Crazy, Stupid, Love?”

  “Is that a movie?”

  Hallie stared at him, unable to comprehend how he could be so woefully uninformed. “What about Bridget Jones’s Diary, or You’ve Got Mail?”

  He looked at her blankly. “Movies?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Rafael Fontana!” Hallie said. “How can you be so cool and know nothing about pop culture? We need to change that. You can’t go through life with no knowledge of rom-coms. You’re only hurting yourself with that nonsense.”

  He laughed. “For starters, I’m not cool. How do you propose we improve my knowledge of pop culture?”

  “Well, obviously, I’m going to have to host a movie night.” The idea popped out of her mouth without thought, but the moment it did, Hallie instantly liked the idea of it. She could picture the two of them in the media room with the classic When Harry Met Sally. She could watch that movie a dozen times. It was quite possible she already had. Frederica could make popcorn—well, Frederica was a part-timer now, so Hallie would have to do it. She could figure out popcorn, couldn’t she? It couldn’t be that hard. “You could come to the house,” she said breezily. “I’m going to learn to make popcorn. Not the microwave kind, of course, but the way the pioneers made it.”

  Rafe squinted straight ahead. “I don’t think pioneers made popcorn.”

  Hallie laughed. “Of course they did! What, you think popcorn just showed up one day?”

  “My guess is they had enough on their hands just trying to feed themselves.”

  Hallie reached for her back pocket to grab her phone and Google this important fact, but discovered she hadn’t brought it with her. Interesting. She’d been stalking Christopher’s Instagram account, but today, she hadn’t thought about it.

  “Okay, nevertheless, you could use some popcorn and romantic comedy in your life, Rafe.”

  “I could also use some study time for my final,” he said, and glanced away from her. “It’s my last one.”

  Hallie deflated. Was she so down in the dumps that she’d conveniently forgotten that Rafe had his own life and was not actually responsible for her RFC (Recovery from Christopher), no matter how badly she wished it were so?

  She was a bad friend. She hadn’t asked him much about what was going on in his life recently. They hadn’t had much contact in the last couple of years, because she’d been so caught up in trying to be the perfect fiancée who would become the perfect wife. How had she let that happen? She’d been friends with Rafe longer than almost anyone else.

  Unfortunately, Rafe wasn’t the only friend she’d neglected in her constant back-and-forth between the ranch and Houston. She hadn’t talked to Kara or Melissa in ages. But it was very obvious to her, in examining the evidence presented just today, that her friendship with Hot Army Guy Slash Cowboy Rafe was a powerful antidote to her stupid ex. She’d hardly thought about Chris at all since Rafe had stood in front of her car with a saddle on his shoulder.

  The image of Rafe in front of her car sent a strange little shiver down her spine. She didn’t want to dwell too long on the notion that she had so little to fall back on she was having to rely on her old friend so nakedly. A guy who was probably too respectful to think of an excuse to send her away.

  Jesus, he wasn’t hanging out with her out of pity, was he? Was this a pity outing? Oh, she didn’t like that at all. It made her feel a little nauseated, because there was nothing worse than a pity friend. Hallie liked to think she was not a needy person. Or was she? The very idea sent her mood plummeting, and she reacted by giving her horse a press of the knees and a heel to the flank to send him to a canter.

  Rafe watched her bounce by, then smoothly caught up.

  “Hey, let’s take the shortcut,” she suggested.

  “Not a good idea,” he said. “We had a heavy rain last week. The river might be too high for the horses.”

  Killjoy. “When did you become so mature?”

  He laughed. “When was I not?”

  Hallie responded by suddenly yanking the reins and sending Brutus veering off through the dormant oil field, leaving the road to cut across to the river. It felt good to feel the horse gallop, and Hallie bent over his ne
ck, spurred him to stretch his legs beneath her. Brutus thought this was a good idea and obliged her, letting loose for an all-out run.

  She realized how out of shape she was as the horse barreled toward the river. Her legs were beginning to shake, and her arms felt like noodles. And then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Rafe shoot past her on the mare. He was riding with perfect form, and she swore as he passed her that he tossed a smirk in her direction.

  Brutus took this as a challenge and did not intend to be left behind. He picked up more speed, his hooves churning up the grass beneath them. Hallie cried out with alarm when she thought she might bounce right off his back, but at the river’s edge, Brutus brought himself to an abrupt halt.

  With a gasp, she sat up and looked at Rafe. Something clicked between them, and they simultaneously burst into laughter after the shared exhilaration of the ride.

  “I told you I’ve still got it!” she announced gaily.

  “If by ‘got it’ you mean you’re still crazy as a bat, then yeah, you’ve still got it, baby,” Rafe said, his eyes shining with laughter.

  Her heart was skipping wildly in her chest. Good Lord, but he was handsome. Was this new? Had she been so intent on Chris that she’d failed to notice? Or had he been this way for all the years she’d known him and, inexplicably, she hadn’t noticed? Because he seemed unusually hot to her just now, with his windswept hair and square jaw and the delight shining in his caramel eyes. And as she grinned at him like a loon, she noticed he was looking at her in the very same way.

  And then she realized, with a tiny intake of breath, that he was looking at her the way Chris used to look at her—with desire. But Rafe’s look was so potent it could have knocked her off that horse if she hadn’t been holding on. It was so potent that she had to look away before it burned her up. She shifted her gaze to the river. Had she really just seen that? Surely not. Of course there were times in the many years they’d known each other that she’d felt a little sizzle between them, but that was natural—they were male and female. And then it would float away as soon as he cuffed her on the shoulder or told her he had to go, that he had to get ready for a date.