by Skylar Hill
Birds were just starting to warm up, chirping their songs as she strolled past a tangle of forest that hid River Run’s little lake. Eventually, the land flattened out to meadow and pasture, and she spotted the horses. She could see some new ones mixed in with the herd she was used to, including Goliath, the black stallion she always rode.
I should’ve grabbed some carrots from the kitchen, she thought as she clambered up on the fence and swung onto the top rail to sit and watch them.
Goliath whickered softly when he spotted her, trotting forward. “Hey, boy,” she said as he pressed his face into her stomach, smearing her with spit as he searched her for treats. “Sorry, no treats this time.”
When he finally pulled back, treatless, he looked like he was pouting.
“Maybe we’ll go for a ride before I go back to the city,” she suggested, and that seemed to mollify him a little, but he still turned and walked back to join the other horses in the pasture. Probably off to gossip about what a jerk she was for not spoiling him with sugar lumps.
The thunder of hoof beats filled her ears and she twisted on the fence, looking over her shoulder to find the source of the noise.
And she damn near fell off the fence, because once a horse girl, always a horse girl. And there was nothing hotter than a man who could ride a horse… and do it well.
When he saw her, he slowed Remus, the dappled gray he rode most often, and came to a full stop in front of her.
“You’re up early,” he said.
She bit her lip, unable to tear her gaze from the way his white t-shirt was stained with sweat, how there was a little bead trickling just so down his bearded neck. She could feel herself getting hot and bothered when she flashed back to last night, to the scrape of his stubbled cheek against her own. It had made her shudder with desire then… and now.
“I… had a phone meeting,” she said, trying to keep it together. He was on a horse! In this thin t-shirt! It wasn’t fair! “London time. Liberty, she’s scouting locations for our new store there. She thinks she has a lock on a property I really want.”
“Cool,” he said.
“I hope so.” What would his skin taste like if she pressed her mouth to the strong line of his collarbone, exposed by the loosened neck of his old, soft t-shirt. “The wedding… it was beautiful. You did good.”
He smiled, and it was that bashful, pleased smile she so rarely saw. He didn’t talk a lot about his family beyond his two brothers. She knew his mother had died when he was very young and he’d been far closer to his grandfather than his brothers. She got the feeling he’d never gotten much praise from his father, which is why it always made her happy when she could let him know how proud she was of him.
Because she was proud—what he’d done with River Run was nothing short of incredible. She’d never doubted his ability to do it for a second, but clearly, there had been others in his life—and his family—who had.
Well, he’d shown them all, she thought with satisfaction. She was a competitive woman—she wasn’t one to hide that. She liked winning. And she was glad Rhett was so successful. He was the kind of man who took that success and put it toward creating good in the world… because he was good.
“I hope they have a wonderful honeymoon and an even better life,” he said. “Carter… he’s the best.”
Nat smiled. “He really is. And so is Maddy. It’s kind of perfect that my two closest friends fell in love. Like it was meant to be. They both have that sweet streak.”
“Nothing like us,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her, and she tried to ignore how much she liked the way us fell from his lips.
“I don’t think anyone would describe me as sweet,” she said.
“No,” he said, his eyes growing warm as he looked down at her. “I think you got twice the spice and half the sugar.”
She looked down, trying not to smile, because she knew that from him, it was a compliment. From other men, it might’ve been an admonishment or a warning.
But not from him.
“You’re one in a billion, Banks,” he said lightly.
“Right you’d tear the world apart for me” she replied, and when his eyes widened, she realized it was absolutely the wrong thing to say.
“You remember that.”
She laughed shakily. “I wasn’t that tipsy last night.”
But he was still looking at her, puzzled, as if the fact that she remembered him saying something searingly hot, as if that was a surprise. And she realized she’d just inadvertently confirmed something for him.
He hadn’t known. She felt herself go hot all over.
He hadn’t known that she was still attracted to him. He’d thought… what… that it had just gone away? That their night in New York had meant nothing to her?
It was just a kiss, Nat. He probably thought you were over it. It was just a kiss.
But it wasn’t… was it? Because it had been years since that kiss. And here they were. They kept ending up here, with each other… and it was getting so hard to resist.
“Nat—” he said, and the meaning in her name, the weight in his voice, it made her want to curl into him and never leave.
She took a deep breath, wondering if for once, she could be brave when it came to him.
Four
Rhett
His alarm had gone off at 4 a.m., as it always did. And he had slapped it off on the first chime, just as he always did.
Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Rhett swung his legs out of bed and got up, stretching his arms over his head as he ambled across his bedroom toward the shower.
He hadn’t skimped when it came to the re-furbished 1920s barn he’d turned into his home. He’d lovingly restored the place era-appropriately, and he was proud of the work he’d done on the restoration—there’d even been a magazine feature of the place when it was finished because his designer was a little bit famous.
His favorite place in this house other than the kitchen was the master bath, where he’d installed a giant clawfoot tub and an equally large walk-in shower with a bench and 360-degree shower head that was like being touched by God.
Just because he got up at 4 am every morning didn’t mean he was a morning person, but animals waited for no one. Which is why a fifteen-minute, burning hot shower in the morning was required to wake his ass up enough to get over to the clinic and get his day started.
Feeling marginally better after his shower, he got dressed, pulling out one of the thicker flannels in his collection. It was getting cold in the mornings—when he got outside, he could see his breath in the fading darkness as dawn became less of a suggestion in the sky.
He walked down the dirt road that wove through River Run, his boots crunching on the occasional pebble, as he turned over the events of last night in his head.
Carter and Maddy had run through a sea of sparklers at the end of the night, toward the vintage car that would take them to the private airstrip where they’d be whisked off to their honeymoon. He couldn’t stop thinking about how happy his old friend had looked, how there was an ease in him that Rhett hadn’t witnessed in all the years of their friendship. Maddy really did bring out the best in the inventor. He was so glad they’d found each other.
As the sky began to lighten more, his mind turned to that damn dance and that damned woman…
And how damned he was, now that the memory of her in his arms was fresh again.
It had been a terrible game he played, all these years, revisiting the night they spent together, how she had looked in that black-and-white gown, the succulent comb he’d given her sweeping back her voluminous curls. But the memory had faded enough that it wasn’t as torturous as it had been just after he’d left her behind in New York.
Those months afterward had been some of the best and worst of his life. Best because Eleanor came swooping in and gave him everything he’d ever wanted and strived for… and worst because the entire time he was making plans for his and River Run’s future, there was this curi
ous, lost feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like he was missing something.
It took him a while to realize he was missing her. And it took him even longer to get up the nerve to email her. But finally, he did, and that’s where there friendship had originally blossomed. Through letters and videos he sent of River Run’s construction, of the wildlife center’s progress and first inhabitants. She wrote back about work, about her adventures around the city, about her ambitions.
Then she moved back and things got harder for awhile, but there was that line, their line, and he told himself it was just him still haunted by that night, by the memory of her in his arms.
Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but last night, when they danced…
Cut it out, he ordered himself as he rounded the curve and the clinic came into sight. The simple wooden buildings were the beating heart of the rehabilitation center, which stretched out for some 200 acres across the property.
The light in the clinic was already on, and he shook his head ruefully. Molly had already beaten him here. She was in the clinic’s kitchen, perched on a stool, reading something on her tablet. Cheep, the squirrel she’d rescued as a baby who was missing a paw, was perched on her shoulder like a parrot. Cheep was devoted to Molly—and an absolute aloof jerk to everyone else, with enough attitude for about ten squirrels. But it entranced the school kids who came out to the refuge for field trips to see Cheep riding on Molly’s shoulder. Cheep got fan mail, YouTube videos were made about him, and he was regularly discussed on the social media accounts Molly ran for the refuge, with Maddy’s guidance.
“Morning,” his niece said. “Coffee’s almost ready.”
“You have a good time at the wedding?” he asked, walking over to the cupboard and pulling out two stoneware mugs that were more like small bowls. “I saw you talking to that tall guy.”
“Maddy’s brother?” Molly asked, laughing. “He’s sweet, but he’s going into wilderness firefighting. You know those hot-shot boys’ loyalty is to their crew, first and always.”
“Good point,” he agreed. He had several friends who were in that line of work, and it did take a particular kind of man—or woman. And a deep kind of devotion for the forest, for the community, for the greater good.
“Anyway, I am so not interested in a relationship right now,” Molly said. “I’m only a year out of vet school.”
“You’re doing great,” Rhett said, feeling a little bad he had gone that route to tease her. He’d been so glad when she’d taken him on his offer to come work for the refuge. “I wouldn’t have been able to start up any of the educational programs we’ve been doing without you, Molly. You’re so fantastic with the kids.”
“I love them,” Molly said. “I never expected how amazing it feels when a child gets excited to see an animal. There was one little girl a few weeks ago who started crying when she saw the possums. Like, hysterically crying with joy because she loves possums! She had a whole picture book about them she was carrying around and everything. I asked to borrow the book and I went in the back and drew a little possum footprints on the inside and gave it back to her and told her the possums loved it and now she wants to come back to read to them.”
Rhett’s heart squeezed a little at the story as Molly smiled at him. When she smiled, she looked exactly like his oldest brother, Heath. There was very little of her mother in her in either looks or personality, Rhett thought with more than a little bitterness. Molly’s mother, Heath’s wife, had left him and abandoned Molly when she was barely two weeks old. Molly had never been short on love in their big family, but he knew it sometimes weighed on her why her mother hadn’t wanted to stay.
“You are amazing,” he told her. “I wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years.”
“Speaking of which, we have another big group coming next week,” Molly said. “I thought we could do a presentation with the falcons?”
He nodded. “Just put it in on the calendar,” he said as he fixed her a cup of coffee and then one for himself. He set her cup down in front of her, glancing at her tablet. She was reading about a new tracker Fish and Game were experimenting with to track the bear population. “I’m gonna do the first round of feedings and go for a ride,” he said. “Be back in a while.”
He ducked out the clinic’s back door, grabbing a bucket of chicken feed from the shed before letting the hens and two roosters out of their coop. They pecked around their enclosure, excited about the food and fresh air. He collected their eggs in a wire basket while they were eating and set them outside the chicken coop’s gate for Molly to pick up when she did her rounds.
They’d fallen into a good groove since she had come to live and work at River Run. Her father had likely hoped for a more high-powered career for his daughter, considering Heath’s own career choices, but Molly had been an animal lover from the start, and her scientific mind had thrived at vet school. She could’ve gone off and done some important research if she’d wanted to after school, but she’d preferred to come back to River Run.
It’s home, she had told him once. It’s our history. My history.
He liked that there was at least one person left in his family who understood that about this land. Some of his cousins were wonderful and they loved to come out and spend time at River Run, but there was always an air of puzzlement that he wanted to live full-time out here.
City-folk, he thought with amusement as he moved on to feeding the two pot-bellied pigs that had been brought in after their elderly owner had moved from her homestead to assisted living. Once a month, Molly drove out to get Gladys at the home and brought her to visit with them. The older woman always lit up with delight at seeing her “babies.” And the pigs were just as excited, so much oinking happened with Gladys was around.
The pigs—named Lucy and Desi—were still asleep as he deposited their breakfast into the trough. “Lazy brats,” he muttered, and Lucy snored even louder in response, making him grin.
After the farm animals were taken care of, he moved to the stables, where the horses were snug in their stalls, and Charming, one of the livestock guardian dogs they had on the property, was snoozing in the hay.
Rhett whistled, and Charming leapt to his feet, his dark eyes alert, his long shaggy white coat shedding hay. “Go on, boy,” he told Charming, he galloped out of the barn, heading toward the pasture. Then Rhett turned each of the horses out into the pasture, holding back Remus so he could tack him up.
Pink-and-gray light was streaking across the brightening sky as he rode Remus down the road, the mountain air in his lungs crisp and scented with the barest hint of rain. Remus loved to run; Rhett didn’t know much of the horse’s life before he picked him up at the slaughterhouse auction, but he was sure there had been some racing in the creature’s past. He was built for it, and he had the temperament for it.
They galloped to the north end of River Run, stopping at the creek that ran across the border so Remus could drink and cool down a little, before Rhett brought him back, slower on their way home.
The day was beginning to heat up as he spotted someone sitting on the fence down the road, watching the horses. He’d recognize that spill of curls anywhere.
As he got closer, reigning Remus to a halt in front of her, he was a little out of breath from the hard ride, so he told himself that was the only reason his heart fucking leapt in his chest when his eyes settled on her.
She wasn’t dressed up anymore. Gone was the carefully arranged hair and smoky eye makeup and tempting red lips.
She had been beautiful last night.
But now?
Now she was in ripped blue jeans and a plaid shirt that he recognized, because it was one he’d tossed to her one day when she’d come out for a ride and she’d complained about being cold. Her explosive hair was still like a dark cloud around her, looking like she hadn’t even run a comb through it, and she wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup.
It was the first time he’d ever seen her without it, and it made his
stomach clench because he knew it was one of her weapons, both a trap she played into and a talent she’d honed, something that was expected of her by the world and that she used in her favor, just like her carefully chosen clothes, the long lines of the wide-legged pants and lethal red-soled heels and crisp white oxford shirts she wore when she worked.
Seeing her scrubbed down like this, it was almost unbearably intimate. Like rolling over in bed and seeing her asleep there, vulnerable, beautiful, soft and powerful at the same time.
He was almost frozen by the thought of waking up every morning to her, or of turning around each morning in the field to this, her sitting on the fence rail, beautiful and bold. They were in the middle of their normal banter when she said it, when she said the thing that made his heart flip like a fucking schoolboy.
“You’re one in a billion, Banks,” he told her.
“Right—you’d tear the world apart for me,” she said—and it wasn’t just the way she said it, like she had played the words around in her head, over and over, trying to figure out what they meant.
It was the look on her face, this exasperated, fond, almost yearning look. And then that look just got even deeper when his eyes widened and he said, “You remember that.”
She laughed. That shaky, high-pitched laugh that was all nerves and no real mirth. He knew what she sounded like when she was truly laughing, when she was truly happy; it was one of his favorite sounds. “I wasn’t that tipsy,” she said.
She wanted him to let it go, he realized. But he had just realized that there was something to let go. He’d thought…
Fuck. He had thought that it had been in his head. Those moments they’d share, sometimes. He’d thought…
He’d thought they’d just had a kind of flirty friendship. That the tension… it was because of him, not because of them. And he was realizing, as a dark flush crept over her cheeks and his gaze dropped to her full, lush lips, that he had been very, very wrong.