by Stasia Black
She bit her lip. He’d had a couple hours of sleep. Maybe they could fit in just one more—
No. She cut the thought off at the root.
It was daylight. The clock had more than struck midnight. It was time to go back to the real world.
There was no way she was going to tarnish the perfection of last night with awkward morning after BS and false promises that they’d call one another—or worse, him not even asking for her number. No, she’d just quietly exit stage left before he even woke up.
With effort, she pulled her eyes away from the gorgeous specimen on the bed and turned toward the stairs. She winced at the loud creak of the second stair as she started heading down. Whipping around to see if the noise woke Hunter, she saw that other than him shifting slightly, he didn’t stir.
She let out a deep breath and then tested each step before putting weight on it. It seemed to take forever, but she finally got to the bottom of the stairs. She gathered her clothes from where they’d been tossed off the night before and dressed in record time.
Then she grabbed her purse and was out the door, biting her lip as she closed it gingerly behind her.
She ran to her car and pulled away from Hunter’s house with only a quick wistful glance in her rearview mirror. The cabin looked like something out of a fairytale, a cabin in the woods with trees shading it.
She shook her head like she could clear it from the spell of sex and pheromones that she’d been lost in for the last fourteen hours.
Hunter’s gravel driveway was longer than she remembered it. It wound through the woods almost like a little road. Isobel glanced down at her rumpled clothes and then pulled over just long enough to change into a summer dress she’d thrown in her bag at the last minute. First impressions could be everything. The dress gave the message that she was friendly and approachable.
She got going again as soon as she could though, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds. But Hunter’s truck never appeared and in another minute she finally pulled out onto the paved county road. With a press on the screen, she pulled up the directions she’d already input into her GPS for Mel’s Horse Rescue.
It was half an hour away and she scanned radio stations to distract herself from thoughts of Hunter while she drove. Unfortunately, the only station that wasn’t full of static was a modern pop country station blaring crap she couldn’t stand. After a few minutes, she gave up and turned off the radio all together.
And in the silence that followed, she couldn’t help her thoughts turning to the man she’d left back in bed.
What would he think when he woke up and found her gone? Would he just be glad she’d left with no awkward fuss? Or did last night end up meaning more than just a one-night stand after all…
Her hands tightened around the steering wheel and she shook her head. No. She wasn’t a stupid girl.
But try as she might, she couldn’t get the sexy man with his gorgeous body and intense eyes out of her head. Suffice it to say, it was a long thirty minutes.
When she finally saw the sign for Mel’s Horse Rescue, she was more than relieved. She couldn’t believe after all the shit she was running away from it was thoughts of a man that had her so distracted.
Maybe it was just easier to focus on Hunter than her real problems. Either that, she sighed, or Hunter was just a man worthy of distraction.
She drove past the gate into a gravel driveway leading to the ranch. As she pulled up, she saw a large three-story building in the distance.
It was time to move on. Several vehicles were parked in a small parking area off to the left of the main building. A few trucks of various sizes. One dirt-spattered SUV. Isobel’s little Toyota was dwarfed by the others when she pulled in and parked beside a huge Dodge 4x4. That wasn’t intimidating or anything.
She took a deep breath and then stepped out of her car.
No more thoughts of the past.
No more thoughts about Hunter or last night.
Time to really start this new chapter of her life.
She squared her shoulders and walked up to the front porch. The outside of the large building and wraparound porch were bright white, like they’d been freshly painted. Several rocking chairs were set up, along with a porch swing, looking out on the gently rolling hills that surrounded the property. It was so idyllic and different from the chic brownstone where she’d grown up in Manhattan that it almost felt like a different planet. But she’d done it. She was really here.
She looked around, trying to take everything in as she rang the doorbell.
Then the front door jerked open and a tall, tan, good-looking guy in his twenties stood there. He was wearing a linen shirt and pants, his dirty blond hair in dread-locks that were then pulled up in a man-bun.
She paused. Um. Maybe it was cliché, but this guy looked more like he belonged at a hippie commune than a horse ranch.
And you’re standing here and staring, Isobel. Not awkward at all.
“Hi,” she blurted, about to hold out her hand and introduce herself.
“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any.” Hippie Guy crossed large muscled arms over his chest, a dour look on his face.
“Oh. No, I—” She stumbled over her words. Shit. She’d already made a bad impression and she’d only been here thirty seconds. “That’s not what I— I’m here for—”
“Stop being an arsehole, Reece,” a man’s voice with an Irish accent called out. Then a second guy clapped the first on the back and dragged him away from the door.
But not before Hippie Guy—Reece, did the other one say his name was?—broke into a wide smile and winked at Isobel.
God, he was just joking? She’d about had a hard attack over making a bad first impression.
“What can we do you for, lovely lady?” asked the man with the accent, equally as handsome as Reece, though his hair was dark and his skin pale instead of tan.
He held out his hand and smiled at Isobel, a dimple appearing. “I’m Liam. Ignore my arsehole friend. With only the horses and other blokes except for Mel for company, we all start going a bit feral.”
“I was just kidding with her,” Reece said, shoving his friend out of the way and taking up the whole frame with his body again. He flashed Isobel a bright, dazzling smile. “Everybody needs to loosen up around here.”
Liam pulled the door open wider so she could see both of them. “I’ll show you loose.” He grabbed Reece in a headlock.
“Doorbell! Doorbell!” screeched a little kid voice. Except the child must be small and not good with pronouncing his ‘r’s yet, because it came out sounding more like, “Dow bewl, dow bewl!’
Then a toddler ran full speed into Reece’s legs, asking. “Who at da dow, Wyeece?”
Liam let Reece go and the little boy almost bounced off Reece’s legs due to his momentum. Reece leaned down just in time and swooped the boy off his feet and up into the air. This made the little boy squeal in delight and kick his feet. Isobel didn’t know much about little kids but guessed he was between two and three years old.
Reece settled the kid on his hip and it was bar none the cutest damn thing Isobel had ever seen. Her heart did a little squish in her chest.
“Ah hell, I’ve lost her afore I even had a chance,” Liam shook his head. “They all go gooey when they see him with the baby.”
“Swing,” demanded the child, grabbing fistfuls of Reece’s linen shirt. “Awound. Awound!”
Reece rolled his eyes like it was a chore and he was completely put out by the child’s demands—it was similar to the face he’d made when he first greeted Isobel so rudely at the door. But then his eyebrows jumped up and he shouted, “Boo!” right before turning left, then right, swinging the now-giggling little boy around and around with him.
“Swing!” the boy cried when Reece stopped.
“What?” Reece said, his face going sober again. He leaned down and looked the little boy in the eye. “Do you think I’m your personal swinging jungle gym or somet
hing?”
“Yes!” the boy said ecstatically.
Reece shrugged. “Fair enough.” Then he swung the boy around even faster.
“I’ll go get Mel and tell her she’s got a visitor.” Liam said, shaking his head as Reece spun even faster with the boy.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you end up with his breakfast all over you.”
Reece ignored him. Or maybe not. He got too dizzy—or at least pretended to—and collapsed on the floor, the little boy landing on his chest. Then he pretended to play dead while the toddler poked at his face and called out for him to wake up. It was obviously a game they’d played before.
Reece pretended to rouse a little bit but then his head fell back and he started to snore loudly, eliciting a fresh round of giggles from the boy. Isobel couldn’t help smiling at their antics.
“Brenton Samuel Kent, what are you doing to poor Reece now?”
“Mommy!” the toddler abandoned Reece on the floor and ran to the very pregnant woman walking into the wide entry area. He flung himself with as much energy into her legs as he had into Reece’s.
“Oof,” she said, reaching for the wall to keep her balance in spite of the bundle of energy that just barreled into her. She was a beautiful woman who didn’t look more than thirty, if that, with long brown hair. She smiled, bemused, down at her little boy. Brenton. Isobel repeated it to herself, trying to keep track of all the names. Brenton and Liam and Reece. Brenton was busy tugging on the leg of his mom’s jeans. “Come, Mommy, we haf to wake up Wyeece.”
For his part, Reece stayed completely still, splayed out on the floor without moving.
The woman pried her son’s hand from her jeans. “I’ll let you do the honors, Brent honey. I need to talk to this nice lady.”
Brent looked up at Isobel like it was the first time he’d realized there was someone else in the room. And then he ran around behind his mom’s legs like he was suddenly shy.
Only then did Reece jump to his feet. “Hey bud, it’s about time for lunch. Why don’t we see if we can go find your brother and rustle up some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
“Can we have gwape jewy?” The boy’s head peeked around his mom’s legs.
“You bet.” Reece reached down and scooped Brent up. Then they headed off into the big room that the entryway opened to on the left.
“Hi,” Isobel jumped forward to introduce herself to the pregnant woman. Liam said he was getting Mel. Was this her? As in, Mel of Mel’s Horse Ranch and Rescue? “I’m Isobel Snow. So nice to meet you.”
She smiled at Isobel warmly. “Hi. Melanie Kent. You can call me Mel. Everybody does. How can we help you?” Her other hand rested on her large belly.
Now that Isobel was standing here in front of her, nerves assaulted her. “I stable my horse with Rick at Northingham Stables in New Hampshire.”
Isobel’s summers riding Buttons and training with Rick had been a rare bright spot in her teenage years. The summer after her senior year she even spent the summer with him and his family working at the stables in an unofficial internship.
That was when everything had first started getting better. She’d already been accepted into Cornell, but it was during her summer at Northingham that she decided to focus her studies in biology with an emphasis in veterinary sciences so she could continue on to get her doctorate of veterinary medicine degree. Nothing helped her get her mind and focus off of herself and her problems like working with animals, especially horses.
Mel nodded at Rick’s name—obviously she knew him; Rick had told her as much.
“Well, Rick told me that every summer you look for helpers for your rescue. He said that you never have enough.” Isobel smiled and held up her hands, feeling more than a little awkward. “So here I am.”
But Mel wasn’t smiling anymore. Her face had fallen, in fact, her features scrunching in remorse. “Oh no, I’m so sorry. I wish you would have called ahead. You didn’t come all this way just for this, did you? From the East Coast?”
Isobel’s stomach dropped to the floor. “Um…” Rick made it sound like such a sure thing. Granted, it had been a while ago. Maybe a year. Or two? But he said they were always looking for help. Isobel daydreamed about spending the summer here, never thinking in a million years she’d actually do it.
Until she had suddenly needed a place off the map to disappear to where no one in the world would think to look for her.
“Usually it’s completely true that we don’t have enough help.” Mel’s face was apologetic. “But this summer we have more horses than ever since my husband’s taking in and training several wild horses. And with another baby coming—” She put a hand to her stomach. “So we advertised for the positions and actually have more than enough help for a change. I’m sorry.” She reached out and put a hand on Isobel’s forearm.
“Oh don’t be,” Isobel said, trying to speak through her suddenly strangled throat. “It’s my fault for not calling.”
Now that she thought about it, it was completely ridiculous how much faith she’d put on the fact that this place would be waiting for her—the position didn’t pay much but it provided room and board. And it had been her safe harbor. A place to hide. To stop running and find herself, if there was a her to find that wasn’t the fucked-up girl she’d been.
And now?
Now there was nothing.
Her father was dead. She had nothing but her car and the few clothes she’d grabbed. She didn’t dare use her credit or debit cards after she left New York. She’d withdrawn the maximum three hundred bucks allowed from an ATM at the pharmacy where she’d picked up her meds, and she’d already spent over a hundred of it on gas and the toiletries she’d forgotten to grab from home. She’d have to stay on the run except now she had no idea where to run to. She couldn’t just keep sleeping in her car forever.
Calm down, Isobel. Think.
She could go to a public library and look online at jobsites, then surf Craigslist for roommates—but she’d need a paycheck to be coming in first for a deposit on any apartment—and what, sleep out of her car for two months while she waited for all that? No. God. There had to be a way to make this work. There just had to be.
“Maybe you have all the stable hands you need, but you’re a rescue farm, right?” Isobel asked. Please God don’t let her hear the desperation in my voice. Panic made blood rush in Isobel’s ears. “I’m three years into my Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Cornell in New York—they’re the top veterinary school in the country—and my focus is actually on rehabbing injured horses. I could—”
Mel’s eyes brightened. “Veterinary degree?” she cut into Isobel’s rush of words. “Oh my gosh, that’s perfect.”
“It is?” Isobel’s heart was in her throat.
“We don’t have work here, but I know someone who is looking for help. He was just complaining about being too busy to handle things all on his own. And we’d be happy to provide room and board for the summer if it works out. We’ve done that in the past for his interns.”
Isobel’s heart leapt even as she told herself not to be stupid and get her hopes back up. “Who? What do you mean?”
The front door was still open and Mel grinned, her eyes looking beyond Isobel. She gestured out the door. “Look, there he is now. This is total kismet. Our local vet has been looking for an intern—the one he had lined up for the summer just fell through. I bet he’d be ecstatic to have someone from Cornell. Come on, let’s go work out everything right now.”
Isobel pivoted to see where Mel was pointing and her stomach, so recently pulled off the floor by the hope of everything working out after all, plunged right back to the ground.
Because the man stepping out of the dusty truck parked beside her little Toyota was none other than Hunter Dawkins.
Chapter 5
HUNTER
She was gone when Hunter woke up.
For the first time in a year, the first thing he felt when he opened his eyes wasn’t
the crushing weight of loss. He was actually smiling when he turned over in bed and reached for Isobel.
But she was gone.
Just like Janine.
That wasn’t fair, he tried to tell himself as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his hands brusquely over his face.
Isobel hadn’t made any commitment to him. They barely knew each other.
Except… last night, when he’d been so deep inside her, when she’d cried out his name like he was the only god in her world—
But all thought was put on hold when he’d looked at the clock and saw that it was already ten. He was due at the Kent’s ranch for a round of vaccinations and he was already late. He was never late.
He couldn’t believe he’d slept through Isobel waking up and leaving, actually. Usually he was a light sleeper. That woman had woven a spell around him, that was for damn sure. From the moment she’d stepped into that bar, swaying those luscious hips.
And the possibility that he might see her again at the Kent’s? Well yeah, he couldn’t say that wasn’t part of what lit a fire under his ass to shower and burn rubber to get out to the Kent’s ranch as fast as humanly possible.
Now here he was. And there she was. As soon as he’d pulled his truck in beside her petite little Toyota, his heart had started beating double time.
Like he was back in high school and it was the first time he’d had a crush on a girl. Fucking pathetic.
It got even worse when he saw her standing in the doorway behind Mel. Mel was waddling down the porch to greet him, broad smile on her face like always, but Isobel stood frozen, her wide eyes locked on him.
Shit. He’d just wanted to hurry to get here. But he hadn’t thought through what he’d actually say when he ran into her again.
Hi there. So, last night’s multi-orgasmic marathon…that was pretty great, yeah? Wanna go for pizza and a movie sometime? Or let me fuck your brains out some more in the back of my truck?