by Cate Cameron
Ashley snorted. “He wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of acknowledging that I’d done anything that deserved revenge,” she said. “He’s made it pretty damn clear. I’m nothing. Just a shallow little Hollywood idiot with my plastic friends and my stupid ambitions.”
“You’ve talked to him about your ambitions?”
Well, that caught Ashley a bit off guard. “No,” she admitted. “I mean . . . not in so many words. But I could tell how he felt, just by the way he looked at me.”
“He does glower pretty well,” Charlotte said. “But maybe you were projecting a little bit, too? Maybe he doesn’t have any feelings about your ambitions at all, but you’ve imagined the most negative reaction you can think of and—”
“Third driveway!” Ashley announced triumphantly. “Also, two episodes. You are not a therapist!” She turned the car onto the rutted dirt road. It was like driving through a tunnel of trees, and when she leaned forward to look up through the windshield she could only see occasional glimpses of surprisingly blue sky. It should have felt claustrophobic, probably, but it didn’t. She felt safe, as if the forest were giving her a hug.
“We should be leaving a trail of bread crumbs,” Charlotte grumbled.
But Ashley ignored her and rolled down her window to let the magic of the place wash over her.
* * *
JOSH sat on his front porch with his feet up on the railing and cracked the cap of his second bottle of beer as he watched the car bounce up the driveway. It should have felt like an invasion. In a way, it did. He was nervous, almost jittery, and despite his resolution to only clean the bathroom, he’d ended up taking half the afternoon off so he had time to go over the whole damn house. It wasn’t that big of a place, he told himself. And it had needed it. He was just being polite.
Then she stepped out of the car and his brain lost its ability to form excuses. He could only stare. She was so beautiful, and she was at his home, looking around her as if she liked the place, as if she understood that things didn’t have to be sunny and polished to be beautiful. This was the woman from the dock, the woman who’d seemed like a mermaid then but who might be a wood sprite now. He’d thinned the trees around the cabin enough that she was standing in dappled shade; the light filtered through the trees and danced across her face as the wind shifted the leaves. She looked up at the porch and she smiled at him, genuine and open and warm, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling back at her. For a moment, it was just the two of them, without all the rest of it, and they were perfect.
But then a car door slammed and a horse nickered and Daisy the Demon Dog came barreling in from the forest and charged at the new arrivals with a big show of barking and raised hackles, and the moment was gone. Daisy was a black-and-brown terrier-type with mismatched eyes, one brown and one blue; mismatched ears, one straight up, one folded down; and an innate suspicion of almost all humans. A good dog for a man like Josh to have around, really. Josh made himself look away from the people earning her attention and took a long drink before he kicked his feet down from the porch railing and heaved himself upright. “Settle, Daisy,” he said, and he stared at the dog until she lay down. Then he made himself walk toward the car.
“You weren’t joking about the beer,” Charlotte said lightly as he approached.
Josh was wishing he had something a little stronger to numb his brain, but he just nodded and raised the bottle in a little toast. “I’m a country boy. If I’m not driving or working, chances are pretty good I’ve got a beer nearby.”
“Well, at least it hasn’t given you a beer gut,” Charlotte commented, then looked down at his belly. “Yet.”
“Something to look forward to,” he replied. With Charlotte, there was none of the instant burst of attraction there’d been with Ashley, but he still wanted to keep himself from liking her. She was just passing through, and nothing that happened on holidays was going to have any effect on her. Being forgotten by a friend didn’t hurt as bad as being forgotten by a lover, but it still wasn’t a sensation Josh was looking to feel any more often than he had to.
“Kevin’s at the barn,” he said, nodding his head to the building. He liked to keep his horses outside in all but the very worst weather, so the barn wasn’t big. And it wasn’t glamorous. These two had said they had English riding experience, so they were probably used to one of those horse palaces like he’d seen on the Internet. Places with fancy flooring and soaring ceilings and skylights, matching blankets and halters for all the horses, shower stalls and . . . He made himself stop thinking about it. His hay and tack were dry, and his animals were healthy and happy. That was all that mattered.
He led the way along the short path to the clearing where the barn was nestled, Daisy trotting happily beside him. Horses wanted grass and grass wanted sunlight, so Josh had spent a long time clearing the trees away from the pastures. This part of the property felt like a regular farm, if you could ignore the outcroppings of stone and the dense forest that surrounded the fenced areas.
“That’s Sunny,” he said, pointing to a palomino mare tied to a fence post, “and that’s Rocky.” He gestured to the other horse tied nearby, a dingy brown creature with donkey ears and the sweetest nature Josh had ever encountered. “They’re both old-school quarter horses, big feet and big hearts. They’ll take care of you.”
Kevin came around the corner then, picking bits of hay off the front of his shirt. Josh had to admit that his cousin had been working hard, doing chores around the place to make up for this imposition. Now Josh supposed it was time to give the guy a break. “You want to ride, too? You’ve already got these two brushed. You want to go get Casper while I show them how to deal with Western tack?”
Kevin looked torn. Show off his riding or stay close by and earn points by being helpful. A tough choice. Or it would have been if Kevin were a better rider. As it was, he was probably better off on the ground, but it was too late for Josh to take his suggestion back.
Luckily, Kevin seemed aware of his limitations. “Maybe I’ll ride next time,” he said. “I could show them the trails. But this time I’ll just watch.”
“Just watch? No. You can still be useful. Go get the saddles for Sunny and Rocky.”
As soon as Kevin headed off, Josh regretted being so cantankerous. Not for Kevin’s sake, but for his own; by making Kevin run errands, Josh had stranded himself with the movie stars. But damn it, he was an adult, and he wasn’t shy. Not usually. “You guys care who takes which horse?”
“Can I ride Rocky?” Ashley asked. Josh realized that they were the first words she’d spoken since she arrived, and the sound of her voice affected him more than he would have liked.
“Ooh, good!” Charlotte said. “I get the pretty one.”
“Rocky’s pretty,” Ashley protested. “Look at those beautiful eyes!”
“Look at those enormous ears,” Charlotte retorted.
“All the better to hear me with! I bet he’s going to be super obedient.”
“They’re both super obedient,” Josh interjected. It was time to get them all back to business. “They’re both well-trained and sensitive and submissive to humans. So if you ask them to do something, and they don’t do it? You didn’t ask them right.” He wasn’t the sort of person who liked giving speeches, but if these two had come to him to learn, he’d do his best to tell them what he knew. “I don’t know shit about English riding,” he said. Possibly not the best place to start, not if he wanted to inspire confidence. But it was too late to change, so he charged on anyway. “But from what I’ve seen, it’s mostly about forward movement. Racing around a track, going over jumps, whatever. That’s why the stirrups are so short—so it’s easy for you to go up and forward, and just trust that your horse is going to go up and forward, too.” They were both listening to him, at least, although he had no idea whether they thought he was making any sense. “Western riding is different. More like dressag
e, maybe . . . but I don’t know shit about dressage, either, so I can’t say for sure. But Western stirrups are longer, so you’re more balanced in the saddle. Your horse should be able to go in any direction—front, side, diagonally, back—and you need to be able to go with him. Okay?”
They both nodded, and then Kevin was back, carrying a saddle and Navajo blanket on each hip, with the bridles trailing over his shoulders. It wasn’t exactly a dignified look and Josh let himself enjoy it for a moment. He finally stepped in when he realized Kevin was about to drop at least one piece of valuable tack onto the gritty, rocky ground.
Josh rescued the closest saddle from Kevin’s precarious grip and tried not to take it as a punishment from above when he realized that it was the one he used on Rocky. It had been a fifty-fifty chance, after all. Just his bad luck that he got stuck with the horse Ashley wanted to ride.
“Can I do it?” she asked hesitantly, holding her hands out, offering to take the saddle from him. “I want to learn as much as I can. I want to feel authentic. My character would have been saddling her own horse, for sure.”
“Knock yourself out,” he said, and he let go of the saddle. He realized as his fingers were just done releasing it that he’d made a mistake. All summer he’d been trying not to touch her; he didn’t want one more detail to obsess over, and he knew that the feel of her skin against his could keep his stupid brain busy for days. So he let go of things before she could take them from his hands. It was fine if he was handing her a drink or giving her a set of keys, but quite a different matter when he was dropping a bulky forty-pound saddle on her.
He tried to fix his mistake, grabbing wildly at the falling leather. She’d seen what was happening and shifted forward, twisting a little. He grabbed the saddle, but only after firmly brushing the back of his hand against the front of her warm, soft breast.
He stared at her and she stared back. It should have been nothing. The contact had clearly been innocent, they were both adults, neither one of them was anything close to virginal . . . it wasn’t a big deal. Except that it was. Because he wanted to drop the damn saddle into the dirt, and he wanted to grab her and touch her and kiss her and probably throw her over his shoulder and carry her somewhere that he could get rid of that stupid baggy shirt she was wearing, somewhere he could slide her jeans off her perfectly curved hips . . .
“Sorry,” she gasped.
His mind was blank. He couldn’t imagine what she was apologizing for.
“I almost dropped it,” she said.
“It wasn’t your fault.” And she wasn’t staring at him because she was sharing his arousal. She was just worried that she’d pissed off the grumpy local who had agreed to give her something she really wanted.
“I’ll be more careful,” she promised.
And he would be, too. This time he grabbed the saddle by the horn, extending it out in a way that made him worry his wrist might snap in two from the strain but that would definitely keep his hands the hell away from her body. “Try again,” he muttered.
She took the saddle and sagged under its weight, and he tried not to notice. He certainly wasn’t going to help her with it; if she wanted authenticity, there it was.
He stepped back and tried to collect himself, then remembered his bottle of beer, resting in the shade of one of the fence posts, and gratefully scooped it up for a long swallow. He just needed to calm down, and he’d be fine.
But he knew his brain was going to be reminding him of the feel of her breast against his hand for a long, long time.
Nine
“I CAN’T BELIEVE this place doesn’t have a hot tub,” Charlotte groused as she limped toward the kitchen table. “I need a long soak.”
Ashley smiled sympathetically as she filled a mug with coffee for her friend. “And we signed up for more torture on Friday. Our legs are just going to be getting back to normal, and we’re going to jump back on and do it all again.”
Charlotte took a careful sip from her mug, then squinted in Ashley’s direction. They’d both just woken up, but, as usual, Charlotte’s brain was working faster than Ashley’s. “You seemed to have fun, though. Seemed like it was a good time.”
“It was hard work,” Ashley retorted. She didn’t think she was ready to talk about the rest of it. Not yet. The peace that seemed to have sprouted between her and Josh was still too fragile to withstand full daylight, or the withering heat of Charlotte’s examination. Better to keep it quiet and safe, somewhere she could protect it. Obsess over it. “But Josh is a good teacher. And Kevin was a lot of fun. You and him . . . you’re thinking about doing something?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Thinking about it. He’s a good guy, for sure. And cute. He hasn’t got that whole brooding thing that your guy’s working, but—”
“He’s not my guy!”
Charlotte smiled into her mug. “So it’d be okay if I made the trade? ’Cause Kevin’s fun and all, but Josh . . . there’s just something about Josh.” She didn’t say anything more, just looked over, saw the strained expression on Ashley’s face, and started laughing. “Relax, Ash, I’m joking. I’m just looking for fun, not a big, emotional . . . whatever. Mister Grumpypants is all yours.”
“No, he’s not,” Ashley said. There was no point denying the truth. “And he’s made it completely clear that he doesn’t want to be mine. He doesn’t even want to be near me.”
“Yeah, okay,” Charlotte said. “If you say so.”
Ashley felt like a teenager, and she knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. “Why do you say it like that? Do you think . . . Did you see . . . I mean, you sound like you think he does want to be near me. Do you have a reason for thinking that?”
“Woman’s intuition.”
“That’s it?”
“Yup. Take it or leave it.”
“Well, if you haven’t got any actual proof—” Ashley started, but she broke off when she saw Josh’s familiar pickup appear through the opening in the trees. He’d said they’d be over to do some more work on the place that morning, but somehow she’d expected them a little later. For the second day in a row she had to resist the temptation to run inside and put on a little makeup.
“We should go shopping this morning,” Charlotte said quickly and quietly. “We can get some good stuff and make them lunch. To thank them for the riding lesson.”
Ashley cringed, and Charlotte saw her do it. “What? You don’t want to cook for your man?”
“After the surprise dinner? I really don’t think he’d want to eat with me.” And then it was time for the hard part. “And he’s right not to. I’ve been treating him like a piece of meat instead of a real person.”
“Why on earth have you been so stupid?” Charlotte’s voice was louder than it should have been considering how close the men were.
Ashley made a shushing gesture with her hands before whispering, “I’m an idiot. That’s why.”
“But, you’re not an idiot.” Charlotte frowned thoughtfully. “Not usually. Now you two are a mess, and it’s ninety percent your fault. Any other stupid things I should know about?”
“Nothing big. I think I’ve got myself more or less under control, at least for the moment.”
“I admire your discipline.” Charlotte smiled at her. “You’ve never just asked a guy out, have you? You’ve been a movie star your entire dating life. You don’t really know how normal human beings relate to each other.”
“I’m not a Martian.”
“Might as well be, from the sound of things.” Charlotte leaned forward a little. “Want to see something neat?”
“Probably not—”
But Charlotte was already on her feet. “Kevin!” she called. “Josh? We’re going into town to get groceries this morning, and we were hoping you’d let us make you lunch. Would that be okay?”
There was barely a moment’s hesitation before Kevin cal
led back, “Sounds great! Thanks!”
Charlotte sank back into her chair and looked at Ashley triumphantly. “Huh. Simple communication between Earthlings. Not that difficult, really.”
“You only got Kevin to agree,” Ashley protested. “Kevin’s easy. It’s Josh who’s the problem.”
“Josh isn’t a problem,” Charlotte said mysteriously. “He’s a solution.” And then she sprang back to her feet and said, “We should get cleaned up and go shopping.” There was a teasing gleam in her eye when she added, “I don’t suppose you happen to know where we could hire a chef and a server at short notice?”
* * *
JOSH Sullivan’s life usually made sense. He usually felt like there was a rhythm to things, a pattern. It was how he liked it. But that all went to hell every time he ran into Ashley Carlsen.
He felt like a fraud, sitting there on the deck. Kevin was laughing and chatting, chugging his lemonade like he didn’t know it had been homemade by a woman who was used to sipping champagne on yachts and jetting all over the world for her vacations. A woman whose annual income was probably more than Josh and Kevin would make, combined, over their whole lives. But Kevin was letting the stars serve him like it was totally natural, like it made sense for them to be asking him whether he wanted extra pesto on his grilled chicken sandwich.
It was a game. A charade. Like kids making a big deal out of serving their mom breakfast on Mother’s Day: it was only fun because everything was reversed every other day of the damn year. Ashley and Charlotte were enjoying the novelty of their experiment, but this wasn’t something they were interested in making a habit of.
And it wasn’t something Josh wanted to be a habit. Not with Ashley, but not with anyone else, either. He didn’t expect women to serve him, and didn’t even want it, not really. He mostly just didn’t want to be part of Ashley’s experiment. Didn’t want to be a damn novelty.
But Kevin was beaming like a man who’d just won the lottery, so Josh ate his sandwich and stabbed at his salad and kept his mouth shut when he wasn’t putting food in it. Let Kevin have his adventure. Maybe things would turn out better for him than they had for Josh.