by Cate Cameron
“That’s where things get frustrating!” Again, she knew she was oversharing but didn’t seem able to stop herself. “Because a ‘thank you’ should be about ‘you,’ right? And you’ve made it pretty clear that the thing you’d like best is getting rid of me. So the best way to thank you would be to disappear, clearly. But I’d feel like I was being ungrateful if I did that, even though I know it’s what you want, so the only reason for me to try to do something else is so that I don’t feel ungrateful, so that means that just by trying to find a way to thank you I’m actually being selfish, which seems totally wrong emotionally, but intellectually I’m pretty sure it’s right. . . .” She finally managed to stop speaking.
Josh was staring at her. So was Charlotte. And Kevin. Hell, even the horses were giving her the eye. But Josh was the one who mattered. She had to lean forward a little to be sure she heard him when he said, “I don’t want you to disappear.”
She was pretty sure it would come across as obnoxious, but she couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t trying to rub anything in, she just really needed to hear that again. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice almost as quiet as his had been. “Could you just . . . could you say that once more?”
His raised eyebrow made it clear that she was walking a fine line. “I don’t want you to disappear,” he said. And for one perfect, glowing moment, they were back where they’d been when they’d first met, back when they were just discovering each other, before everything had gotten in the way and ruined it all. Then he added, “But it would be great if you’d get a bridle on your horse so we could get this ‘lesson’ started.”
She wanted to push for more. Hell, she wanted to grab him by the hand and drag him into the barn and tear that ratty T-shirt right off his hard, broad chest. But she managed to control herself for a change. “Okay,” she said quietly. “A bridle. Right. That’d be useful.”
And she tried to pay attention to poor, patient Rocky, who’d only been trying to untie his lead rope because he was lonesome, not because he was bad. Yeah, she tried to focus on her horse, but it didn’t do her any good. There wasn’t an animal in the world that could distract her from the man she knew was standing only a few paces away. Standing there just as remote as he’d always been, but somehow not angry anymore.
Josh had forgiven her, she was pretty sure. It didn’t mean they were best friends, didn’t mean she could push for anything more from him. But at least she’d fought her way back up to neutral. Now she was just another annoying summer person, someone to be avoided because of the group she was a member of, rather than for anything special about herself. It probably said quite a bit about how messed up she was that she was treating that slight advancement as a victory.
* * *
ASHLEY was born to ride Western. Charlotte was doing okay, but her default was always to go for the reins, to worry too much about the horse’s forward motion, or lack of forward motion, and treat that like it was all that mattered. Ashley understood, seemingly instinctively, about riding from her seat. A cowboy needed at least one of his hands free for working, and sometimes he needed both of them. A good Western horse was trained to respond to the rider’s weight, to his legs and his voice, even without any backup from the reins. It felt like giving up control, Josh figured, for someone trained English to start trying to ride Western. But they had to give up the light, false control of the reins in order to gain the real control of riding from their seats.
Maybe he was being too poetic. Too philosophical. He was in a weird mood, that was all. But he was starting to like the “teaching riding” business. It gave him a great excuse to stare at Ashley, after all, and that was pretty much the biggest reward he could imagine.
“Okay,” he called out to the riders who’d been loping around him, trying to adjust their horses’ speeds without changing gaits. “I think that’s good. That’s about all I know, I think. It’s just about feeling the horse and sending the right messages back. That’s all.”
“So we can go for a ride?” Kevin suggested. “We’ve got half an hour before it’s totally dark and the horses need to cool out anyway. Can we go back to the creek?”
“The creek’s twenty minutes away,” Josh said. He was speaking to the women, not to Kevin. “And when we get there, Kevin’s going to want to swim. There’s a couple places that are deep enough, but just barely.” He didn’t bother to mention that if the creek had been deep enough for serious swimming, rich summer people would have snapped up his property before it had ever hit the market, at a price he’d never have been able to pay. “Then twenty minutes back. Which means we’re coming back after dark.”
“Is that safe?” Charlotte asked.
“Fairly. The horses see pretty well in the dark, and they know the way. And it’s a clear night, with an almost-full moon. But it’s not as safe as riding in daylight.”
“You do it?” Ashley asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But sometimes I do stupid things.”
“So do I,” she said firmly. “And I’d love to go to the creek. If it’s okay with you.”
Put that way, Josh couldn’t really object. So he clipped an extra lead rope to the far side of Ember’s halter and moved the first one from under his chin to up on the side of his jaw, then pulled himself onto the horse’s back. He could tell everyone was watching him, and he didn’t like it. “It’s your show,” he said to Kevin. “We going?”
So Kevin and Casper led the way, with Daisy the Demon Dog enthusiastically scouting ahead. Ember didn’t like being at the end of the line, of course, but that was good. Teaching the horse to be patient was useful training, and more importantly, it gave Josh something to think about other than Ashley.
Except that she ended up right in front of him as they fell into single file at the edge of the forest. Right where he could watch her most easily, and without having to pretend he wasn’t. It felt almost dirty, like he was spying on her, but where else was he supposed to be looking?
At the trees, probably. She obviously was. The forest was darker than the open field had been, so she couldn’t be seeing much, but she was peering around herself with clear delight. At least, he was pretty sure she was delighted. He could only see her face in occasional profile and it always seemed to be smiling, so that was good. And her back was straight but not strained; she looked relaxed, but interested.
“We should have brought bug spray,” Charlotte said from her spot behind Kevin. She was windmilling one of her arms, clearly trying to ward off mosquitos.
“Think of it as feeding the forest,” Ashley suggested. “We need to make a little blood sacrifice in order to be admitted.”
“The little bastards can have all the blood they want—I’ll cut my arm open and they can come drink from it if it’ll stop them from biting me. It’s the itch I can’t stand!”
“And the malaria,” Josh said quietly.
Ashley twisted around in her saddle to stare at him with a raised eyebrow. Her expression clearly asked, Malaria? Really?
He grinned at her and shook his head. No. No malaria.
Her frowned response was a teasing rebuke, and he almost turned Ember around right then. He almost sent the horse galloping back to the barn, hell, maybe past the barn, farther away, somewhere Ashley Carlsen would never be able to find him. He wanted to get away because he knew what was happening. He hadn’t been careful enough. He’d thought he’d built up enough resistance to handle a little casual contact like this, but obviously he’d been wrong.
There was something about the woman that made its way through his best defenses, and the only reason he didn’t turn the horse around and take off was because he knew it was already too late. She’d made it past his best barriers and she was inside him now. There was nothing he could do to get her out, not until she decided to leave. And when she did, he’d be left with a gaping hole in all the spaces she’d inhabited.
He stared at the back of he
r head and a part of him hated her. Because she was going to hurt him. Bad. And she’d just skip back down to Hollywood, not a care in the world, laughing about her summer fling with the handyman. Yeah, she’d been slumming, but he’d been convenient. Handy.
It didn’t mean she was thoughtless. Well, yeah, probably it did. But just thoughtless, like she wasn’t thinking about it. Because why should she? She wasn’t cruel, just . . . one of them. She was a summer person. That was what he needed to remember.
He watched as she ducked down to peer under some overhanging branches, trying to understand the forest beyond the path, and the tiny bit of hatred washed out of him. He couldn’t be angry at her for this. It was all his fault. He’d known better, and he’d let it happen. It was only fair that he’d be the one to suffer the consequences.
She turned around again, a vague shape in the dim light until she smiled and her teeth gleamed white. “I can hear the water,” she whispered.
She was exploring, having an adventure. She’d managed to keep that part of herself alive, and he envied her. But maybe he didn’t have to keep holding back. He was already totally screwed, so it wasn’t going to hurt him any worse if he let himself have a little fun. Let himself enjoy whatever time they did have together.
So he allowed his memory to go back to his first discovery of this creek, and he remembered the sense of wonder he’d felt. She was open and willing to share that with him, and he should let himself enjoy it with her. “Wait ’til you see it,” he promised, and this time when she smiled at him, he let himself smile back.
Eleven
ASHLEY KEPT LOOKING for elves. She knew it was stupid, and if someone had asked what she was doing she would have lied. Well, no. If most people had asked, she would have lied. But she was pretty sure she would have told the truth to Josh.
After all, it was his forest. And the way he maintained the trail suggested that maybe he wasn’t immune to the elf-wishing himself. The trees were trimmed back far enough that it was comfortable to ride, but the forest wasn’t denuded and sanitized like some of the parks Ashley was used to back home. There were moss-covered logs for the horses to step over, loose rocks and roots on the trail itself—obstacles that probably should have been cleared in the name of safety, but that made it all feel much more organic and magical when they were left behind. They made it seem like Josh wanted visitors to his forest to step carefully, avoiding the obstacles, the fungi . . . the elves?
She didn’t notice the horses in front of her coming to a halt and probably would have ridden Rocky right into Sunny’s yellow butt if the horse hadn’t hesitated enough for her to start paying attention.
“We’re there,” she heard from somewhere around her left thigh, and she looked down to see that Josh was already dismounted, looking up at her curiously.
“I was somewhere else,” she said apologetically.
He stepped back as she slid off Rocky’s back, then said, “He ground ties. Just drop his reins and he won’t go anywhere.”
She stared at him. “Really?”
Josh shrugged. “Well, if a dragon came, he’d probably run. But he won’t just wander off.”
“The elves would protect us from the dragon,” she said before she realized it made her sound insane. Then again, he was the one who’d brought up dragons, so how bad was it for her to counter with her own mythical creatures?
Apparently not too bad, because he just nodded. “That’d help. So as long as Rocky knows that, he won’t go anywhere.”
Apparently Sunny and Casper could also be trusted to stay put, but Josh used his lead-rope reins to tie Ember to a sturdy tree. “He’s still young and stupid,” he explained.
By the time that was taken care of, Kevin and Charlotte were out of sight. Josh didn’t seem too surprised. “There’s a bunch of little pools,” he explained. “None of them more than four or five feet deep, at the most. So don’t kick too hard or you’ll scrape your feet on the bottom. And the water’s pretty cold.” He frowned. “And we’ve got to make the ride back to the house, and then you’ll have a drive home. This is really a pretty crappy place to go swimming, especially when you’re living right next to a great lake.”
“I like it,” she protested. It felt strange to be defending the forest against the criticisms of its owner, but she charged ahead anyway. “I’ve gone swimming in pools and oceans and lakes and rivers. But I don’t think I’ve ever gone swimming in a forest stream.”
“You’ve probably never gone swimming in a sewer, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s something you should put on your bucket list.”
“Wow. You’re determined to be grumpy about this?”
He looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Sorry.” He reached over his shoulder and grabbed the back of his T-shirt, then dragged it up and over his head in one casual, almost dismissive gesture. She supposed he must have dropped the fabric on the ground when he was done, but she didn’t really notice because she was too busy staring at his chest.
She’d never seen him shirtless before and it was frustrating that this first glimpse was only lit by the sparse moonlight filtering in through the branches overhead. Even in the dim light she could see enough to know that this torso deserved to be warmed by the most brilliant rays of the sun. She’d known Josh was fit, but he was more muscular than she’d expected, with enough definition to make a Hollywood trainer feel insecure about his job prospects. The trainer probably wouldn’t approve of the hair dusting over Josh’s chest and then trailing down in a thin line to his jeans, but Ashley found herself wanting to reach out and touch it. Well, she wanted to touch all of him.
He didn’t seem to notice her attention. He was moving around . . . pulling off boots and socks, she realized, and then he was unbuttoning his jeans and her mouth was suddenly dry. She looked away, strangely frantic, then let her gaze return. She felt like a virgin, apprehensive but tempted, and it made no sense that a woman of her age and experience would get this worked up over a little . . .
Oh. Not actual nudity. He was leaving his boxer briefs on. She should have known that.
He glanced over at her and she managed to tear her gaze away from his ass quickly enough that she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have noticed. “You chickening out?” he asked gently.
“No.” Her assertion probably would have carried a bit more weight if there were any evidence she was getting ready to go swimming. But Josh was polite enough to not point that out. Instead, he turned and walked carefully toward a large rock that jutted out into the stream.
He was giving her a little privacy, she supposed, and she quickly pulled her shirt over her head, letting the cool night breeze dance along her too-warm skin. She felt stupidly shy. Josh had seen her in a bathing suit, and her underwear was no more revealing than a bikini would be. And she’d done topless scenes, too. Being half-naked on a soundstage full of virtual strangers should surely have inoculated her against any concerns related to one man and a moonlit night.
She tried to relax as she tugged off her boots and then wriggled out of her jeans. It was just swimming. Kevin and Charlotte were . . . Well, it wasn’t totally clear where they were, but probably not far. Close enough to count as chaperones, as if Ashley had any reason to need supervision. She grinned to herself. Based on past behavior, it was Josh who needed to worry about protecting his virtue, and he seemed okay with it all.
That realization helped, and she picked her way toward the water, stepping carefully in her bare feet.
Josh was already in, his hair wet and gleaming dully in the moonlight. The water came up to the middle of his chest. Too low for someone who was treading water, so he must be standing on the bottom. He was looking casually downstream; he could see her with his peripheral vision and was close enough to help if she needed it, but he wasn’t staring at her. The etiquette of underwear-swimming, she supposed.
“The rocks there are almost s
tairs,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the overhanging boulder. “Easiest way to get in and out.”
She followed his advice, shivering as the cool water hit her knees, her thighs, her tummy, and finally her breasts. She was determined not to complain, but she knew she was breathing more quickly than she should be, almost gasping each breath into a chest tightened by cold.
“It takes a minute to get used to it,” he said calmly, turning to face her now that she was mostly submerged. “The cool will take the itch right out of any bug bites, though.”
“Excellent,” she said with only a slight shiver in her voice.
“You enjoying the experience so far?” he asked with a smile.
“I’m glad I’ve done it once,” she said, leaving it unsaid that she probably wouldn’t be looking for a repeat visit.
“Look up,” he said softly, and as soon as she did the cold didn’t matter anymore.
She’d never seen stars the way she saw them when she was in Vermont. The clear air combined with the lack of much light pollution to make the distant lights seem impossibly vivid. There were more of them than made any sense, and a glowing white band that made her understand how the Milky Way got its name. As she looked up from the water, the branches overhead framed the view, making it all seem more remote, and more perfect.
“Lie back,” Josh suggested quietly. “Let yourself float.”
She hesitated, then did it. She shivered as new areas of her skin were exposed to the cool water, but her feet bobbed easily toward the surface and she kept herself in place with only the slightest movement of her wrists.
When she felt the first gentle touch on her ankle, she kicked and pulled her head out of the water; Josh pulled his hand away quickly. Then he slowly, carefully brought it back. “Trust me,” he said, and she did.
He wrapped his hands around her ankles, his index finger extending halfway up her calf, and slowly guided her body farther into the pool. She didn’t understand what he was doing, really, but she let herself go with it.