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Beth looked up at him and nodded.
“Why weren’t you going to go?” he added.
She pressed her palms to his chest, and he could feel his heartbeat against them, no longer erratic but now calm and steady.
“I thought it was about my career, about the doctor’s predictions for my recovery. And it still is. I have a long road ahead if I’m going to make it to next spring’s auditions. But I realize now it’s more than that.”
“Like what?” Eli asked, then held his breath.
Beth took off his hat and pressed it down over his hair. Then she banged her head lightly against his chest. “Like how much this is going to hurt when it ends.”
When it ends. Not if. Of course not if. Her life and everything she’d been working toward up until a couple of months ago were in New York City. She said it herself that she’d never had time for a real relationship before. Eli wasn’t foolish enough to think that either of them could somehow make long distance work.
He could either dwell on the facts or make the best of them. So he hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her head up so her eyes met his.
“Then let’s do what we can with the time we have left,” he told her before dipping his head and pressing his lips to hers.
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight, and Eli wondered if he could freeze not the moment but the memory of how he felt in it, something he could recall months or years down the road. He wasn’t prepared to lose Tess, and though a part of him would always love her, it was getting harder and harder to recall what that love felt like when he was in it.
Not that this whatever was love. After only a month? Not possible. Was it?
The answer didn’t matter. All that mattered was knowing his impending loss and figuring out how to bottle up this feeling, whatever it was.
“Then I have a request,” Beth whispered when they both came up for air.
“Anything, Mighty Dancer,” he replied without considering the repercussions.
He should have.
Chapter 15
“It’s all about getting back on the horse, right?” Beth asked, hoping he didn’t hear the tremor in her voice.
The two of them stared at Cirrus quietly munching hay in his stall.
“Sure,” Eli replied absently. “But it’s usually a less feral brand of equine.”
Beth let out a nervous laugh. “We can’t ride Midnight together, can we?”
Eli shook his head, eyes still on the white Arabian in the stall. “She can bear weight, but she’s still favoring her healing leg. I think it’s too soon to try two riders at once.”
She placed a hand gently on his forearm. “Boone’s been doing a great job rehabbing him, though, right?” Beth slid her hand down into his, their fingers interlocking. She gave him a reassuring squeeze.
“He trusts Boone,” Eli told her. “And only Boone.” He blew out a long breath and pivoted to face her. “I haven’t told you how long it’s been…have I?”
“No,” she replied. And she hadn’t wanted to ask, not him or anyone else in town. If he’d wanted to tell her before now, he would have. But somehow asking someone else to tell his story felt like a violation. So she’d buried her curiosity and waited for him to trust her. “And you don’t have to,” she added. “You don’t have to ride either. I just thought maybe…I don’t know. I’m not, like, a therapist or anything, but what’s been happening with me and Midnight, it feels therapeutic somehow. Maybe it could be for you too.”
He let out a nervous laugh. “First my brother and now you, huh?” He scrubbed a hand across his stubbled jaw, and Beth was taken aback by a weariness in his blue eyes she hadn’t seen before.
“Forget it,” she told him, taking a step back and crossing her arms over her chest. “It was a stupid idea. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. It’s too soon, and…and I can’t pretend to know—”
“Three years,” he interrupted.
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Three years,” Eli said again. “Since I lost Tess and Fury. Haven’t been on the back of a horse since. And I saw a therapist. I did, for a full year. Got me through the loss, but it never got me back to riding.” He shrugged, not bothering to hide the sadness or disappointment in his eyes. “Figured I was a lost cause when it came to that, so I buried that part of my life with Tess.”
Beth swallowed the knot in her throat and sniffed back the threat of tears.
