Page 26 of The Billionaire Who Saved My Cat From The Mafia

I wait for her to look away, and she does.

Which is probably for the best.

If that energy has a name, I don’t know it.It’s so intense and focused that it could burn a hole through a man if he allowed it to.

I wonder how many men she’s burned in her life.

“You’re not going to tell me about your time as a SEAL?”

The last thing Ieverwant to do is discuss the details of my military career, how much I loved it, how it was all I ever wanted to do with my life, and how spectacularly I fucked it all up.

I don’t have to justify my silence to her, but for some reason, I do.“I prefer not to talk about it.”

“I respect that.Top secret missions and all that, right?”

“What do you do for a living?”I ask, changing the subject.

“Uh… bartender.Usually.”

“What’s your name?”

“Fawn.”

I see a flash in her eyes that indicates that her name is not, in fact, Fawn.I probably have a better chance of being a Fawn than she does.

“Pretty name.”

“Thanks.”She averts her eyes.“I do appreciate the horse, but you can take her back.I won’t need her.”

“Going somewhere?”

“Not today, but when I do, you can bet your ass that I won’t be leaving on horseback.”

“You don’t like horses?”

Her face softens.I detect a hint of the little girl behind the secretive, suspicious woman.“I love horses.There were horses around where I grew up.”

“Around here?”

“No.”

She shuts down again.I steer the conversation to more neutral territory.“Wood burning okay?”I ask.

“Great.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“No.”

Whoa.The “no” she just threw at me sounds more like an S.O.S.“How can I help?”

“You can’t.Don’t even try.”

This isn’t what anyone would consider a riveting conversation.I’m a dude who doesn’t enjoy small talk, and she’s a woman who has absolutely no intention of sharing the first thing about who she really is and why she’s really here.

Or what she’s running from.

Because Boots is definitely running from something and someone.No fucking doubt about it.