“Indigo has eight hundred pounds on you and two extra legs. Plus he’s half Arabian, so he was bred for long distances. He’s a good pack horse.”
Once we’d gotten Indigo and Ruby untacked, Jeremiah secured hobbles to their front legs so they could move around a bit but wouldn’t go far.
“Is that how we keep them from running away while we’re sleeping?” I asked.
“Nah.” He shook his head. “The hobbles slow them down, but they tend to adjust. If we left them like that overnight, we’d wake up to find them long gone. We use a highline. We’ll take care of that first and then get the tent set up.”
He showed me how to string the rope at chest heightbetween two trees. Then we clipped lead ropes to Indigo and Ruby’s halters and tied them to the line, close enough that they could hang out together, but far enough apart that they couldn’t touch.
“It’s so beautiful here.” I had thought the ranch was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, but that was only because I hadn’t seenthis.
I pressed my hands into my lower back and arched backward, stretching out the kinks from sitting in a saddle for the last three hours, and took it all in. A green river shimmered about two hundred feet away. Everywhere I looked, jagged peaks met vivid blue sky. Except that one on the far side of the lake that looked like its pointed peak had been lopped off.
“What’s the name of that mountain over there?” I asked.
Jeremiah looked where I was pointing. “Squaretop Mountain.”
“Fitting.”
He grinned. A laugh bubbled out of me. It was the damnedest thing. I should be scared right now, scared of what was waiting for us back at the ranch, but I wasn’t. I felt as light as the air rustling the pine needles.
I loved it here. I loved the mountains and the trees and the horses. I loved making breakfast and lunch for the ranch hands and guests.
And the cowboy who had promised to keep mesafe…well, I wouldn’t let myself think the L-word where he was concerned.
But I couldn’t stop the feeling from taking root deep in my chest.
“Did you pack me a toothbrush?”I asked after we had cleaned up from dinner.
“Toothbrush, toothpaste, biodegradable wipes—but don’t bury them, we’ll pack them out when we leave—and your hairbrush are all in the red toiletries bag.”
I rummaged through the bag. Wipes, brush, condoms, toothpaste—aha, there was my toothbrush?—
Condoms?
I blinked as my brain caught up with my eyeballs. Condoms. “Jeremiah,” I called out, still staring down at the three foil squares. “Why are there condoms in the toiletries bag?”
“Seemed like the obvious place for them,” he said in a matter-of-fact way, like we were discussing dental floss instead of the possibility of him losing his virginity, but he rubbed his palms on his jeans and there was a wash of color cresting his cheekbones. “We don’t have to use them, though. I figured it would be better tohave them than not.”
I considered that, tilting my head. “I’ve always used condoms, but I’m on the pill. Didn’t want to risk a faulty condom, but mostly I hate getting my period and sometimes I just want to opt out, you know? Anyway, I was tested for everything at my last gyno appointment. No diseases. And you’re a virgin, so…No, we don’t have to use them.”
“I…” His voice trailed off and he huffed a laugh, spearing his fingers through his hair and tugging. “Hell, Lennon. I meant, we don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to. With everything going on right now, I’d understand if you wanted to slow things down. I wasn’t trying to get out of wearing a condom.”
“Oh.”
We stood there awkwardly, looking at each other peripherally without allowing a full-on collision. It was all I could do not to burst out of my skin. I could feel my heart beating in my throat, in my fingertips. My palms were starting to sweat.
I wasnervous. Like I was the virgin here, not him.
Maybe because I had never done it with all thesefeelingsswirling inside me. This was uncharted territory for me.
I needed to pull myself together. I wanted to make this good for him. Thirty-eight years he’d waited for this. He didn’t need his first time to be with a nervous wreck.
“Jeremiah.” My voice came out steadier than myheartbeat, much to my relief. “I want to, tonight, with you. And if you also want that, then I want your first time to be the full experience. If that’s what you want.” Christ. How many times could I saywant?
He rubbed his bottom lip, finally looking at me. “I want that.”
“Good.” I crossed the four feet of dirt and grass that separated us and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Then that’s what you get.”
