I said nothin', which was apparently answer enough because she made the sound again and took a long sip of her lemonade.
"Your daddy had that same look," she said, "right around the time he started courtin' your mama."
I kept my eyes on Biscuit's hoof. "That right."
"Mm." She set her mason jar on the fence post. "Don't overthink it, son. Men who overthink it always wait too long."
I packed up my tools twenty minutes later, tucked her payment—half of what she'd tried to give me—into my shirt pocket, and drove back toward Larkspur with the windows down and the evening comin' on gold across the hills.
By my count, that was nine horses. My back was lettin' me know about every last one of 'em.
The Wild Acre turnoff came up on my right about six miles outside of town.
I drove past it.
Watched it disappear in my rearview.
Told myself I was tired. Told myself she'd just left my apartment this mornin' and the last thing I needed was to show up at the ranch like a lovesick idiot with hay in my boots and tool grease on my hands.
Told myself a lot of things.
Half a mile down the road I slowed, checked my mirror, and made a U-turn in the middle of Route 89.
Took the turnoff.
Didn't have a single good reason.
Didn't need one.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
The crunchof gravel under tires was loud enough to jolt me out of my own head. The late afternoon had settled thick and golden, the kind of heat that turned the air syrupy and made even the horses drowsy. A few of them had been my only company for hours—the occasional nicker, the swish of a tail, the soft blow of breath through velvet nostrils the only sounds in the barn. Me and my mind and the smell of hay and leather and warm wood.
A car door slammed.
I peeked out of the tack room doorway, squinting against the slant of late sun cutting across the drive. My boy scout was on his phone, smilin' at something, walkin' my way with the slow but relaxed stride of a man who'd put in a full day and wasn't bothered by it. He had hay dust on his jeans and grease on his forearm and he looked so goddamn good it was annoying.
"I'll talk to ya later, Ma," he said, eyes findin' mine across the distance. "I gotta see about a girl."
He winked, shoved his phone into the pocket of his Wranglers, and covered the rest of the ground between us in a few long strides. He smelled like summer and hard work and something underneath that was just him—warm skin and soap and the particular scent I'd been tryna stop associating with the wordsafe.
He pulled me to him without preamble, one hand at my lower back and the other palming the back of my head like he'd been doing it for years.
"I missed you," he murmured against my lips.
Then he kissed me like his goddamn life depended on it.
I kissed him back for exactly as long as I could justify it, which was longer than I'd like to admit, before I flattened both palms against his chest and pushed.
"Make yourself useful or go home."
He blinked. Took a second to come back online. "I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me." I twisted out of his hold and grabbed the pitchfork I'd leaned against the stall door not two minutes ago when the gravel crunch had pulled me away from it. "Been at it all day, and I'd kill for a shower but I still got three stalls left."
Brody glanced around like he was only just noticing the state of things. "Where the hell is everybody?"
"Rhett took the cowboys out to move the herd to the north pasture." I drove the pitchfork into a pile of soiled bedding and tossed it into the wheelbarrow. "Something about the grass being better up there this time of year. I don't know, I don't do cows."
