Page 34 of Ethan

“We should.” She didn’t move immediately.

Neither did he.

Then she turned, walked to Jewel, and untied the reins. He watched her mount up with the same quiet ease she did everything, and he stood there another second longer before he walked to Vulcan.

He swung up into the saddle, and they turned back toward the trail.

He was smiling and he didn’t bother trying to stop it this time.

They rode back mostly in silence, but it was a different kind of silence than the one on the way out. Easier. Like something that had been wound tight had finally been allowed to loosen.

He took her back the way they’d come, along the creek and through the long meadow, and she rode beside him the whole way, no longer trailing behind.

When the barn came into view she glanced over at him.

“Thank you for showing me the property.”

“You needed to know your way around.”

“Is that the only reason you took me?”

He looked at her. “No.”

She smiled and looked back toward the barn.

They rode in through the back gate, and he stepped down from Vulcan and took Naomi’s reins while she dismounted. Their hands touched briefly when she took them back and neither of them made anything of it.

Rowdy was in the barn when they led the horses in, moving quietly through the aisle, not a man who made more noise than necessary. He glanced up at them both and gave a single nod before going back to what he was doing.

Ethan led Vulcan along the aisle to cool him. He could hear Naomi doing the same with Jewel in the opposite direction, humming something low under her breath that she probably didn’t know she was doing.

He smiled to himself and kept walking.

He finished with Vulcan and latched the stall, and she was just coming out of Jewel’s when he turned around. She had a piece of hay caught in her hair and didn’t know it.

He reached out and pulled it free without thinking. She went still.

“Sorry,” he said, stepping back.

“Don’t be.” Her voice was quiet.

They stood there for a second in the dim of the barn, Rowdy moving somewhere at the far end, the horses settled around them.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said.

She looked at him. “Here, or—”

“In town. Somewhere that isn’t the ranch.”

Something moved across her face, warm and unhurried. “Alright.”

“Seven?”

“Seven.” She headed for the barn door. At the threshold she looked back at him over her shoulder. “Don’t wear the suit.”

He laughed, and she smiled and walked out into the sun.

He stood there for a moment listening to her footsteps fade away.