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“I have.”
“Smart girl.”
I wish, she thought ruefully, not wanting to count how many sleepless hours she’d spent thinking about that one, earth-shattering kiss she’d shared with Denver.
Curtis clicked his lighter over the tip of his cigarette as he left the barn. Tessa heard him shuffle down the ramp leading to the main field. A few minutes later an engine caught, and through the open door she saw his old yellow truck rumble down the drive.
She had no excuse to leave the ranch, no errand to run, no friend’s home where she could escape. Tonight she was stuck at the house. With Denver. And later, once she’d thought through exactly what she was going to say, he was going to get a piece of her mind!
Determined not to make the same mistake as she had under the oak trees, she walked into the tack room and took down a bridle. The leather was soft in her hands and the bit jangled as she hurried to the paddock where Brigadier, his nostrils flared, glared at her from the far corner.
“Come on, boy,” she whispered, digging in the pocket of her jeans for the small apple hidden there.
The chestnut snorted, his eyes rolling suspiciously as she approached. He pawed the dusty ground, but couldn’t resist the tantalizing morsel she held in her palm. As he reached for the tidbit, Tessa slipped the bridle over his ears.
“Serves you right for being such a pig,” she teased as he tossed his head and stomped, one hoof barely missing the toe of her boot. “Careful,” she said, laughing as she climbed onto his broad back and swung her leg over his rump just as he sidestepped. “Come on.” Leaning forward, she pressed her heels into his ribs.
He stopped at the gate and waited nervously as she leaned over and pushed it open. Then, just as she caught her balance again, Brigadier bolted.
He took the bit in his teeth and raced across the dry earth, his hooves pounding, dust clouding in his wake. Wind screamed past Tessa’s face, tangling her hair and tearing the breath from her lungs. Her fingers clutched the reins and wrapped in his silky mane as they tore across the fields.
She rode as she had as a girl, bareback and carefree. She didn’t think about the ranch, about the unpaid taxes, the low supply of feed or the painful fact that she might have to sell this magnificent creature running so wild and free beneath her. Tessa hadn’t felt this rush of joy in years. Seven years.
Denver had forced her to grow up before she was ready.
“And you were more than willing to,” she muttered angrily as Brigadier slowed near the creek—or what had been the creek. Now just a winding ditch with a bare trickle of water threading through smooth, dusty stones, the stream cut through the fields on its path to the Sage River.
Near an old apple tree, she slid off Brigadier’s back, tethered him and stretched out on the dry ground. The sun was just setting over the hills in the west. Fiery streaks of magenta and amber blazed across the wide Montana sky.
Leaning her head against the tree’s rough bark, Tessa studied the shadows lengthening across the valley floor. Insects buzzed near the water, and somewhere in the distance a night bird cried plaintively.
The bird’s call echoed the loneliness in her heart—loneliness she’d denied until she’d seen Denver standing in the barn door, the sheeting rain his backdrop.
Her heart squeezed at the memory.
Clouds gathered over the hills, clinging in wisps to the highest peaks. She heard hoof beats and dragged her gaze away from the dusky sky.
Denver was riding toward her. Astride a rangy gray gelding, his hair tossed back from the wind, he reminded her of the last time she’d seen him upon a horse, the afternoon of the fire. Tessa’s insides tightened and her heart did a stupid little flip. Though she’d wanted to avoid him, she couldn’t stop the rush of adrenaline that flowed eagerly through her veins.
The gray slid to a stop at the edge of the creek. Denver swung his leg over the gelding’s back and landed on the ground not ten feet in front of Tessa.
“What’re you doing here?” she demanded, trying to ignore the sensual way his jeans stretched over his buttocks as he slid from the gray.
“Looking for you.”
Her stomach knotted and her pulse jumped crazily. “Why? So you can accuse me of mismanagement and embezzlement?”
He grinned, that cynical slash of white she found so disarming. “You’ve talked to your father.”
“Why don’t you just leave him alone, Denver?”
“I will—soon.” He stretched out beneath a tree opposite her, his legs so long, they nearly brushed her boots. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
She shrugged. “I thought it was better this way.”
He considered that. “Maybe,” he allowed, his gaze drifting to the shadowy hills as he took a handful of dust and let it drift to the ground. “But I can’t very well accomplish everything I need to without your help.”
He needed her? Her heart constricted, but she ignored her leaping pulse. Wanting her help on the business end of running the ranch didn’t mean he needed her. “What do you want?”
