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I might also silently give thanks to the person who designed those Levi’s.
“Watch her breathing right here,” he says, pointing behind Sparrow’s elbow at the base of her ribs. “See how she can’t fully expand to get a good breath?”
Raising my fist, I sputter through a cough. “Yeah, totally.”
Get it together, I warn my awakening libido.He’s notthatcute.
Marcus loosens the strap by a couple of inches, then pats the mare’s shoulder. “Overall, not too bad for a rookie.”
My palm glides over the worn seat, tracing the dirt-stained leather as I laugh softly. “I haven’t been in a saddle since my ninth birthday.”
He grabs the horn, a look of relaxed curiosity flitting across his face. “It was one of those fat party ponies, wasn’t it?”
That birthday was one of the few memories from living in and out of different homes that brings me joy.
“My foster mom bought me a poofy gold dress and a pair of sparkly pink sandals.” Despite myself, I smile. “You have no idea how ridiculously excited I was when I saw they matched the highlights in the pony’s hair. I loved them so much that I wore them every day until my toes started curling over the edges.”
Marcus’s answering smile wavers. “You were in foster care?”
Dropping my hand, I shrug it off like I always do. “Yeah, but it’s no biggie. I turned out all right.”
Having gone to therapy for most of young adulthood, I learned that sometimes people grieve relationships as much as death. And as I tuck away those memories of the family I believed would never turn their back on me, I know it to be true.
He helps me remove the saddle so we can leave Sparrow in peace, but I’m suddenly self-conscious, unable to look at him. For some mystifying reason, I don’t want to see the same pity I’ve received from others in Marcus’s gaze.
But instead of pity, I find a shimmer of understanding as he nods.
It was a mistake to let my guard down, but now that those blue eyes fall to my lips, having Marcus’s undivided attention on me, and only me, conducts a foreign sort of thrill along the length of my spine.
“Come on.” After unlatching the door, he extends his palm to guide me to the main corridor.
My nose scrunches. “Mm, I don’t think so.”
“Just trust me.” He flexes his fingers impatiently.
“I’d rather pull my hair out one follicle at a time.”
Freshman year in high school, a boy I refused to kiss at the back of the bus dubbed me an ice queen, and it stuck until I graduated. But instead of crying, I embraced the title, erecting an impenetrable forcefield around myself that I never quite let go of.
I trust no one. I love no one. That’s the way it is.
With an exaggerated sigh, he grabs my hand and tugs me after him.
“Wait!” Pulling away from him proves useless as he breezes through the entrance of the building. He pauses to grab the beat-up, old toolbox he mentioned earlier before dragging me toward the barn.
“I thought we addressed your touchiness.” I stop short of two enormous piles of withered wood, tarnished metal, and trash debris.
The past few nights, I’ve sat on the front porch swing to respond to work emails and keep up withLusterremotely, but watching him lug supplies in and out of the old building has proved to be a distraction.
Clearly, he’s obsessed, but as I follow him through a set of brand-new doors, I’m astonished by what he’s accomplished in just a matter of days.
Marcus releases me, taking a healthy step toward Penelope.
I watch that same hand open and close at his side, and a slither of awareness darts up the back of my neck.
“Took you long enough.” After swiping her forearm through the sweat beading her brow, she reaches for the metal box, and it’s then that I spot a group of children—ages ranging somewhere from six to eleven—scattered about the barn.
“You brought them?” An instantaneous sense of awe hits me.
