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Her lips twitched. “You stole them?”
I chuckled. “You could say that. Cara, she works the front desk at the Lodge, convinced her uncle that working for me wasn’t technically retiring. He brought a few people he trusted, and voila, we have horses. More importantly, I wanted to make sure the horses were happy here.”
She reached over and laid her hand on my thigh. “Not a lot of people would think of the animals first.”
“No, they don’t. How I got Storm. His owner worked him nearly to death then dumped him on a website to get rid of him.” I flexed my hand on the lower part of my steering wheel. Storm had needed a lot of time to get comfortable with me and even longer to trust me. But now he was mine, just as much as I was his.
The fact that there were echoes of those unruly tendrils in this damn truck was pissing me off. Helena wasn’t some battered animal that needed rescuing. And I needed to remember she wasn’t meant to be mine.
“You were meant to find him.” Her hand slipped away.
I swallowed hard. “Yeah,” I agreed, my voice rough.
As we drove into the drop-off zone in front of The Lodge, I put the truck in park and turned to her. Before I could figure out what to say, she leaned across the console and pressed her lips to mine. She laid her hand on my cheek. “No regrets, remember?”
I opened my mouth to say something.
Anything.
The high bark of my dog and a thumping fist against my window broke the spell.
Justin’s face filled the window as he motioned to roll down the window. I turned back to Helena only to see her sliding out of the passenger seat.
“Wait.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Bye, Beckett.” Then she slammed the door and took off for the lobby entrance.
I slammed my head against the headrest twice, then I lowered my window.
Justin winced. “Sorry. Did I interrupt the sayonara?”
“What. Do. You. Want?”
“Right. So it wasn’t any good?”
I gritted my teeth and said nothing.Gooddidn’t cover it and if I thought about it too long, I’d probably rearrange my brother’s face.
“Worse. Too good, hey?” He braced his forearms on the window frame, leaning in far too close.
“Is there a reason your hot coffee morning breath is landing on my neck?”
“Maybe you could use some.” He held up a thermos.
I took it before I bashed his forehead with the aluminum body of it. I desperately needed the jolt of caffeine to deal with whatever problem my baby brother was coming at me with. I reached over for the to-go cups I kept in my glove box and filled one to the brim.
“Why are you here?”
“Well, while you were playing hooky yesterday—”
I bristled. “No one was working yesterday, jackass.”
“Testy.” He took the thermos back and took a swig before recapping it to shove under his arm. “Usually you’re in much better spirits after a little…”
“Just shut it, Jus.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Okay then. Anyway. Some of the cousins got especially blitzed last night and borrowed,” he made exaggerated air quotes with his fingers, “one of the tractors.”
“For fuck’s sake.” While most of the Mannings and Ronsons were localized to the orchard, I had a few aunts and uncles who weren’t part of the business. Unfortunately, we had a few degenerate branches to the family tree.
