by J. W. Ashley
“Sure, why not?”
“Um, because I’ve never gone hiking in my life.”
He grins and plates the bacon before bending over and grabbing a plate of pancakes out of the oven. “Good. I’ll be your first.”
I swallow hard, doubting he understands just how true that is. If things keep going like this, I think Leo might end up being my first—well—first something that actually means something.
“You up for it, Red?”
I swallow hard and nod. How hard can it be?
Claudia
One day, when I’m old and gray, someone is going to ask me what my favorite memory is. What part of my life sticks out and has remained branded in my brain no matter how many years pass me by.
And I already know what I will answer. Today. Right now. Riding horseback through the mountains of Montana, Leo by my side.
It took some coercing for him to get me to agree that a ride on Bobbie-Kay’s sturdy back would be preferable to walking, but I’m so glad I agreed.
Trees surround us as I follow him up a wide trail. It’s still a little wet from the short-lived storm last night, but the horse’s sure steps make me confident she won’t slip. The canopy above us lets in bright streaks of light, but for the most part, we’re shielded from the sun.
“How are you doing back there?” Leo asks.
“Amazing,” I call back. “I told you, I’m a natural.”
“We’re almost there,” he says as he guides Revenue to the right when the path splits. The sun shines brightly ahead, and when we emerge on the top of a mountain, I’m struck breathless by the beauty of the valley below.
Shades of green flow down the mountain like a waterfall before a pond of bright blue takes up most of the ground below us. We’re high up, so everything looks small, making me feel like Leo and I have emerged in our own world.
“You like?”
“It’s gorgeous,” I say softly.
With a smile, he climbs off Revenue and loosely ties the horse to a nearby tree so he can graze on the bright green grass. Mimicking him, I climb down off Bobbie-Kay, and Leo takes the reins from me, our fingers brushing briefly as he takes control of her and ties her to a tree on the other side. “Don’t want them to get tangled,” he explains at my curious glance.
“Makes sense.”
Leo swings the backpack off and sets it on the ground, kneeling beside it to unpack our picnic as I stroll to the ledge overlooking the gorgeous valley. It doesn’t bother me to stand at the edge. I’ve never been afraid of heights. Which is ironic since the very thought of falling for the man behind me is terrifying.
But being up high, this feeling of being on top of the world, I love it. The adrenaline of it is addicting. I think that’s why I hop relationships. The spike of excitement at the new, the unseen possibilities—I crave it.
Leo presses against my back, his arms wrapping around my waist as he pulls me back against him. I’ve never been one for soul mates, for love at first sight. Insta-love makes me uncomfortable—but with him, none of that feels out of reach.
Each and every day is a new adventure. Granted, it’s only been a handful of them, but still, typically by now, I’ve got my partner all figured out.
“Enjoying the view?” he asks, his breath hot against my cheek.
“I am.”
I turn in his arms, circling my own around his neck. “Thank you for this.”
He grins. “Thank you.” Leaning down, he presses his lips to mine in a sweet kiss that sets my heart on fire.
“You hungry?”
“I am.”
Leo pulls away, his hand clutching mine as he pulls me toward the navy blue blanket he’s stretched out on the ground.
I take my seat, and he takes his before handing me a container full of grapes and another with an assortment of cheeses and salami. “When did you have time to get all this?” I ask curiously. I was expecting sandwiches, chips, not a gourmet charcuterie board.
“After I dropped you off at Lena’s, I hit the market.” He pops a grape in his mouth and uncorks a bottle of wine.
“This is amazing, Leo.”
After handing me my glass, he clinks his against it, appreciating the delicate ping of glass meeting glass filling my ears as I tip it up and take a sip of the red liquid. “I aim to please,” he says.
“You are definitely very pleasing,” I agree. Reaching into the picnic basket, I withdraw an unopened bottle of olive oil. I lift an eyebrow, holding it up. “What exactly is this for?”
His eyes brighten with humor. “What do you think it's for?”
“I don’t know, and while I’m open to new ideas involving food, I’m not sure how I feel about olive oil.”
Leo throws his head back and laughs, the deep, rich tone surrounding me. “Easy, Red, you definitely don’t need olive oil.” He pins me with a heated gaze that shoots through me. “I don’t go hiking without a bottle.”
“Why?”
“Bad luck.”
I study the bottle again. “Pretty sure I’ve never heard that one before.”
“It’s high in calories. So if I were to get trapped out here and didn’t have a ton of food, that would suffice temporarily until I could get help. It also happens to be great for sunburns.”
“Olive oil.” I stare at him disbelievingly and pull out my phone. With a quick check to see if I have bars, I pull up my browser and google it.
“Are you fact-checking me?”
“I am,” I say with a smile. Looking through the results, I come across the confirmation from a site titled Outdoor Herbivore Blog. “Olive oil is an excellent choice to take when backpacking. Not only is it healthy and contains a high calorie per ounce weight ratio, but it also has a multitude of non-cooking purposes. Olive oil is one of the healthiest fats you can consume. It also helps you sustain your endurance longer because it slows the absorption of carbohydrates in your body,” I read the first part of the article aloud, completely surprised at the newfound information. Who would have thought the delicious oil was good for anything but cooking?
I glance up to find him watching me, amused. “Told you.”
“I bow down to your knowledge of hiking.” Turning off my phone, I set it beside me on the blanket.
“So, Red, tell me something about you.” He lays down on the blanket, propping himself up with one arm and turning onto his side.
“What do you want to know?” I ask as I reach up and undo the ponytail holder keeping my hair off my shoulders. It slipped when we’d been riding and is giving me a hell of a headache. When I gather it to put it back up, Leo reaches forward and grabs a loose strand, holding it between his fingers.
“Leave it down for a bit?” he asks, his gaze heating me from the inside out.
“Okay,” I say. There’s never been a man who could level me with a single look—until now. Leo has the power to turn me inside out, and that’s an ability I’ve never let another hold over me. Clearing my throat, I take another drink. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. What was your childhood like?”
I snort. “That’s a bucket of worms—and yes, I know the expression is can—but trust me; it’s a bucket.”
“Tell me. If you want.”
Taking a deep breath, I study him, surprised that I truly don’t think I’ll mind talking with him about it. “Well, my mom’s a florist and has her own shop back in Boise. My dad bought it for her before he bailed.”
“Bailed?”
“Went to find some other family,” I say, trying to push back the burn. “I think I’ve seen him three times since he left? I was five. Ever since then, we have been inseparable with the Garzas. Lena’s family,” I add.
“I’m sorry he bailed on you. That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah. Blame my daddy issues for my loose morals,” I joke, but Leo’s face doesn’t soften.
“I’m sorry, Claudia.”
Shrugging, I shake my head. “Anyway, my mom is great. She’s had shit luck w
ith men, but she’s the best.”
He smiles at that.
“What about you?”
Leo rolls over onto his back and puts an arm behind his head. “I have a brother. He and his wife are expecting their first kid any day now. My parents have been married since they were both twenty, and my grandparents have been married since they were in their teens.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It is.”
His earlier wistfulness fades, and I can sense something deeper, darker lurking just beneath the surface.
“So, do you have any other siblings? Cousins you’re close to?” I ask, hoping to bring him back from whatever pulled him away.
“I had a sister. She died eight years back. A car accident.”
And suddenly, I realize what he was sad about. And I brought it front and center. “Shit, Leo, I’m so sorry.”
“Rex—my brother—was in the car with her, so our dad blames him. They don’t speak anymore. But my brother and his wife are naming their little girl after her.”
My chest tightens as I stare across the small blanket at him. I can see the pain clearly reflected in his bright, hazel eyes now. It breaks my heart.
“I’m so sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. What can someone say to that?
“I spent a lot of years trying to run from the grief, the anger. When I realized you can’t outrun inner pain, I took some time searching until I found a way to cope with it.”
“The horses? Animals?”
He nods. “We never had them growing up. My sister always wanted a horse, so I bought my land and bought Bobbie-Kay.”
“That’s a sweet way to honor her.”
He smiles at me, but it’s shadowed by the past. “I loved my sister.”
I crawl across the blanket toward him and curl up against his body. The hand not propped beneath his head stretches out, and I lie down on it, my head resting on his shoulder. Turning, I press a kiss to his chest—right above his heart, the heavy beating of it like a drum against my lips.
He’s scarred—this sexy, kind man—and I can only imagine there are more beneath the surface of his skin. I can’t help but want to get him out of his own head, away from the pain.
His fingers toy with the ends of my hair, and we lie there, beneath the sun, a steady breeze flowing around us. It's the picture of perfection, and I long to be on the outside looking in, if only for a moment, so I can capture this moment on paper and frame it for a rainy day.
“What do you like to do? For fun,” he adds.
“I like to dance, though I’m not very good at it. Same thing with karaoke. I also love to draw portraits.”
“Oh?” He leans up and looks at me. “As in, ‘draw me like one of your French girls’?”
I snort and shake my head. “I don’t make a habit of drawing naked women.”
“Damn, that’s too bad,” he says with a grin.
Lightly, I smack his chest, though I can’t stop smiling. Everything is easy with him, which is what’s going to make leaving so damned hard. “I don’t get a whole lot of time to hand draw things since typically my clients prefer digitally rendered designs, but when I get a break, I like to go out and sketch strangers.”
“Anyone ever look at you like you’re a crazy person?”
Chuckling, I shake my head, nestling closer to him. When he presses a kiss to my hair, I close my eyes and breathe him in. “I don’t typically let them see me. I sit somewhere secluded and draw what I see.”
“I’d love to see it sometime. Your drawings.”
Lifting my chin, I look up into his gorgeous hazel eyes. “I think that can be arranged. If you earn it.”
His gaze darkens. “Mountaintop picnic not enough?”
I sit up and straddle him, pressing down against his growing erection. “Depends on how you’re planning to end it.”
His large hands splay out over my hips, the feel of his fingers, even through the fabric of my jeans, sets me ablaze. Leaning down, I press my lips to his, softly at first, tenderly moving my mouth over his.
Tongue running over the seam of his lips, I urge him to open for me, and when he does, his hands tighten on my legs as I deepen our kiss. Every touch, taste, word, it fills me up, fixing the cracks in my heart and making me wish the end of the month was lifetimes away.
13
It’s Been Fun
Leo
The rest of the month passes smoothly, and it’s not long before Claudia and I have fallen into a routine. I work, she works, and I go pick her up from Lena’s to spend the night with me. It’s become the highlight of my day, loading her overnight back into my truck and spending the evening loving her before I get up and do it all again the next morning.
Graham seems to be coming around to the fact that he’s a dad—the paternity test confirming it the week after their arrival. Fatherhood looks good on him, and I can see from the way he talks about little Rebecca, she’s already got him wrapped around her little finger.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I check the readout and smile when Claudia’s name pops up on my screen.
Claudia: Hey, L.L, Lena and I are coming to see you before I head to the airport.
My chest seizes, tightening painfully around the heart that’s aching with the idea that Claudia won’t be around anymore after today. Who knows when she’ll be back in town, and I hate the thought that I may never wake up beside her again.
Shaking my head to clear it, I let my finger rest over the text box below so I can type my response. I need to keep it light, no strings. I know enough about her now to realize that she doesn’t believe in love.
At least not in the way I do.
Me: Great. See you soon, Red.
Mood somber, I shove my phone back into my pocket and toss my still full lunch pail into the bed of my truck.
“Not hungry?” Graham asks as I take a swig of water.
“Not even a little.”
“Claudia leaving today got you all in knots?”
I shrug. “I knew it was coming.”
“You two seem to really have hit it off.”
“We did.” Didn’t we? I can’t help but wonder if maybe I was nothing more than a no-strings lay to her all along. Is it possible that she doesn’t feel the connection I do? I wouldn’t call it love—it’s far too soon for that—but there’s something there. At least for me.
“She’ll be back soon. Lena’s here.”
I nod. I know that—logically. But the idea of some other man’s hands on her when she goes back to Boise—I shake my head, trying to clear it. No damn way I can focus on that right now.
Graham and I sit in silence, him eating his lunch while I mostly seethe over saying goodbye. He’s right though, isn’t he? It doesn’t have to be permanent. Hope surges through me even as I fear she doesn’t feel the same.
Minutes pass before Lena’s traverse comes over the hill and into view. I smile, the sight of Claudia watching me from the passenger seat enough to get my heart pumping.
She jumps out and runs to me, and I sweep her up against my body, hugging her close and spinning her in a circle. “Hey, beautiful,” I greet and kiss her deeply. We’re surrounded by my co-workers, but she’s the only one I see.
“Hey yourself, handsome.”
I set her down and reach up to tuck some hair behind her ear. “You all packed?” I ask, throat tight.
Claudia nods, and I see it—the disappointment that gives me hope. “My plane leaves in a couple of hours.”
I open my mouth to reply when she interrupts.
“I want to say thanks.”
“For?” Eyebrow raised, I release her and head over to my truck where we can have some privacy.
“This past month.” She smiles. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
“Fun?”
Claudia nods. “I would have been incredibly bored had you not come around.”
Her words are like knives in my heart, but I ignore the pain and do my best to patch the wound
before I bleed out and die right here at her feet. “Yeah, it was fun.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence when all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart. I turn my head as I catch the tail end of Jackson asking Lena to dinner. Before I can tell him to kick rocks, Claudia answers.
“She’d love to. Graham, you don’t mind watching Becca tonight, right?”
Before I can come to Graham’s defense, tell Claudia what a shit idea letting Jackson have anything to do with her friend is, Graham replies tightly, “Sure.”
Claudia turns back to me. “I’ll see you around, maybe? When I come back?”
Unable to form a single thought as my brain screams at me to say something—anything to get her to stay—I nod and choke out, “Yeah. See you around.”
“Great.” She leans up on her tiptoes and kisses me loudly before turning away.
As I watch Claudia retreat, I feel a part of me leaving with her, and the most horrible thing about that is that I don’t think she even realizes it.
Claudia
My empty apartment feels even more so when I step inside. Since I haven’t gone to get Tony from my mom’s yet, silence surrounds me. Dropping my bags on the floor, I take a seat on the couch, sinking into the bright white cushions.
I’d honestly thought he’d try to stop me. That he’d say something about not wanting me to leave either. Not that I would have known what to say if he had, but the fact that I was so wrong—it stings a little.
Isn’t it ironic that the thing I swore I didn’t want is exactly what I’d been hoping to find?
I pull my cell out and check the time. Lena should be dressed and ready to go for her date by now, so I touch her contact information to check in. The phone rings twice before she answers with a shrill, “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
Biting back my laugh, I reply, “You aren’t dressed yet? Girl, I’m already back at my apartment! Aren’t you supposed to be leaving in, like, thirty minutes?”
Lena huffs. “This is no dress. It’s a strip of fabric.”
“A strip of fabric that is going to look fantastic on you. Have you even tried it on?”
