by Bethany-Kris
Horses were like people. Sometimes, they didn’t always connect with someone else. Human, or animal. And other times, they needed a bit to come around. Valeria figured that was the problem with Duke, the horse she was trying to work with on his riding skills, so she tried to take him out while Abril took a break from working with him.
At least this way, he didn’t have long spells of little to no activity with a human. Something beyond being fed, brushes, or having his stall cleaned. He would be a riding horse, and so someone needed to ride him.
Simple as that.
“That’s a good boy, Duke,” Valeria said, reaching down to pat his muscular neck. “One more trip around the fence line, huh? Let’s go.”
She pulled the reins on the right side, a silent command for the animal to turn in that direction. It took a harder tug for him to listen to her command, though, which spoke to his stubbornness. That was another issue with him. He didn’t like to do what others wanted him to do when he would much rather do what he wanted.
Horses with stubborn streaks kept them even after being trained. She figured Duke would be an adult’s horse, and not appropriate for children to ride. Which was fine, honestly. Some horses were better suited to adults because they needed that strong, dominant hand.
They were halfway around the fence line of the field that the horses used to graze when she first noticed him. Chris, that was.
It was impossible for her to ignore the way her heart raced in her chest from nothing more than sight alone. He seemed so calm, unbothered, and confident leaning against the post of the wooden fence, his gaze locked on her as she came closer to his spot riding Duke.
After their moment in the stables the other day, Valeria had done her best to avoid him because she didn’t know how to deal with the strange emotions the Canadian invoked in her. Not to mention, there was just something about the way he looked at her. She couldn’t explain what it was, but she swore he was looking right into her soul, seeing all of those secrets she tried damn hard to hide, with very little effort at all.
Chris raised a hand, a small wave urging her closer to him.
Damn.
Now, she couldn’t pretend like she hadn’t seen him. Although, if she were being an honest woman, she didn’t want to avoid him at all. That would probably end badly for her in one way or another.
“Enjoying a ride?” he asked when Duke trotted closer to his spot at the fence post.
Valeria kept a good fifteen feet between her, and him. Just in case. Surely, no one would see them out here in the field and think something inappropriate might go on, but she couldn’t be too careful.
Jorge had acted on lesser beliefs.
He shouldn’t be tested.
Besides, something had happened.
In the stables ...
Valeria couldn’t forget it.
Neither could her body.
“Training Duke, actually,” she replied. “Have you taken a horse out yet?”
“Considering it.” Chris flashed her a grin one might consider sinful. God knew she did if the way her thighs clenched around the body of the horse was any sign. She was not used to this—to feeling attraction for someone else. Not at all. “Although, I have to say I am enjoying watching you ride a horse far more.”
There was no hiding the suggestion in his tone.
He didn’t even make the attempt.
Why did she like that?
Because she shouldn’t.
At all.
Valeria swallowed thickly. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“Pardon?”
“Flirt with me.”
Chris shrugged one shoulder, almost uncaringly even though he looked damn good doing it. “When you say you don’t want me to, then I won’t. See, telling me I shouldn’t do something isn’t the same as telling me not to do it because you don’t like it, Val.”
Goddamn him for being right.
Valeria, out of an instinctual need to be safe and nothing more, peeked back to the ranch, and stables. Here, all she ever did was look over her shoulder to see who was spying, and might report back to Jorge about her behavior. She hadn’t realized how often she did it until Chris was nearby.
Sad thing, that.
“No worries, no one is watching,” Chris said, amusement coloring his tone.
Valeria was quick to snap around to glare at him, then. “Don’t treat this like a joke. I might like your attention, but that doesn’t mean I can always accept it.”
His playful smile never faltered.
God.
Why did he have to be so cocky?
So damn confident?
Arrogant men were not Valeria’s first choice, that was for sure, and yet she found it was a good look on Chris. She was not used to the heat traveling lower between her thighs, making an ache settle deep in her bones.
Jesus.
And that want?
Clawing at her chest?
It was too much.
“Don’t you have questions for me?” he asked.
She did.
Too many.
And yet, all she could say was, “You will get me killed.”
“Quite the opposite, Valeria.”
What?
Again with that suggestion. Like he was here for her—he said it as though that’s what he meant, but she couldn’t be sure that’s what it was.
She didn’t even trust herself.
“Would you let me do it again?”
Valeria sucked in a shaky breath, a flush traveling down her throat. She could feel the heat crawling over her skin though she did her best to ignore it. She asked, although she was sure she knew his answer, “Do what?”
“Kiss you.”
“Valeria!”
The shout of Abril coming from the stables had her rearing the horse back, already turning to head for the stables and leaving Chris behind.
“Will you?” he called after her.
His tone was still dark with wicked promises that made her skin pebble, and her thighs clench. She couldn’t miss it, not that she wanted to.
“Not if I value my life.”
He probably didn’t hear her.
That was okay.
Even she didn’t believe it.
• • •
The week following Valeria’s encounter with Chris in the field could only be described as hell. Not because anyone had caught them, although it came close, or because anyone suspected something had happened. Rather, she couldn’t help the paranoia that seemed to creep up her spine whenever the memory of Chris kissing her against that wall, or him asking her if he could do it again as he leaned against the fence, would flood her mind.
It was made worse whenever she would be close enough for Jorge to be looking at her when the memories came rushing into her mind, intent on driving her crazy, making her hot, and scared for her life all at the same time.
Because that’s what her husband would do, she knew. Undoubtedly, he would kill her for even thinking about another man, let alone kissing one. Jorge was terribly jealous when a man was staring at Valeria for too long because he thought of her as a prize he had won. And not once, but twice, when he caught her after running. He was not giving her up, and instead of treating her like something prized, he behaved like she was shit under his shoe.
The more troubling part?
Valeria couldn’t stop thinking about it.
About Chris.
That moment replayed in her mind daily—on fucking repeat. It woke her up at night when Jorge was beside her, and she didn’t need to be thinking about it, all things considered. The taste of him seemed like it lingered on her lips whenever she sipped on a glass of water because it reminded her of him. Crisp, and fresh.
Like the way his kiss and simple touch had made her body light up with barely any effort on his part at all.
God.
She didn’t need that.
None of it.
Worse was the fact she thought a huge part of her might wa
nt to do it again, and that was terrifying. Valeria spent her days at the side of a man who raped and beat her simply for being his wife. And a random man shows up with strange words coming out of his mouth about being there for her, and she’s kissing him in a stable? Entertaining his flirting while she rode a horse?
Stupid.
That’s what she was.
A stupid little niña.
Because only a girl would behave the way she did, so recklessly and dumbly. It was the only excuse she could come up with to justify why she had done what she did, and why she wanted to do it again.
Or you are so starved for love and affection that a kind man with care in his eyes reminded you that you are both alive, and a woman.
Fuck her thoughts, too.
Valeria had done her best to avoid Chris over the last week. He had occasionally joined them at their table for a meal, but he made a careful effort not to talk to her in her husband’s presence, which she was sure Jorge appreciated, as he usually did for other men. And if there was a chance for her to speak with Chris, she was quick to take herself out of the situation so they couldn’t talk.
She didn’t need the trouble.
Right?
So, why did her body think differently?
“Don’t let the kitten get too far from you,” Valeria called to her daughter from the porch.
Sitting on the steps with her sister-in-law, she watched as Maria chased after a kitten she sneaked from a barn. It was normal for the cats to mate and have a batch of kittens on a ranch. Cats kept the vermin down with their hunting habits.
Somehow, Maria convinced her father to let her keep the kitten she had snuck away from the litter when it was big enough, and no longer needed its mother. Valeria figured Jorge had only allowed her to take the gray and white kitten because it was something for him to use to bribe their child, not because she seemed to love the kitten. Whenever he thought she misbehaved, he threatened to send the kitten back to the barn, or worse ...
Valeria did her best to assure Maria that wouldn’t happen, but she also seemed like she made promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. And that, more than anything, killed her. She was never more aware of how little control she had over her life until it was her daughter, and nothing was for her to decide.
Even if it was just a kitten.
“Oh, no!” Maria shouted when the kitten darted away from her and went around the house. “Come back, Kitty!”
Kitty.
Yep, that’s what she had named it.
Valeria let her.
What else could she do?
“Hurry and grab it before it goes back to the barn,” Abril told Maria, “because that’s probably what she wants to do.”
Maria darted after the kitten, almost going out of Valeria’s line of sight, but stopped just short. Her head tilted back as a shadow drifted over her form, and she stared up at whoever had come around the side of the house.
“Better hold on to her good so she doesn’t get away again,” a familiar voice said.
Valeria felt that voice through every part of her body.
Every single fucking part.
Chris.
“Thank you very much,” Maria said, smiling.
They both came into view around the side of the house, standing beside a garden bed of roses that Abril liked to maintain. She had one for every house although she only lived in her own.
Chris passed a look toward the house, his gaze landing on Valeria before it went back to her daughter. Kneeling down, he handed the squirming kitten to her daughter with a soft smile. His voice lowered as he spoke to her daughter, and pet the kitten between her ears with the pad of his finger.
It didn’t matter.
Maria smiled, looking back at her mom, and then nodding at whatever Chris had told her. Pointing at a flower, he waited for Maria to give him the okay before he pulled a small pocketknife from his slacks. He cut the rose that the kitten had jumped on at the stem, dragging the blade down the length to remove any small thorns. Then, he tucked the pink rose into her daughter’s hair, right above Maria’s ear.
“Beautiful, like your Ma,” he said just loud enough for Valeria to hear.
Her throat tightened.
In her chest, her heart thundered.
Chris must have asked Maria something else because his head tilted to the side. Her child’s happy smile faded when she shrugged in her dress. She understood well enough what Chris said next because his lips moved to say, “I’m sorry, Maria.”
He said something else, and Maria quickly bounced on her feet, happy all over again as though nothing was wrong. The two of them laughed, and Chris pointed between himself, and then her daughter with a firm nod. Then, he pointed at Valeria, too, and gave Maria a wink that had her smile growing wide all over again.
“You understand?” she heard him ask.
Maria grinned. “I understand.”
“Good—I promise. I don’t break those.”
“Do you pinky promise?”
Chris shot Valeria another look from the side, but his stare didn’t linger long before it went right back to her daughter. Unquestioningly, he brought his hand out, and popped his pinky out for her daughter to catch with her own. Maria hooked their pinkies and tugged.
“Pinky promise,” he said.
“That’s the most important one, you know.”
“I know.”
Valeria wanted to know what they talked about—so badly. What was it the man said to her daughter that had her frowning and sad, but then had her smiling like the entire world watched and loved her in the next second?
The sight was sweet, really.
Maria didn’t take to strangers, but especially not men. Valeria blamed that on the fact there hadn’t been a lot of men in her daughter’s life when they stayed on the run for the last few years, but also because the man who should adore and treat her well made it his mission to ensure she saw his vile treatment of her mother. Her mom—someone she loved more than anyone else in the world. Her little girl with a heart of gold wouldn’t soon forget that, Valeria knew.
For whatever reason though ... Maria liked Chris.
“He’s good with kids,” Abril noted at her side, “and she’s not even his, huh?”
Valeria let out a sigh. “Hmm.”
“And stop staring, Val. You look like a woman who has found something she likes.”
Well, shit.
She averted her stare.
So much for avoiding him.
Not that it mattered, and her attempt to look away didn’t last for long, either. Chris stood, after giving Maria a one-armed hug and a kiss to the top of her head, and looked their way again. She sensed his gaze on her, even though she was trying to make it seem like she was looking out at the land beyond him, and not at him.
“Have a good day, ladies,” he murmured.
That was it.
He walked off.
The confusion, and heaviness in Valeria’s heart became worse. This—whatever was happening here—would lead nowhere good.
She was sure.
• • •
The next evening found everyone on the ranch celebrating a successful smuggle run into Texas that had been touch and go for a good month or more due to changes at the ports of entry. Valeria wasn’t interested in the flowing alcohol, or the laughter of her husband’s men that filled their house, and spilled out into the backyard where they had gathered in a large group.
She hung back on the rear porch of their home, forgotten by Jorge as he swallowed back more whiskey, and laughed at whatever the man next to him had said. It wasn’t like she would complain about his lack of attention, but that wasn’t what bothered Valeria at the moment.
Other things stuck to the back of her mind like sticky tar, dark and thick, promising it would stay there forever unless she handled it, and soon. Chris. And his little show the day before with her daughter.
For whatever reason, it wouldn’t leave her mind. Like his kiss that
day in the stables, or that whenever he was within visual distance of her, he stared at her when no one else did.
All bad things.
And yet, good, too.
Even if it was crazy and dangerous. If Valeria were a smart woman, she would tell the man to stop. To leave her be and go his way.
Except he’d said something to her in the stables ...
He came here for her.
What did that mean?
This might be one of the few times she would be able to deal with the thoughts that plagued her, so she decided to at least try. Now or never because it was likely she wouldn’t get another chance soon.
And Chris came to Jorge’s impromptu celebration. He hung back like she did, but never stepped in on their conversations unless they invited him, or otherwise.
He didn’t want to be there.
Clearly.
With everyone’s attention on the row of fireworks that Samuel was setting off, while Abril kept an exhausted Maria safely away, Chris slipped inside the house. He had to pass by Valeria to do it, and met her gaze unashamed as he did so, arching a brow before he disappeared inside.
Without saying anything at all, his silent challenge sounded like, Well, are you coming?
Did the man read her mind?
She would soon find out.
It was foolish, no doubt about it. At least, inside the house, Valeria would be able to slip into another room should someone come inside, or even run upstairs. There were variables that worked to her favor here, and she figured it should be safe enough to at least try to have a private conversation with the man.
Valeria ducked into the house but she found the back hallway empty. Not knowing where Chris had gone, she walked further down the hall, a shriek dying in her throat when a hand snapped out to grab her at her elbow before someone yanked her into the downstairs bathroom.
“What—”
Valeria didn’t even get to finish her sentence before he slammed the bathroom door shut, leaving her in darkness. A form pressed her against the counter. She knew it was Chris who pulled her inside by the scent of him.
Intoxicating, she thought, like his taste, too. Crisp and fresh like a freshly fallen snow.
