by Snow, Nicole
I whistle through my teeth, but I can’t stop grinning. “Ouch, witch. You’re not gonna show me any mercy at all, huh?”
“Would you want me to?”
“Point taken. Less fun that way,” I mutter, lingering on her. My smile fades as I give myself permission to take her in again, watching how easy she guides that horse like it’s an extension of her own petite, beautiful body. “I think I like you this way.”
Her gaze locks on mine.
There’s this moment where we just look at each other.
It makes me wish like hell she wasn’t off-limits, that she wasn’t a prospective seller I was trying to woo, that my whole damn business didn’t hinge on convincing the world’s prettiest porcupine to play ball.
I can’t cross that line.
I’ve got a sense of ethics I didn’t have when I was younger—even if I had to have it beaten into me by bad experience.
Messing around with her when her ranch is at stake could wind up hurting her real bad in the end.
I won’t do it.
That’s what I keep telling myself desperately as those pale-blue eyes hold mine and our horses drift closer together until our knees almost touch.
I’m fascinated by the Cupid’s bow of her lips. The way summer sweat beads on her jaw in this fine mist, the high dip of her waist, the slender, tautly toned tuck that swells out into a long slope of tempting stomach and curved hips.
This woman’s built to ride.
And I’m not talking about horses.
We’re so close our thighs brush along the lengths of our horses’ flanks. My mouth throbs with a wicked need.
I could do it.
I could lean down right now and—
There’s a rustling in the scrubby brush just up ahead of us.
The only warning before this huge brown shape comes rocketing out of the bushes, skittering into our path.
Both of our horses stagger back, but neither of them rear or startle or bolt.
Before I’m really thinking about what I’m doing, I whip out the old Colt pistol hidden underneath my open flannel shirt and holstered on my hip, firing it in the air.
The cougar must feel cornered between these big old horses and that line of bushes.
It holds its ground for a moment, laying its ears back and snarling as it crouches down.
Then it turns sharply and bolts away in a flash, its sandy hide almost blending into the ground as it crashes through the brush and disappears.
We stare at the place where it vanished for a minute before I lower my arm, check the Colt, and then socket it back into its place at my hip.
“That was interesting,” I grunt.
“She probably has cubs around here somewhere. Just defending her babies.”
There’s actually a touch of admiration in Libby’s voice—and not a hint of fear.
She’s definitely a tough one. Knows her away around and knows what can and can’t hurt her.
I like that.
To distract myself from wandering thoughts, I lean down and rub Plath’s shoulder. “You’ve trained these two pretty well. Didn’t spook at all.”
“I know my horses. And I make sure they’re good to their riders as long as their riders are good to them.” She tilts her head at me. “Where the hell did you learn to shoot, flyboy?”
“Other than here?” I grin, straightening in the saddle. “Pilots don’t just fly. They hand out some heavy artillery.”
“A missile ain’t the same thing as a handgun.”
I laugh. “And neither is a wing-mounted gatling gun, but you can’t even get past grunt level if you don’t certify in firearms training with a hell of a lot more than my old Colt here.”
We both nudge our horses into moving again, heading forward now at a walk. The terrain starts to get a little more rocky, strewn with more scrappy brush that could hide another cougar, a snake, who knows what around these parts.
Libby eyes me, then sniffs. “Please. You’re just a flyboy so you don’t have to get dirty slumming it with the other soldiers on the ground. You make your messes from far away and rocket out of danger.”
“Ouch. So your old man was in the Navy, huh?”
A startled sidelong glance darts my way. “Way before I was born, but yeah. How’d you know?”
“Because sailors can’t stand us ‘flyboys.’ We get to jet off and have all the fun while they’re stuck on the water.” I smirk. “Hell, I’d tell my kids to hate the Air Force, too, if my only job in the military was to play water taxi for the big boys.”
Of course, my wisecrack is as over-the-top as it sounds.
Libby bursts out laughing, throwing her head back, reaching up to tilt the brim of her hat back and press her hand to her brow before tugging it down again. “Hot damn. All those jokes about rivalry between the branches weren’t really jokes, were they?”
“Nope. You put us out in the field together, we’ll have each other’s backs. No question, we’ll save each other’s lives. We’ll fight together like the men we’re supposed to be, and we’re all equals out there in the battlefield. Off the game, though?” I chuckle. “You can take out an entire bar with the brawl just from fighting over what unit did the real work on a sortie, while everyone else just drifted along. We get pretty damn territorial about it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the stories.” She gives me that no-fucks-given smirk again. This girl’s completely unimpressed by me, and it just makes me grin more. “Doesn’t change the fact you’re a flyboy who doesn’t want to mess up his hair.”
“You should see how it looks when I’m just out of the cockpit. Helmet off, sweaty, sticking up everywhere. I’m not always this smooth.”
It’s gratifying that makes her blush, her smirk briefly fading before she looks away from me pointedly.
That tells me she thinks I’m pretty, too.
Or handsome.
Or, shit, whatever.
And here I am, still having evil thoughts I shouldn’t.
“It’s not all easy coasting up there in the sky,” I say. “The G-forces are enough to make you pass out if you don’t build up your endurance. It’s pretty goddamn terrifying being the only thing in control of thousands of pounds of steel and complex machinery hurtling at speeds that break the sound barrier. Thousands of feet up in the air, you’re relying on skill. There’s no safety net if you get hit. It’s just you in freefall, vulnerable and exposed to enemy fire, hoping if you get nailed by flak or a missile, you won’t break apart on impact when you hit the ground.”
I’m expecting her to laugh at me again.
I’m definitely not expecting the look she rakes over me, disbelieving. “Like you’d know anything about being vulnerable.”
I blink.
If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say she sounds mad at me.
For real mad, not the playful teasing we’ve been throwing back and forth and I’ve actually been enjoying.
“Pardon?” I growl back.
“Don’t you ‘pardon’ me. Talk like you know where you came from,” she hisses, then looks away from me again. “Men like you never know what it means to be vulnerable. I’ve seen your sort of guy before. You break hearts like pinatas so nobody can ever hurt yours.”
What the fuck? I don’t know where this is coming from, this sudden bitter, hurt animosity like I left her high and dry personally.
Except, I realize, maybe I do know.
Because there’ve been times when I was pretty skeptical about chicks, after the way my last so-called love treated me. After watching how my brother’s first wife treated him, too, and how easy it was for me to almost cheat with her, and she didn’t even hesitate.
It’s Sierra, I bet. If I’d been watching men fuck over my vulnerable, emotionally needy sister for my entire life, maybe I’d be mistrustful, too.
“Sierra, huh?” I mutter. “You blame the dudes she hooks up with for taking advantage.”
Her soft gasp tells me I’ve hit the mark, but she won’t look at
me. “Who says that’s any of your business?”
“Nobody. Sierra’s business isn’t mine. I just can’t help but notice when you’re clearly worried about her.” But I can’t help but add, almost under my breath, “...and I know more than you’d imagine about heartbreak.”
“What was that?” A suspicious look snaps toward me.
“Nothing.”
I don’t need to bare my demons to her.
She wouldn’t want to meet them, anyway.
Some things, I’d rather keep close to home. Especially when I’m trying to forget—and you don’t forget bad juju by dumping it on every pretty stranger who’ll listen.
Libby looks at me for a long moment, something odd flickering in her eyes, before she just clucks her tongue.
Then she gently kicks her heels against Frost’s sides, snapping the reins with a practiced “Hya!”
The Vanner lurches forward in a ground-eating run.
I stare after her, wide-eyed, before squeezing Plath’s flanks. The horse responds instantly, beautifully, all that surging power under me and the wind whipping me in my face as I race after Libby.
At first there’s just the Vanner’s lashing tail and Libby’s sweeping blonde mane, her shoulders taut, and goddamn, her ass looks deadly, spread over the saddle in those tight cutoffs.
But then we’re running neck and neck, our horses racing to overtake each other.
My blood burns like the sun blasting down on my face and my heart beats like the thud of their hooves.
The whole thing is a little dumb, a little reckless, a lot spontaneous.
I’m still grinning fit to burst, and so is she.
* * *
By the time we come up on a fence far out on the edge of the ranch, toward the foot of the mountains, I’m panting and so are the horses—but the air between us is easier.
We pull Frost and Plath to a prancing halt, slowing down to let them breathe.
The moment the world stops blurring by, though, I realize where we are.
We’ve reached that distant mountain pass.
Only it’s more of a road, built into a natural cut-through.
It’s real old, never paved.
Looks like it used to be a wagon trail or something from ancient patterns in the grass grown through the ruts. I guess the rest of it used to sprawl across the plains before it fell out of use, and eventually, that road became a forgotten thing of the past.
I can barely make it out past the overgrowth, including the tangled bushes and grass that have almost completely taken over the fence.
Which is odd in of itself.
From what I’ve seen, Libby’s fierce about keeping her place up, every nook and cranny.
All the other fences are clear and well-maintained, everywhere else but here.
I guide Plath up to the fence before pulling to a halt, looking out over the narrow cut through the mountains, steep palisades of stone rising up to either side, jagged and dotted with little trees.
“This is the pass through the range, isn’t it?” I ask. “Cuts right through. Saw it on the survey map when we were looking at places to pave a road.”
Libby’s just a little too slow to turn her head toward the road, a sort of forced bewilderment like she didn’t even realize it was there.
“Oh, yeah...that,” she whispers.
She swings down off Frost’s back, catching his reins—and I realize why she stopped here when she leads him toward an old manual pump tucked against the fence.
She grips the handle and strains to work it, but it’s rusted in place. Even though the muscles in her arms tighten sweetly against her tanned skin, it’s not budging. She’s going to scrape her hands to hell and back if she keeps it up.
“Here,” I say, vaulting down from Plath quickly. “Let me.”
She makes a sour face at me as I shoulder her gently to one side, then grip the pump handle in both hands, bracing my feet and wrenching it up.
The rusty bastard squeals like an animal—but it moves.
I manage to give it a few good hard pumps, fighting against the rust and grime clogging the workings, before it sputters to life.
First it spits out a clot of mud.
Followed by reddish water spraying out in a spurt that quickly clears, darkening the dry earth around it.
With a cluck of her tongue, she beckons Frost over. The Vanner snorts and thrusts his nose under the spray, splashing us both.
I chuckle, holding up my hands to ward it off. Libby gently grips his head and holds him back so he’s forced to drink slower.
“Go easy, guy,” she murmurs, and there’s a softness in her voice I’ve never heard, velvety and sweet. “Drink it nice and slow or you’ll make yourself sick.”
“Here. They can share.”
I catch Plath’s reins and guide her over, and she thrusts her head under it, too.
Soon they’re just making a mess everywhere as they lip at the water and shake their muzzles until their manes are speckled in droplets—and so are we.
It’s like the whole universe conspires to make it impossible to peel my eyes off Libby.
Everywhere those droplets land on her shoulders, arms, and thighs, those tiny beads of water catch the light and make her shimmer like she’s covered in gold dust.
They speckle her shirt, soaking in, making me painfully aware of just how thin the fabric of her tank top is. Wet spots spread, clinging to her skin in a luscious second layer that makes my tongue ache to taste her.
On her cheeks, they shine like freckles made out of tiny diamonds.
And where they dot her lips, they make them gleam in shimmering red curves so goddamn lush my cock twitches just thinking about how they’d feel against mine; how her mouth would go softer and hotter the deeper and harder I kissed her.
Fun fact: I’m bad at resisting temptation.
The more I try not to think about it, the more I fucking want to.
She’d be gorgeous with her thighs around my hips, riding me like I’m one of her steeds.
Fuck.
Thank God she’s not looking at me now because I’m probably staring at her like a starving wolf.
I lick my lips and look away, focusing on that half-hidden stretch of road out past the gate.
“I think,” I say, “this puts a hold on at least one plan.”
Her head jerks up from watching the horses, her hands steady on both of them while they drink, stroking their noses. “What do you mean?”
“Survey maps made it look like this could be a good path to a build site for the mall,” I say. “Take this road through the cut, and then there’s a flat sort of hollow between the mountains where that mall could sit all pretty, like the treasure at the end of a trail.” I frown, narrowing my eyes as I survey the terrain. “But I don’t think it’s wide enough for a two-lane road. I doubt I can get zoning rights to cut deeper into the mountains to widen it.” I glance at her. “Besides, we’ve got a bigger problem.”
Libby tenses, waiting for the worst.
Makes me think of a woman with a guillotine hanging over her head.
There’s something in her eyes that says she’s waiting for me to break her, but I don’t know what she’s expecting to hear.
“What’s that?” she asks carefully.
I gesture toward the land around us.
“All of this is your space. Looks like the road used to run through here, but it was tilled over a long time ago. To get here, we’d have to run a two-lane road right across your property. Even if we just do a sharp cut off the main highway on the very corner...it’s still going to chew into your space. And we’re trying not to do that any more than we have to.”
“At all,” she corrects sharply, straightening, then stalking to stand between me and that brush-covered gate like a tiny human wall of packaged fury. “You’re trying not to do it at all, remember? Because you agreed that once you saw this wasn’t gonna work, you’d buzz off.” She gestures at the mountain pass. “And that�
�s my property, too. Don’t talk about it like it’s already yours, and I’m just a speed bump in the way.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Meant?” she flares, her jaw jut out stubbornly. The tips of her fingers twitch like she’s just itching to throw a couple punches. “That’s the funny thing. People say what they mean when they don’t mean to. I know damn well what you meant.”
So much for the cease-fire.
We’d gone from hitting each other with poison arrows to hitting each other with Nerf bats.
Now it’s open season on me again.
I don’t get why the fuck she’s so angry.
Or why she even let me come out here, when it’s clear she doesn’t want me poking around—doesn’t want me to be here at all.
Oh.
God damn.
That’s what this is about, isn’t it?
She never had any intention of even considering my offer.
She just wanted to get me to agree that once I saw the logistical barriers, I’d fuck off and never come back.
Clever.
She’s trusting I’ll actually keep my word.
That I have some shred of personal honor, and despite my reputation, I’m sincere about aiming for a reset.
Damn Libby Potter for being right.
And double damn me for wanting to live up to the tiny crumb of faith she’s put in me in her own angry, messed up way.
“Okay, Libby,” I say, meeting her glare head-on with my own eyes narrowed. I’m not getting in a confrontation with her over this and stabbing her buttons even more. “Okay. You win. No more deals.”
The look she gives me might as well scream liar. Then her face softens a tad.
“You...you mean that?”
I smile faintly, though I’m not really feeling it.
“Yeah. That was the agreement, right?” I hold out my hand. “Let’s shake on it.”
After a wary moment, she steps closer and slips her hand into mine.
I’ve never touched a woman whose hands were almost as work-worn as mine, her palm hardened and the fingertips calloused, but the flesh is soft and her fingers still delicate and pretty.
A strong hand, one that’s earned its strength by knowing when to be gentle and when to be firm.
