Page 18 of Hard To Fall
I grab the flashlight and say, “Tell me you’re about to do something stupidly macho.”
He doesn’t look at me. “I’m about to fix it.”
I watch his forearms flex as he wraps the chain around the post. “That’s not what I said.”
He looks up, eyes dark. “You always run your mouth when you’re nervous?”
“Who said I’m nervous?”
He goes back to fixing the hinge and shrugs. “Seems to be a common occurrence. You get yourself in situations where you just can’t shut up.”
I lean closer. “Don’t act like you don't think about me and my mouth.”
He goes still, and for a second, the wind is the only sound. Then he growls, “Hold it steady.”
I shake the light around just to get on his nerves, but then lightning strikes in the distance and the thunder answers like a warning shot, and I jump and let out a squeal.
Will calls from somewhere behind us, voice faint, “Hurry it up!”
Colt mutters something under his breath that definitely isn’t church-friendly.
“Your mom would be so proud.”
He shoots me a look. “Don’t bring my mother into this.”
“She already brought herself into it,” I say. “She practically made me her first daughter.”
His hands pause on the chain. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t talk about that,” he grits out.
I tilt my head. “Talk about you being good for more than just the rodeo? She told me all about how–” He looks up, and his glare is lethal, and my grin is innocent.
“Sunshine,” he bites out, “I swear to God?—”
“You’re welcome,” I say brightly. “I’m making you think and therefore improving your emotional capacity.”
The gate clicks into place with such force I'm unsure if he fixed it or broke it worse. Colt stands and wipes his hands on his jeans.
“Cattle,” he says, already moving. “Come on.”
We jog back toward the herd, shooing them with shouts and arm waves. Colt’s voice goes low and commanding, the kind of sound that makes animals listen without question.
But it also does something else, to me. Something pretty inconvenient and a little nerve-racking. I knew he was a force to be reckoned with. Always in control, always stable, but I didn’t know it would make me feel a certain way when he asserted it in that tone.
The cattle finally funnel toward the pens just as the sky breaks open. Rain comes down hard and cold, soaking through my shirt in seconds. Mud forms instantly under our boots. Colt looks up at another lightning strike and curses.
“Truck,” he snaps. “Now.”
I glance toward the field where we left it, which is now a good fifty yards away, in open ground, under a sky that’s basically throwing fists at us.
“Race you,” I shout.
He gives me a look. “Don’t. You don’t know this ground.”
I take off anyway, because today? I’m all sunshine and spite.
