Page 43 of Out of Bounds
I ditched my round of golf with the guys after the ninth hole and I’ve been on the ranch for the last half hour undetected – so much for security. But Annie doesn’t know I’ve been here until she comes out from the barn with a surprising spring in her step, dropping a horse brush in a bucket as she runs my way.
She needs a laugh, so that’s what I brought with me, but she seems happy. At least she does until she gives my blacked-out SUV a once over from under her cowgirl hat. I’m getting used to the way Annie’s mind works and though she turns that big wide smile back on for me, I know she thinks I brought the SUV to hide from prying eyes. She’ll see the truth soon enough.
Meanwhile, I’m rooted to the spot because I swear this woman gets prettier every time I see her. She’s wearing one of her check shirts tucked into the kind of tight-fitting jeans that are makingmyjeans tighten, and what seems to be her favorite pair of boots. I’m pretty sure I skip my next breath as I watch her brush rogue tendrils back from shining plump lips and I think,I’d like to do that. Control her hair, run my fingers over her lips that I know are soft to touch.
She snaps me back from the place I absolutely shouldn’t be going when she says, “Good idea. Any outsider would only suspect Colton coming home.”
“I don’t care who sees me come to the ranch, Annie. Not for my sake, anyhow.”
“Right, it gives me plausible deniability when I get accused of trying to screw another pro.”
She’s stone-faced as she speaks and I know I’ve put my foot in my mouth but she rocks her shoulder against mine and winks.
Anddamn,you’d think I’d been let out of jail after a life sentence because the things that move does to me…
“You’re earlier than I was expecting, I’ve just started grooming the horses but Nelson is napping, so I’m good to go straight out if you like?”
Go straight out? I’m jittery over here. Because all I can think is, if people want to talk, let’s give them something to talk about, which is thelastthing we’re going to do.
But I could use a beat to come round and so I ask Annie to show me the horses, which, as it turns out, is an even worse idea.
“You want to be firm,” she says, coming around my back and placing her hand over mine on the brush handle as I stroke it over the glossy brown coat of her mare, Maisie.
“Like this?” I ask, the break in my voice a dead giveaway that Annie has got me wound tighter than a tie-down rope.
Her left hand sears my shoulder through my shirt but it’s not a burn I want to fight. Her body is barely grazing mine but I feel the warmth of her against me and fuck I like it,morethan like it. While the smooth motion we’re making along Maisie’s torso is calming, my heart rate is soaring like I’m about to play in the Big Game.
I’ve spent days thinking about her, about how I want to crush Auston for hurting her and putting her back in the public eye, but I haven’t questioned whether I have any other motive for hating him. Until now.
He doesn’t deserve her but he won her. And I’m not saying I deserve her but damn I’d do my utmost not to hurt her. To protect her, and Nelson.
But I can’t have her and maybe for the first time in my life, I’m jealous of someone else. Of what he had before the reckless dick threw it all away.
Fuck.
I clear my throat. “How about that driving lesson?”
19
ANNIE – EARLY OCTOBER
Come Stay with Me
Whatwasthat?
What was I doing pressing up so close to him, my hand over his? There was no intent. No conscious thought. Nomens rea. See, I concentrate in class – I amnotguilty of mind.
But goodness I liked it.
I’d been outside grooming the horses when Tanner arrived because it’s one of a few things that calm me.
Maisie, Luke and the other horses are the epitome of tranquility and elegance. Mama used to say we could all take lessons in good grace from fine horses.
Since seeing Auston at the airport, watching him run,again, then all the crap on social media that I just don’t seem to have the willpower or strength to ignore, nothing inside me has been at peace.
I’m rolling back my shoulders and plastering a smile on my face for Nelson, and Daddy, who’s silently as sour with me as Colton. The brute of a man standing on guard at the front gate to the ranch – as if anyone who wants a long-range picture of the mundanity of my life can’t easily walk on the ranch at a hundred other places around the perimeter – is doing very little to quell my unease.
Ironically, the one human who has broken through all the noise, who hasn’t judged me or told me what I should or shouldn’t be doing, is a man very much in the spotlight I’m trying to avoid.
