Chapter 21
We caught the sunrise at Garden of the Gods on our way out of Colorado Springs. Being a rancher meant bearing witness to countless sunrises and sunsets, and it had been a long time since I had paused to appreciate the moment.
But now, seeing the pastel glow of the clouds and rocks reflected on James’s skin, the sunrise felt new again. I paused. And I appreciated the hell out of it.
Good god, she was beautiful. Here, in the soft glow of the sunrise. In bed, fulfilling my fantasy with whispered words. On a horse, looking like she had been born in the saddle. There wasn’t a place on this earth that wouldn’t be improved by her presence.
Shit, I was turning into a sentimental fool. Dad would be so proud.
“Oh, my god,” James whispered, awed and reverent, for the hundredth time. “Oh, my god.”
I dropped a kiss on her upturned face. I couldn’t help it. She blinked, surprised, then took a swift, guilty look around, like she was expecting people we knew to pop out yelling, surprise!
“I’m not your boss here,” I reminded her. To prove my point, I kissed her again, longer this time and with a slide of my tongue against hers.
“I think we both know that logic only works as long as no one finds out,” she said when we pulled apart, her lips damp from my kiss.
“And what happens if someone finds out?” I asked. “You think anyone is really going to care?”She smacked my shoulder. “Of course people are going to care. It’s hard enough getting anyone to take a woman seriously in this business. Have you seen the statistics? Women and girls dominate the amateur fields in every horse sport. But when it comes to making horses our careers, we get pushed down and out. Even my own dad—” She broke off, shook her head, pressed her lips into a flat line.
Like a girl. That was what he had said to her. Anger on her behalf simmered in my stomach. Carl Campos was one of the most respected trainers in the business. The man might be brilliant with horses, but I was beginning to suspect he was also downright stupid. If he’d had one lick of sense, James would still be at Blue Skies instead of here with me.
“I respect you, James. You’re a damn good horse trainer. The progress you’ve made with Belle is nothing short of incredible.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, “but it’s not your opinion I’m worried about.”
Oh. Well.
Not gonna lie, that stung a little.
Something of that sting must have shown up on my face because she laughed and tucked her arm through mine like that was a totally natural thing to do.
“I meant that in a good way, Adam. Not like your opinion doesn’t matter to me. It does.” She sat down on a stone wall and pulled me down next to her. “I’m saying that you never made me feel anything less than respected. Not after we sorted the Ben stuff out.”
“So what are you worried about, then?” I asked.
She heaved a sigh. “What everyone else will think. What my dad will think. In this industry, women drop like flies. If I’m banging the boss? I’m the one they’ll think less of. You, they’ll high five.”
She wasn’t wrong. I knew that.
“You know why my dad wouldn’t promote me?” she asked. When I shook my head, she continued, “He thought investing in a woman was a bad business decision. Because someday, she’d want to pull back. She’d get married or pregnant and want to focus more on her family. Leave the money-making to her husband. And then he’d be left needing to replace her. All I ever wanted was to run Blue Skies Farm shoulder-to-shoulder with my dad. And all he ever wanted was to see me married and popping out grandbabies.”
“Are you serious? Jesus, that’s awful.” I couldn’t fathom it. Her own father thought promoting her was bad business? What an idiot. Hiring James was the best decision Lodestar Ranch had ever made.
“He would never say that a woman couldn’t do the job, although he believes that the woman who could do it well is pretty rare. But he thinks a woman shouldn’t. Better to leave it to a man. Because a man can’t have babies, you see. That’s what women are for. She should be home to raise kids and cook dinner.” She wrinkled her nose. “I guarantee that if people find out about us, that’s what they’ll say. They’ll ask when we’re getting married. When we’re having kids. They’ll say I found myself a nice, cushy exit plan.”
“You can do both,” I said. That seemed important to clarify. “If you wanted to.” I was out of my depth here, half panicked at the mere mention of marriage and babies. My chest felt too tight for my heart.
Her lips quirked. “With you?”
“What?” A drop of cold sweat ran down my spine.
She burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. Trust me, Adam, I am not asking you to have babies with me. Putting aside the fact that I don’t even know if I want babies, your ex screwed you up. I don’t think you’ve dealt with that yet.”
Our arms were still linked. Her fingers idly sifted the hair on my forearm like we were discussing the weather instead of my ex’s dying wish to be free of me. I didn’t know why it felt like that mattered, but it did. It felt like that mattered a whole hell of a lot.
What would make her let go?
“Marriage, babies…I don’t know if I can do that again,” I said carefully. “I don’t know if I want to.”
Her fingers stopped playing with me. I braced. But her arm stayed tucked through mine as she asked, “What do you want?”
“I realize this is the wrong thing to say to the woman I spent all weekend in bed with, but I don’t have a fucking clue, buttercup.” I glanced down at her hand on my forearm. She didn’t let go. We sat there, connected, while I cut myself open and showed her the mess inside. Somehow that connection made me keep going. “I want more than a weekend fling. I know that much. But I don’t know what more means or what it looks like.”
She hummed a little at that. Her fingers resumed their soft, fluttering strokes.
It struck me all of a sudden that this was something new. Sitting, touching, talking. The intimacy of it. Emily and I had never done this. We had never talked about our feelings other than the standard I love you and I miss you. Our conversations had never gone deeper than that. We had never worked through a problem together. At the time, I had thought that was because we didn’t have any problems. We were perfect together. What was there to discuss?
Obviously, I had been wrong about that. So damn wrong. Maybe if we had spent time like this, I would have realized that sooner. Maybe I would have been able to fix whatever it was she needed that I wasn’t giving her.
“What if we just…keep doing this?” she asked.
“Doing what?”
“This. What we’re doing right now. When we’re at Lodestar, we keep everything professional. And when we’re not…” She grinned. “That’s no one’s business but our own.”
“You want to keep us a secret?”
“For now. I’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to throw away my reputation now. My career is just getting started. There’s so much I want to accomplish, but I can’t do any of it if people don’t respect me enough to give me a chance. You understand, right?”
I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood it.
I wasn’t a forever guy. Why should she toss aside her reputation for a relationship that was going to end eventually anyway? That wasn’t something I could ask her to do. I respected her and her career too much for that. If she wanted to keep us a secret, fine. I would take my time basking in her sunshine for as long as she would have me.
And when she decided it was time to let me go, I would take that, too.