Chapter 6
Mallory
I’m sitting on the couch in our cabin, watching The Notebook with the girls. Wasn’t my choice. It’s been a busy day so far. We did a sunrise trail ride, stopping at the base of Vista Peak for a fireside breakfast. It was invigorating. The air was cool, the view stunning.
I was partnered with Cinnamon again, which I had been hoping for. I like to think she remembered me, since she nuzzled my neck immediately.
We had an early lunch and then went to the cuddle barn, where my pheromones had some serious foreplay with Cam’s. There’s something about him that’s a little familiar, especially with the cowboy hat. Who knew I had a thing for cowboys? Because clearly I do.
That doesn’t mean I need to act on it.
My phone vibrates on my lap, and I look down to see that my mom is FaceTiming me. I step outside and take the call.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. I thought you might want to see what the boys are up to!”
She’s been so great about keeping me connected with the twins. I get pictures and updates throughout the day. She flips the camera to reveal both my boys sitting in a pile of mud, patting the surface and making mud balls.
“Hi, boys! Are you having fun?”
They don’t even notice my voice. They are enthralled with their muddy fun. My mom flips the camera back around, her eyes bright. “What about you? Enjoying the trip?”
“I am, actually. I know you’re not surprised, but I am.”
We both laugh and chat for a few minutes about the day’s events.
“So tell me more about the lightbulb guy.”
I am going to toss Kate into the nearest swimming pool.
“Don’t be mad at your sister. She just said there was a super-hot guy at the calf barn today. She said his eyes never left you.”
Did that actually happen? How could he when all the ladies in that barn couldn’t stop asking him for help or batting their eyes at him? Not that I noticed.
“I don’t think that’s accurate.”
“But you know who I’m talking about.”
“There were three employees there, Mom, so it’s not too hard to figure out.”
A knowing look crosses her features. “It’s good to be noticed, even if nothing comes of it.”
Frustrated, I twist the end of my ponytail. “I need you and Kate to stop trying to set me up with someone. I don’t need a man to complete my life. I am happy. I am fulfilled. And I don’t see either of you having a regular Friday night date.”
“Ouch.” My mom’s word signifies that I pushed too far, but her lack of follow-up lets me know that I hit home.
Another silence, this one softer. Then she says, almost to herself, “Your dad noticed me, you know. Before I ever noticed him. He waited six months before I gave him the time of day.” I go very still.
She smiles at the camera, and it reaches her eyes in that specific way it does when she’s thinking about him.
“Just something to consider.” She flips the camera back to the boys before I can respond, which I suspect is entirely on purpose.
My dad died while my sister and I were still in high school. Even though it seems a lifetime ago, it also seems like yesterday.
Before I can figure out how to respond, Kate’s torso leans into the doorway of our cabin, shoes already on, sunglasses pushed up on her head. “Mallory. Ziplining. Five minutes.”
I hold up the phone. “I’m on with Mom.”
“Hi, Mom! Love you! Bye, Mom!” Kate disappears.
My mother laughs, shaking her head. “Go. We’ll talk later.”
“Mom, I’m sorry.”
“Me too, sweetheart. Go get your zipline on.” Then she pauses just long enough to land. “And maybe notice who’s watching.” She hangs up before I can object.
The zipline was actually fun. I’ll never tell Kate that. Hanging from wires over a creek bed isn’t usually my idea of a good time, but hanging forty feet in the air is something that took me a long time to be able to do on purpose.
The girls want to freshen up before dinner, which is my exit ramp.
I beg off with the sketchpad excuse—not entirely untrue—and follow the string lights toward the stables instead of the cabin.
I just want ten minutes with Cinnamon before the noise of the night starts up.
She doesn’t require anything from me except some apple and my presence, which is my current idea of a perfect relationship.
The stable is warm and dim when I slip inside, the smell of hay and horses settling something in my chest immediately.
Something else threads through the earthy smell, cedar and clean skin, but I file it away without much thought.
A few of the horses shift in their stalls as I pass, registering my presence without alarm.
I find Cinnamon in the fourth stall on the left, and she puts her nose over the door before I even say her name.
“Hi, pretty girl.” I pull the apple slice I grabbed from the dining hall out of my hoodie pocket and offer it on a flat palm. She takes it with the particular delicacy of a horse who knows she’s beloved, and I scratch behind her ear while she chews. “You had a good day today, didn’t you?”
It isn’t a question, and she doesn’t answer it, which is exactly the kind of conversation I prefer.
I’m so settled into the quiet that I don’t register the sounds at the far end of the stable until they stop. A low metallic click, then nothing. I turn.
Cam is crouched in the last stall on the right, a screwdriver in one hand and a hinge plate in the other, watching me with an expression I can’t immediately classify.
“Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t sound particularly apologetic. “Didn’t want to startle you.”
“Hmmm.”
He nods toward Cinnamon. “She likes you.”
I turn back to the horse so he can’t see whatever my face is doing. “She’s just hungry.”
“If you say so, Prickly Pear.”
I don’t respond to that. I scratch Cinnamon’s nose and listen to him go back to work — the soft grunt of a screw that doesn’t want to turn, the quiet knock of metal on wood. It should feel awkward, the two of us in here. It doesn’t, which is its own kind of problem.
“What are you fixing?” I ask because silence with Cam has a texture to it that I don’t entirely trust myself in.
“Hinge on this stall door is pulling away from the frame. Another few days, and it’d be a real problem.
” He tests the door’s swing, frowns at it, and goes back in with the screwdriver.
There’s something about watching a man who knows exactly what he’s doing with his hands.
I track the movement of his forearms as he works the screwdriver, the flex and release of muscle, and I have to deliberately redirect my eyes to Cinnamon before they develop opinions I’m not prepared to act on.
Then the sky outside changes, the wind picking up as the sky turns green. The cicadas stop. That’s the real tell. Because when the cicadas stop, you have about ninety seconds.
“That’s not good,” Cam observes, standing as one of the main barn doors slams shut.
The rain arrives before either of us can even move. It’s just a wall of water hitting the stable roof all at once, followed by rolling thunder. The stable lights flicker once, twice, and go out as lightning cracks through the air.
The stable has gotten smaller somehow. Or he has gotten closer. Either way, the cedar and clean skin smell of him is doing something to my ability to think in complete sentences.
Cinnamon shifts behind me, unbothered. She’s seen worse.
“You okay?” Cam’s voice is husky.
“I’m fine. I like storms.” I turn from Cinnamon’s stall door and lean my back against the frame. “Do you?”
He settles against the post across from me, arms crossed, watching the rain sheet past the open stable entrance at the far end. “Depends on the storm.”
Why does it seem like he’s not talking about the weather?
A clap of thunder catches me off guard, and I stumble into the aisle, trying to catch myself. Cam reaches out, no hesitation, and pulls me close to steady me.
“I like you, Mallory.”
His mouth is a breath away from mine.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
My eyes narrow. “You say that to all the girls you corner in horse barns?”
“Just the ones who sketch me without knowing it.”
“What about Sammie Clarke?”
His voice is abrupt. “There never was anything with Sammie Clarke, and there never will be.”
The way he says it lets the truth of his words show.
I fist his shirt, pulling him toward me, his mouth finding mine as if it already knew the path.
The kiss is warm and unhurried, one of his hands cupping the side of my face like I’m something precious. I forget that I’m a person who has reasons for all of this to be a bad idea. His thumb traces my cheekbone, and I feel it everywhere.
As the rain hammers the roof above us, Cinnamon shifts contentedly in her stall, and I think distantly that I am going to have words with that horse later.
When we pull back, Cam’s forehead drops to mine. He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding that breath for a while.
“Mallory.”
I should say something dry and deflecting. I have several options prepared. I’ve had them prepared since the calf barn, if I’m being honest with myself, which I’m trying not to be. Because I can’t want him. We don’t even live in the same town.
So I say goodnight and walk out into the rain as if this moment meant nothing, no matter what Cinnamon’s disapproving snort implies.
Traitor.