Chapter 14
14
GAbrIEL
S he looks up at me, her hair now flying into her face and my hand itching to push it away from her eyes. But instead, I take off my cowboy hat and hold it in my hand because in ten seconds I’m going to be kissing the shit out of her. “I told you that you were safe with me”—my lips hover over hers—“and I meant it, Sweetheart.” My lips slowly cover hers, she inhales right before, giving my tongue a chance to lick her bottom lip before sliding into her mouth. It’s a soft wet kiss and gets my cock up, ready to slide into her again.
My horse whinnies beside us and Zara laughs and backs away. “Apparently, your horse does not like to share you.” I tuck her hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry, big guy, I won’t take him from you.” She walks over to Chopper and pets his neck, who just turns to look at her. “He’s all yours.”
“Now wait a minute,” I cut in, “I think I can speak for myself.” She softly giggles and that has to be sexier than her laughing, which is high on my list of what I like about Zara.
I point at Chopper. “You, stop flirting with my girl.” He glares at me, this fucker. “You.” I point at Zara. “Come with me and let’s see who you bond with.” Turning on my boot, I put my cowboy hat back on.
She jogs a bit to catch up to me. “Who I bond with?” she questions when she gets beside me. “I don’t think I bond with anyone.”
We walk into the stable at the back and she gasps as she looks down the hall where five stalls are located on each side. “This is my Uncle Quinn’s place,” I tell her as we slowly walk down the concrete hallway. “They have all been rescued and are ready to start working with people.”
“What do you mean?” She looks at me as we pass the first set of stalls.
“We rescue the horses and then train them so they can work with people who are in therapy.” I smile at her as she looks amazed. “He deals with a whole slew of people, but he is really set on domestic violence survivors and military members who suffer from PTSD.”
“That’s amazing,” she says with wonder in her eyes.
“This here is Misty.” I point at the brown horse who is watching us, unsure. “Daisy.” I point across from her, seeing another girl who is also a little apprehensive. We walk down the whole row as I point out Sugar, Holly, Sierra, Poppy, and Serenity. “My newest girl," I say, pointing at the last stall, “Fireball.” She laughs at the name. The white horse just leers at me. “Don’t laugh, she fucking hates me with everything in her.”
“I find it hard to believe that anyone could hate you, Gabriel,” she murmurs softly, walking to the stall. I am two steps behind her, making sure Fireball doesn’t nip at her, like she used to do.
“Then meet the first person to hate me,” I tell her as she gets to the gate and Fireball comes over to her.
“Hi,” she coos, “I’m Zara.”
“Hold out your hand so she can smell you,” I tell her and she does what I say.
“I don’t like him either, most times,” she says of me and I put my hands on my hips and shake my head laughing. “Like this morning after he left, I didn’t like him at all.” Zara side-eyes me. “We said we would keep things between us and he didn’t do that.”
“What are you talking about, Sweetheart?” I ask her.
“Don’t think you can soften me up by calling me Sweetheart,” she chides while Fireball goes to her hand and sniffs it. “Besides, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to her.” She turns back around. “Imagine my surprise when Sofia calls me and asks me if I slept with her cousin Gabriel.” I look up at the ceiling of the barn. “Because he called her and asked her for my number.”
“How was I supposed to get it?” I cut into her conversation with the horse.
“And instead of asking me for my number, he calls my sister-in-law,” she answers the horse and not me.
“Would you have given me your number if I asked for it?”
“He will never know if I would have given it to him or not since he didn’t ask me first,” she confides to Fireball, whose tail flies up, scaring her.
“That means she probably agrees with you,” I reassure her.
“Obviously, she agrees with me.” She doesn’t even look at me. “She looks like she is a great judge of character.”
“Do you want to ride her?” I finally ask her, and she tries to hide the smile at first, but it fills her face.
“Can I ride you, pretty girl?” she asks her. “And you have to promise not to freak me out.” Fireball just steps back, waiting for the gate to open.
I step in front of Zara before opening the gate and reaching out for her halter. “Come on, girl, let’s get a saddle on you.”
“That isn’t going to, like, hurt her, is it?” Zara asks me as she steps out of the way for Fireball to walk out of her stall. “If it’s going to hurt her, we can do this another time.”
“It’s not going to hurt her, Sweetheart,” I assure her softly. “Do you want to walk her to her saddle?”
She scoffs. “No.” She shakes her head. “What if she is like, ‘I’m going to dip as soon as he lets me go,’ and she escapes and gets lost in the woods?”
“Zara.” I try not to laugh.
“What? She might not want this life for herself.”
“Her old owners used to dope her up and make her perform at kiddie birthday parties,” I fill her in, earning a gasp. “So she may be stubborn, but I think she’s happier.”
“Fine.” She gives in when we stop for a second.
“I’m going to get you a saddle and bridle,” I tell her. “Watch her.”
I don’t wait for her to think twice before walking away, but listen to her conversation. “I’m going to need you not to escape while he’s gone,” she tells her. “He may seem like a brute sometimes, but he’s a really good kisser.” I silently laugh. “Not the best I’ve had, but it’s decent.”
“I heard that,” I say, peeking around the wall.
“That was a test, and you failed.” She ignores looking at me and instead keeps talking to Fireball. “He also doesn’t respect people’s privacy.”
I grab the saddle off the rack and walk back to them. “I respect your privacy,” I inform her. “It’s why I didn’t get my Uncle Casey to get me your number.” I throw the saddle on Fireball. “You’re welcome.”
“I would have killed you,” she hisses. “That’s not funny. We said it was between us.”
“And it is.” I cinch the saddle under Fireball’s chest. “I didn’t kiss you in front of everyone.”
“That was a good decision on your part since I would have kneed you where the sun doesn’t shine, and then you’d be icing the boys for weeks to come.”
I turn back to her. “Good to know that’s where you draw the line.” I tilt my head to the side to kiss her lips. “Now let’s get you out there.”
We walk outside to the arena where we train the horses. “I don’t know about this.” She hesitates as we get closer and closer to the inside of the arena. “Why don’t I just walk with her?”
“No,” I tell her, “you are going to get on that horse and do something new.”
“Wow, bossy much?” she snarks. “It’s no wonder no one likes you.”
I roll my lips not to laugh at her. “Okay, so you are going to get up on her like you got on with me before,” I remind her, “and when you get up, hold on to the horn.”
“The horn? What is a horn?” The look of panic is in her eyes and written all over her face.
“The little handle thing.” I point at it, and she nods. “Now, let’s go. Daylight is a wasting.”
“You really need to stop saying that. You sound like you’re a hundred years old,” she huffs as she puts her foot in the stirrup and gets on. “Hold on to the horn,” she repeats my instructions and once she is still for a full ten seconds, she looks over at me with glee. “I did it.”
“You did,” I praise her. “Now hold this.” I hand her the two reins. “When you pull back, it will make her stop,” I instruct her, and she just holds them in her hands. “Don’t hold them tight, or else she won’t move. You hold them loose enough for her to go but tighten when you want her to stop.”
“That’s a lot of information for a beginner,” she mumbles.
“Here is what we are going to do. I’m going to walk with you around the arena.” She nods. “Then we’ll let Fireball take you for a ride.”
“Um,” she hums as I pull the reins for Fireball to start walking, “I don’t really think we should let Fireball take me for a ride.”
I look up at her as she looks down at the horse, and I know I have to get her to forget what she’s doing. “What do you do for work?”
“I’m an interior designer and stager,” she replies, and I look up at her. “So if you are selling a house and you want it to look like it’s in a magazine, you call me. Or if you buy a house and don’t know what to do with it, you also call me, and I’ll decorate it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I work with my mother, who is a real estate agent, so when she has clients whose houses are a touch either too old or too cluttered, she calls me in and I work magic.”
“So you’re a magician.” I smile up at her. “You should come over to my place and let me know what is working and what isn’t.”
“You just want me to come to your place so you can show me your bedroom.” She side-eyes me.
“I mean, if you are offering.” I wink at her, and she shakes her head, but I see she’s getting a bit more comfortable. “Where do you live?”
“I live in New York City. Daniel and I had a townhouse in Brooklyn, but now I guess you would say I’m between places.”
“Do you like the city?” I ask her, and she shrugs.
“It’s where I’ve always lived, so it’s like home to me.”
“What’s your favorite thing about the city?”
“That I can get my groceries delivered to me and also they have takeout restaurants on every corner.” She laughs.
“Those would be reasons I would hate living in the city.” She looks over at me as we make a full circle of the arena. “I can’t imagine walking into a store and someone not knowing my name. It’s just?—”
“Yeah, I can see that,” she caves, “but it’s great when you want to just fade into the background.”
“Sweetheart, there is no way you can fade into anything,” I tell her and she smiles at me. “You walk into the room, and it’s like all eyes are on you.”
“Thank you; you aren’t so bad yourself.”
I laugh. “What’s your favorite holiday?”
“Christmas,” she states as if she’s a little girl gushing over it. “I love, love, love Christmas. From the decorations to the cookies that I wish I knew how to bake to buying gifts for my family.” She just gushes over it and doesn’t notice that Fireball is trotting. “I just love the smell of a fresh tree and then drinking a nice cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows.” She stops talking when she realizes I’m not beside her, and she is ahead of me as Fireball moves gently with her. “Oh my God, I’m doing it. We are doing it, Fireball.” The excitement on her face is everything. I stand to the side as she goes turn after turn after turn, her eyes brighter than the stars on a dark night. “You are such a good girl.”
“When you want her to stop, all you have to do is pull her reins back,” I instruct her as I watch her go around and around with her. I sit on the top of the fence, just watching her.
“This is the most fun I think I’ve had in my whole life,” she announces from the other side of the arena as she pulls back a touch. “We should slow down, girl, so we can get you some water,” she tells Fireball, who slows to a walk.
Jumping off the top of the fence, I wait for her to walk by me before reaching out for her. “Did you see me?” She looks down at me. “I was riding a horse.”
“I did, Sweetheart. All you needed was to trust yourself.”
“I don’t know if I trust myself at all,” she admits softly. “I mean, look at my life.”
“Look at it,” I urge her. “You have a great business. You have a great family. You are alive and living.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“Yeah, but what?” I ask her. “So it didn’t work out with him. It’s not the end of the world. At least you found out now and not when you had two kids with him.” I don’t stop talking.
She turns her head to me. “Go with your gut.”
“Yeah, look at where my gut got me.”
I smirk up at her. “Exactly, look at where it got you”—I wink at her—“here with me.”