Chapter 40
NEIGH OF APPROVAL
ROWAN
She’s gorgeous. Simply spectacular. A blonde bombshell, endlessly tall, with sculpted legs. Impossible to look away from.
“This is Honey. Isn’t she a beaut?” asks the white-haired man with the barrel chest. Hank Lennox is his name.
“Stunning,” I say as I stare at the Belgian draft horse patiently waiting outside the barn.
The older man pats the horse’s haunches. “She’s seventeen hands high,” he says proudly.
“What does she weigh? About eighteen hundred pounds?”
He gives an approving smile. “Yes. How’d you do that?”
“Grew up near a horse farm. My sister rode all the time, so I got to know these beautiful beasts,” I say, then offer my palm to the horse. She licks a long line across it.
“Then, you should spend a little time with Honey after the ride. She’s very social.”
I look at Isla, who’s grinning.
“We’d love that. She’s majestic,” Isla says, then holds out her hand too. She gets a kiss as well. “Aww, I love her.”
“We all feel the same,” Hank says, then strokes Honey’s muzzle. “I’m gonna miss her the most when I retire someday. She sure enjoys her job and relishes being the only lady here at Silver Bells Sleigh Rides.”
I glance around at the big red barn with the sleigh parked in front of it. It looks like something from a painting—nestled in the snowy foothills at the edge of town. Towering evergreen trees hug the perimeter of the farm, dusted with snow. Dusk spreads across the entrance to the forest.
Hank sighs happily, then strokes the gorgeous creature’s mane once more. “Don’t you worry, Honey. Noah will take good care of you.”
I tilt my head as the sound of boots crunching through snow grows louder behind me. I’m guessing that’s Noah.
Hank nods at the sound. “That’s my grandson. He’ll be taking you out tonight. Helping an old man out,” he adds, lowering his voice. “He doesn’t say much. Don’t take it personally.”
Isla stares at the man approaching in a sheepskin jacket, boots, and a cowboy hat. His beard is thicker than mine. “Are you Doctor Lennox’s brother?” she asks. “You look just like him.”
“That’s how it works with identical twins,” the man in the cowboy hat says dryly, without moving a muscle in his face.
“Right. Sure,” she says, and damn, this broody dude makes me look like a charmer.
“Anyhoo,” Hank cuts in, clapping his grandson—taller than him—on the shoulder. “We’ve got you booked for a romantic sleigh ride through the hills. We’ve got a blanket and some Christmas music, and I promise it’s going to be…magical. How about a picture?”
I remember Everly’s comment after the game last night. I’ll be dead to her if I don’t get a snap. “Let’s do it,” I say, and Isla nods.
We pose for a few pics on and off the sleigh, with Hank saying, “Fantastic, this one’s great, so terrific” after each shot.
When he’s done, he makes a show of emailing them to me, then nods to his grandson. “They’re all yours.”
Noah turns to us, a scowl underneath that beard. “No funny business on the sleigh.”
I straighten my spine. “Copy that.”
I wasn’t planning on any funny business. At least, not yet.
The sleigh is shaped like a black swan with elegant curves and gleaming wood. Noah hops into the driver’s seat, tips his cowboy hat lower, then pats Honey’s haunches. “Good girl,” he says, and it’s clear he saves his affection for the animals.
Then he takes the reins in hand and says firmly, “Drive, Honey.”
“He didn’t use a crop,” Isla whispers as we settle into the red-upholstered seat. I pull a blanket over her legs.
“You think I’d take you on a sleigh ride where they hurt the horse? No way. My teammates wouldn’t go for that either,” I say, then tell her the guys gave this to me.
She smiles but her brow knits. “Was that hard though? Them not knowing the truth?”
The horse trots along a well-worn path in the woods at sunset.
Golden light glitters against the snow-frosted branches of the trees, turning the whole place into a picture-perfect Christmassy scene.
“Nah,” I say. “They’re so focused on making sure I don’t fuck it up. That’s literally all they care about.”
“It doesn’t bother you that they don’t know the truth?”
I’m quiet for a beat as I consider her question. But the thing is, I’m not worried. For one reason. “Well…even if we’re faking it, the dates are still real,” I say, then set a hand on her thigh.
“True,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced.
“Isla, I’m having a great time with you. That’s all real. You have to know that,” I say as a hush falls around us. Only the clop of the horse’s feet and the faint notes of “Silver Bells” playing from a speaker in the driver’s seat drift past my ears.
“I do,” she says, emphatic, certain.
But I want her to know beyond a reasonable doubt. I lean closer. “Even if we’re fake-dating, when it’s you and me out like this, or when it’s you and me alone—hell, whenever we’re together, know this—everything is all real.”
She seems to fight off a smile, but then fails. “Really?”
“Really. So tell me what’s wrong?”
She draws a breath, then blows it out, making a cloud in the chilly air. “I told my friends the truth today. I just couldn’t lie to them anymore.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought about how that might feel for her. Awful probably. “Totally understand. It’s different with you and your friends,” I say.
“It is. I needed them to know.”
“I hear you. Do you feel better that you told them?”
“A lot better.” Then she laughs, and it’s self-deprecating. “I mean, you know how twisted up I was about doing a thing with you when you were a client.”
I drape an arm around her. “Is that all that’s on your mind? Or something else?”
Isla seems to blink off whatever it was since she shakes her head. “I’m all good,” she says, then gazes around as if she’s soaking in the snowy hills, the endless forest, the clean air. She turns to me. “I’ve always wanted to do this again—a sleigh ride. As an adult.”
“You never have?”
She shakes her head. “Only as a kid. It’s a little different now.”
I squeeze her thigh. “Hopefully different is good.”
“Very good,” she says as Honey’s tail swishes back and forth, and Noah barks commands in a low voice as he guides the sleigh through the hills.
“Guess what?”
“What?”
“It’s my first,” I whisper, and that feels fuck-all vulnerable.
“You never went with your sister growing up?”
“I was too busy with hockey. But I liked feeding the horses and taking care of them. Guess it’s a first for both of us.”
She slides her hand under the blanket, finding mine, looping our fingers together.
Warmth floods me, even in the cold night with this peacoat on.
This woman? She just warms me up with this steady, calm feeling, like I could…
depend on her. Rely on her. “Never done something like this before. Never with Regina. Or anyone else,” I say, since it’s important Isla knows this is for her.
“Good. I like that.” She sounds enchanted.
It’s a good sound. I want her to sound like that again and again. Hell, I want to be the one to enchant her.
“Me too,” I say, then drop a kiss to her cheek—and I’m immediately struck by how good she smells. “Have I told you that you smell incredible?”
“Do I?” she asks, flirty.
“Like cherries. Sweet and tart. And like a woman who wants me to fuck her among the trees.”
She wrenches away, her lips parting at first, followed by a flash of nervous laughter. Then her eyes flare with heat, with blue flames. Thank fuck. Was hoping I didn’t push her too far.
I’m not sure where that came from, but sometimes you take your chances.
“Rowan,” she says—half a chide, half an invitation.
“Am I wrong?”
She parts her lips, shiny in the winter air. “How did you know?”
I sweep more of her hair away from her neck and drop a kiss to her skin, murmuring as I go, “The way you looked at me back at the Christmas tree farm in Cozy Valley. Like wild thoughts were racing through your head.”
She bites the corner of her lips. But she’s shuddering, trembling. Then she says, “I do.”
I groan—try to stifle it. “I’m going to make that happen.”
“How?”
“Do you trust me?”
Her eyes flash with vulnerability, then she nods. “You know I do.”
And as the driver maneuvers the sleigh down a snow-covered path, I kiss Isla as stars wink on in the winter sky.
Yeah, it’s ridiculously romantic. But this woman deserves it.
And maybe…I do too.
Where the hell did that thought come from? And why do I like it so much?
When the ride ends, with Honey coming to a gentle stop inside the barn, Noah hops off the driver’s seat and quickly unhitches Honey from the sleigh. He walks her to a trough and offers her some water, while I hold out a hand to Isla, who steps down from our seat.
After Honey drinks ten thousand gallons, Noah takes her to her stall and shuts the stall door, grumbling, “You can stroke her muzzle, but you’d better be gentle.”
“Promise,” I say.
“We will,” Isla adds.
He huffs like he doesn’t believe it, but the sound is drowned out by a phone bleating like an alarm. It’s coming from the driver. He whips it from his pocket. “Lennox here.”
There’s a pause as he listens. Isla shoots me a curious look.
“I’ll be right there,” Noah says.
When he hits end, he turns to us, his expression stoic. “I need to help my brother. He’s out, but one of his patients needs a shot. Allergic reaction.”
“Go, go,” Isla says, shooing him off.
“Can’t leave you here alone,” Noah says.
“Oh, right. We can take off,” Isla says, but she sounds disappointed. That won’t do. If Isla wants to spend time with a horse, she should damn well be able to.
“I’m good with horses,” I offer.
Noah scoffs. “You need to go.”