18
Bad boy magnet
“We kissed. Again.”
A beat of silence, then Jackie gave a husky laugh. “Damn, girl. You wanna start with a warning next time?”
“I’m in so much trouble,” Brandy-Lyn admitted, settling against a pile of pillows.
With her cellphone wedged between her shoulder and ear, she drew her knees up and propped the tablet holder against them.
On the iPad screen, a grainy image in muted shades of blue and grey showed the paddock stretching out under a faint shimmer of moonlight, its fence lines casting short, soft shadows across the dirt.
Her eyes tracked the tall solitary figure moving across it.
His gait was slow, measured, shoulders slightly hunched as if the night pressed down on him.
The pale outline of his sweatshirt caught enough light to silhouette him as he reached out and rested his hand on the fence post.
And bowed his head.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
He looked defeated.
She ached to get up, to run to him, to gather him in her arms like she had earlier in the treehouse. To hold him, protect him, whisper that it would be okay.
That it would get easier.
That healing was possible.
But she couldn’t.
He didn’t want her near him.
And she needed to respect his wishes.
Still, she didn’t look away, ignoring the stab of guilt for spying, because dammit — she had to know he was okay.
“So much trouble,” she repeated, following the figure pacing in Elsa’s paddock.
She hadn’t been able to shake the way Rafferty kissed her. That reckless kiss that felt like it carried the weight of a hundred unsaid things. It hadn’t been sweet or careful; it had been desperate, like he thought she might vanish if he didn’t hold on tight enough.
And she hadn’t hesitated — not for a second. She’d kissed him back like she meant it. Because she had. Because somewhere deep down, she’d been waiting for that exact kind of madness.
The way his hands gripped her hair, like it grounded him.
The way his voice cracked when he asked her to tell him to stop.
Even as his whole body begged her not to.
She could still feel the tremble in his breath, the quiet plea in his eyes when he looked at her like she was salvation.
And when she’d told him not to stop — whispered it into his mouth like a vow — she’d meant that too.
No turning back.
Not from him.
Not anymore.
“It was … intense. Honest. Like he wasn’t sure he should but kissing me was a …
compulsion. And I kissed him back because, dammit, there was no way I could not.
And I wouldn’t have stopped at kisses either.
He could’ve thrown me down, ripped my clothes off, fucked me senseless right there on my office floor, and I would’ve been okay with that. ”
Brandy exhaled, slow and shaky. “And that was after he told me he’d been Kamila’s lover.”
“Who’s Kamila?”
“Fantasma Cartel boss,” she hissed.
There was a dead silence for a beat before Jackie continued. “Maybe I need some context here?”
Knowing her confession wouldn’t go further than Jackie, Brandy gave her best friend a summarized version of the day’s events, starting with her inviting herself on the ride to repair the fence line, to Rafferty’s breakdown in the treehouse, and ending with his confession about his relationship with Kamila.
“And then we kissed. And he walked out.”
“Oh. Well, damn. That’s … complicated.”
“Complicated?” she snorted. “I have kids, Jackie. Teenagers. Hormonal, social-media-obsessed, no-filter teenagers. What am I thinking? Mooning over a self-confessed cartel member. He said he felt at home with those people. Accepted. I should be running as far from him as possible. Not lying in my bed yearning for another kiss. For more .”
Jackie made a noncommittal noise. “You’re thinking what any hot-blooded woman would think when a haunted, dangerous man kisses her. You’re thinking — why not?”
“I’m drawn to him,” Brandy groused. “He’s like some bad boy magnet pulled straight from a cautionary tale.”
“Hmm.”
“Not helping.”
“You’ve always settled for the good ones, you know that?
The clean-cut, polite, mama’s-boy types.
Like Sully and Rich. But none of ’em stuck.
Maybe it’s not that they were wrong — it’s that they weren’t your kind of right.
Maybe, deep down, you’ve been holdin’ out all this time for the bad boy you met all those years ago. ”
“That’s ridiculous,” she muttered half-heartedly.
“Is it?”
Brandy glanced down at the iPad. Rafferty’s hand moved slowly down Elsa’s neck as the mare rested her head on his shoulder.
“He never sleeps,” she added in a whisper, her chest tightening. “He looks like a man being hunted by his own memories.”
Jackie’s voice softened. “That’s because he probably is.”
“I know.” How she wanted to have him share his burden. Let her carry his load for a while. But he refused.
“Brandy-Lyn.” Jackie’s voice sharpened. “You need to be careful. You’re not just falling for a man — you’re falling for a man still trying to figure out if he’s someone worth loving. And if you really want him . . . you’re gonna have to wait him out. Let him do the work. Let him heal.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then it wasn’t meant to be,” Jackie said simply. “But you’ll walk away knowing you didn’t try to fix him, didn’t bend yourself into knots to earn love he wasn’t able to give.”
Like I did with Mom . The thought surfaced before she could stop it — sharp-edged and bitter.
And look where that had gotten her? A childhood spent chasing scraps of affection, endless years of asking herself what was so wrong with her, why she was never enough.
She didn’t want that with Rafferty. “I know.” She closed her eyes, nodding even though Jackie couldn’t see it. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And on that note …” Jackie drawled. “It’s way past midnight. I need my beauty sleep. So do you. And for goodness’ sake, no more spying on your emotionally unavailable bad boy with the morally ambiguous past.”
Brandy said goodnight and hung up, her gaze returning to the iPad screen. Her finger hovered over the close button.
Rafferty stood at the gate now. He looked directly at the camera.
And shook his head at her.