Chapter Six #4
“I didn’t know you’d commissioned a new colorway, sir.” Marco headed to another storeroom. He stopped before he got to the door, turned back to Jasper, and asked, “What color is it, sir?”
“Turquoise,” Jasper said without stalling, and my heart thudded to a complete stop. Jasper met my eyes and ran his tongue over his lips. “I want her wearing turquoise.”
It was pitch black by the time we finished.
I was bone tired, but energy flowed through me with the force of a million cups of coffee as Jasper pulled up to the back door in his Range Rover.
I went to rush through the pouring rain to get in when he opened the driver’s-side door and dashed around to open the passenger door for me instead.
He didn’t say anything, but gestured for me to get in.
The sight made me a little weak at the knees.
I was dressed in gym leggings and an oversize Knighton Equestrian sweater that Marco had handed us to wear when we got cold in between shots.
I felt I looked too rough and underdressed to step into a car that likely cost more than many people’s homes.
But when Jasper said tightly, “Ms. Oakley,” and flicked his head—an instruction to get in—my legs moved of their own accord, and I jumped into the seat.
I almost groaned as I sank into the butter-soft leather. Jasper was in the driver’s side in seconds, pushing his hand through his now-wet hair. It was so dark with the rain it looked like strands of black ink.
As Jasper put on his seat belt, I said, “Hallie.”
Jasper looked up through heavy dark lashes and pinned me with his midnight gaze.
I swallowed under his heavy attention. He raised an eyebrow.
He looked so dominant in that moment, I almost had to look away.
But I held strong. I swallowed. “You keep calling me Ms. Oakley,” I said, my voice sounding too loud in the quiet car.
“I’d prefer it if you called me Hallie.”
He stared at me as I put that to him again. I was trying to keep a distance, keep professional, but Jasper referring to me by my formal name just seemed strange. We could be civil and friendly without crossing any lines.
We had to.
“You’d prefer it,” he said, not a question, just a murmur to himself.
“Yes, please,” I replied plainly, ignoring the hint of authority in his voice, then shivered as the rain and cold from today seemed to sink into my soul.
Jasper must have noticed, as he began pressing buttons, and in seconds my car seat warmed up and the vents directly opposite me on the dashboard blew hot air over my frozen frame.
I settled back, enjoying the warmth thawing the chill, when the seat began to vibrate and I realized it was giving me a massage.
I moaned a little in surprise, and Jasper’s grip became so tight on the steering wheel that the leather creaked under his hands. The heat from the chair and vents must have been too hot, because suddenly, every part of me felt alight.
Jasper pulled out of the parking lot and onto the back roads that led to Golden Oaks.
It had taken us an hour to get here this morning, and it quickly dawned on me: I was stuck in this car with Jasper for that long going home.
And he wasn’t saying anything. There was no music playing, and the heavy silence was making my head spin.
This was awkward. I knew it was going to be awkward, but I couldn’t take an hour of this.
He was too sullen, too silent . . . too goddamn close to me.
I cast him a sideways glance. His mouth was tight, his hands gripped the wheel even tighter, causing the muscles in his forearms to ripple and veins to push from his skin.
It shouldn’t have been that attractive. But it was maddeningly hot, and I snapped my focus out the windshield to think of anything else.
After another five minutes of unbearable, strained silence, I blurted, “Thank you for taking me home.” I had to say something, or I was going to scream.
I wasn’t the loudest person by any stretch, but being in a car with someone I not only admired but was also highly attracted to—even though his attitude was less than desired—was too much for me to take.
Jasper glanced at me from the side of his eye. “I made you stay late.”
Okaayyy. He didn’t want to talk. Great. Maybe I’d mistaken the heat in his gaze at the fountain. Maybe I’d been wrong about it all and he really was just pissed at me for invading his family’s barn and seeing him upset.
I stared out the window, trying to take in the views, but the rain was lashing at the glass, and it was too black outside to see a thing anyway.
All I saw was my reflection and my cheeks deflating when exhaling a long breath.
But it felt like there was a crackle in the air between us, even more so, when in that same reflection, I saw Jasper look over to me and his tongue lick along his lips as he did.
I almost groaned again. I was so confused and overthinking every little thing.
“Can I put some music on?” I asked suddenly and turned to face him. It was that or ask him to pull over and put his tongue to other uses.
Jasper flicked the icon on his dash for music, and I began scrolling through the thousands of stations it offered. I smiled when I landed on a favorite.
As Lainey Wilson’s beautiful voice began pouring from the speakers, I couldn’t help my knee bouncing to the beat and singing along in a very low tone.
Every time I heard this song, a pang of homesickness hit me.
Not for Silvercrest, but for the ranch I only got to visit once a year if I was lucky. Three Hill Ranch. My true home.
I felt Jasper’s eyes on me. This time, when I turned to him, he didn’t look away.
“Where in the south are you from?” His voice was tight and strained, like he’d had to force himself to speak to me.
It made me smile a little, knowing that he clearly couldn’t take the tension of our weird standoff we’d found ourselves in either.
“Originally, Texas,” I said, and my mind instantly conjured up the magical glow of an orange sunset, the sound of crickets in the long grass and the dust from the cattle fields that would stick to your skin after a hard day’s ranching.
Lainey sang of wildflowers and wild horses, and I understood the lyrics in a visceral sense.
I knew what it was to be raised on those hardworking ranches and working dawn until dusk.
“Originally?” Jasper asked, taking me from my pangs of homesickness. His hands were still tight on the steering wheel, but he was talking, which was more than I thought I’d get on this journey.
“I moved to Florida when I was twelve.” I left it at that.
Jasper exhaled slowly, like he was allowing himself to lessen the pressure he had on keeping himself locked up tight, and said, “I’ve spent some time in Florida.” I was taken back to another memory as he said that. “Where in Florida are you from?”
“Ocala.”
“That’s where I once stayed,” he said, a hint of a question in his words. I watched him search my face, I assumed double-checking whether he knew me.
“I know,” I said, and Jasper’s suspicious expression demanded answers. I wiped my palms down the thighs of my leggings. “My aunt owns Silvercrest.”
Jasper frowned. “Jeanie?”
I nodded. “I went to live with her when I was twelve.” Silence met me. When I looked to Jasper, this time, his expression was softer, sympathetic. He got it. A kid didn’t leave their home in Texas to live with a relative in a completely different state unless there was tragedy involved.
“I like Jeanie. She knew my father well. I spoke to her on the circuit from time to time when she was there to check on the horses Silvercrest had trained,” he said.
His uptight frame screamed that he kept a tight lid on everything.
Every word he said seemed weighed and measured.
It made me want to crack him open and see what was inside.
To break the towering wall he kept himself hidden behind.
And to understand why.
But nevertheless, I smiled as he brought up my aunt. “She’s the best,” I said. “I miss her like crazy.”
Chris Stapleton came on the radio next, and I tapped my finger on my knee to the beat. I loved this song. “So from age twelve, you grew up at Silvercrest?” Jasper asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“It’s an incredible facility,” Jasper said, and that made me happy. My aunt had worked so hard to make it what it was.
“It is. The best in the US,” I said, proudly.
There was hesitation in Jasper’s frame, until he asked quietly, “What do you think of Golden Oaks?” There seemed to be an echo of vulnerability in his tone.
It warmed my heart for some reason. Maybe it was because he always seemed so cold and closed off.
Apart from seeing him with Henry the night he was drunk, and how affectionate he was to his stallion, he never gave off any warmth.
I smiled, and the force of it made my cheeks ache after today’s shoot.
Jasper sucked in a quick breath as it did.
“I love it. Everything about it is perfection.” Jasper nodded, and his body lost some of its tension.
“It’s truly an honor to ride for y’all.” This time it was Jasper’s turn to smile.
A little. A hint of a smile. It was barely there, but I caught it, regardless.
I eyed him with humor. “Watch out. I get real country when I’m tired.”
“Noted,” he said, dryly, but the ghost of his smile was still there.
The atmosphere in the car seemed lighter after we spoke. The tension had eased somehow. There were a million things I wanted to ask. But I’d only just gotten him to stop scowling at me, so I thought it best to tread carefully.
“I spoke to you at Silvercrest, you know,” I said, and Jasper turned to me in surprise, like he was trying to place it.