CHAPTER SEVEN SABRINA
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAbrINA
I wake before the alarm. Whenever I set one, my brain gets me up five minutes before it blares. Bolting up, I turn it off.
My heart pounds, but not from the alarm.
Oh God, I slept with him.
A thousand images bolt through my head. The way he looked up at me as he slid down my body and pushed his face between my thighs. This might have been a one-off, but I will never, ever forget that.
He clears his throat, making me jump.
Scrambling from the bed, I hurry around the house and gather up my clothes before darting into the bathroom.
I shut the door and turn on the light. My hair is tousled, and there’s a hickey right above my left breast. Warmth moves through me like a soft rush of water.
I touch my skin, remembering all the kisses he pressed to it.
In the harsh yellow light over the sink, I feel a bit silly for falling into his arms so fast. At the end of the summer, he’ll be gone, and I’ll be another notch in his bedpost. My brows furrow so deep, it hurts.
I hate that thought, but I don’t know why.
Knock, knock.
I pull open the door. He’s standing there in his sweats, looking chiseled and sleepy and incredibly sexy, like he just stepped out of a perfume advertisement.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say.
He shakes his head, slipping in and closing the door. He clears his throat, still half asleep, and slides his arm around my waist, nuzzling against my neck.
“You feel nice,” he mumbles. “Let’s go back to bed.”
It’s hard to think when he’s all over me, but I manage to push him back.
“No, I have to go,” I say firmly.
He sighs, hands on his hips. “Alright. I’ll come with you.”
“I have to ride the fenceline this morning,” I say. “It’ll take at least three hours.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s see how much of a cowboy you really are.”
He laughs, and I pull my clothes on while he disappears into the bedroom to get dressed.
We’re both silent as we slide out the back screen door.
The sun is barely up, and there’s a hint of coolness in the air.
He’s on my heels as I make a wide circle, keeping behind the trees to the barn.
He steps in and slides the door back, and I get to admire the way his biceps ripple. The automatic lights flicker on.
“We’ve got a pair of geldings in the middle here,” I say, walking up ahead. “We can take those.”
He goes to the gate, using the same approach he used with Rosie.
His gelding is a bulky, older horse I grew up riding named Samson.
Mine is his almost identical twin, Gabe, who my father rode a lot in the last decade.
He hasn’t gotten a chance to get out as much, so he’s throwing his head as I open the gates.
I saddle up Gabe. From the corner of my eye, I watch Coen do the same with Samson. I’m impressed he remembers every step. Once we’re mounted, I grab the saddle bag hanging behind the door, and we head out into the yard, still cast in gray light from the sun behind the mountains.
“This way,” I say, jerking my head to the right.
We head through the yard and past the barn, where the wranglers will be up and getting in the saddle themselves soon. The closest point of the fenceline is directly west. If we keep to the trail I’ve battered down over years of checking the fence lines, we’ll get there in less than five minutes.
Neither of us talk for a while. I look over, and he’s riding easily, hands relaxed on the saddle.
He’s thinking hard, muscle tight in his jaw.
“You good over there?” I ask lightly.
“Yep,” he says. “I was just thinking.”
“I can tell.”
He smiles, a hint. “I don’t want you to think I just…do that. What we did last night, I mean.”
Frowning, I gaze up the hill, to where bright green meets blue. “Would it be bad if you did?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“Circumstances, I guess.”
“So if circumstances were…what?” I press.
He clears his throat, leaning a little as we start up the hill. “I think mutual respect is important.”
“I didn’t feel disrespected.”
“Good.” He looks off, squinting. “And I am single, have been for a while.”
“I wasn’t worried you were cheating. Or taking advantage of me.”
I don’t know why, but I wasn’t. The thought that he was using his position to sleep with me crossed my mind as a brief possibility, but that didn’t last after we took our clothes off.
He was so careful with me, and he doesn’t seem like the type to cheat.
Obviously, I correct myself, some cheaters don’t.
I would know that well enough. However, in Coen’s case, I know Serena would have relayed that info to me if he was in a public relationship.
“So why are you single?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Last relationship ended bad. She slept with my co-producer.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, but it’s fine. I’ve worked through it.”
There’s something final in his tone. I think he’s done talking about it, just before he began.
Ever since he’s showed up, it’s confirmed to me he’s going through something significant.
Last night gave me a pretty good indication that he’s having a mental health issue, though I’m not sure exactly what.
He’s clearly not in danger, or Jamie wouldn’t have sent him out here.
No, I think it’s something both less serious and yet corrosive.
Less formal in the way it needs to be addressed.
He’s just so…tired.
His eyes should be bright blue, but they’re half-covered by heavy lids at all times. He responds slowly. It seems like he trips over his words a bit—not a lot, but here and there.
“You want to let the horses run?” I ask.
He glances over, but I don’t wait for him to agree.
I click my tongue, and Gabe takes off, eager to stretch his legs.
The thunder of hooves behind me says either he or Samson wants to run too.
The ground is smooth and worn down, free of holes.
I relax the reins and center my balance, letting Gabe take us all the way to the crest of the hill.
The sun is rising and casting a pale gold light over the hills.
When I glance over, he’s riding easily alongside me.
Hmm, I guess the cowboy is still alive and well in there.
We come to a halt on the other side of the hill. He’s not even breathing hard.
“You’re pretty damn good at this cowboy thing,” I say.
He smiles, slow. “I’ve put in my time in the saddle.”
“Where?”
We start walking at a slow pace. It’s such a pretty day, and birds are singing overhead and in the underbrush by the fence. Any tension I felt when I woke up this morning has melted away.
“I started on the ranch next door to where my mom and I lived when I was still a kid,” he says. “They weren’t all that bad to me.”
“Not good?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, I meant it in a good way. There were a couple wranglers who took me under their wing. We used to call the one guy Old Bill, and the other was his wife, Sherry. Tough as leather. Taught me everything I knew, how to get by.”
There’s a soft note in his voice. Not sadness…more fondness than anything else.
“You miss it?”
His jaw works. “Yeah, some nights, it can be all I think about.”
“You could go back.”
He shakes his head. “Some careers you can, others you can’t. It’s hard to hit the reset button once people know your face. Public facing careers have a way of putting their mark on you.”
I’m quiet for a while, thinking about that and how permanent it sounds.
I’ve always thought of my life with a lot more grace.
Grace to change my path if it doesn’t work out.
Grace to go back to school and restart. Grace to become whoever I want if I wake up and discover I don’t like my path.
It never occurred to me that, because he’s so public, he doesn’t have grace anymore.
Every move he made was recorded in the court of public opinion.
Now, he couldn’t escape it if he tried. He’ll always be Coen Taylor.
It sounds…claustrophobic.
It also makes me grateful for my little life out here for the first time.
“I don’t mind, though,” he says abruptly. “I’m fortunate. I get that.”
“It’s okay to acknowledge the downsides,” I say gently. “Did you ever go back to the ranch where you learned how to cowboy?”
He shakes his head. “It shut down, and the owners parceled it up and sold it off. It thought about buying it when I heard it was going up for auction, but things happened, and I fell behind.”
For a minute, the only sound is the clip-clopping of the horses.
“I’m glad you’re getting to come back to Wyoming and take a break,” I say after a while. “It can’t fix everything, but it can help.”
He glances sideways at me, dark eyes shadowed by his hat, face damn near unreadable.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rasping. “I’m glad I came back too.”
He’s not talking about the land or the cowboying, that’s clear from the way he’s looking at me.
My stomach does a swoop and a flip that makes me want to throw up and bite my lip all at once.
We said last night was a one-off. Riding next to him, I kind of wish we hadn’t had that conversation.
Is it possible to develop feelings for a stranger after a single night together?
Is it him?
Or is it the whole country singer glitter that’s putting stars in my eyes?
I don’t know, and now I’m so confused, and my face feels hot and he’s still looking at me. Flustered, I dig my heels into Gabe’s side, and he breaks into a brisk trot. Right away, Coen matches my speed.
“Where you headed so fast?” he drawls.
“Catch me if you can, I guess,” I call back, urging Gabe into a slow canter up the hill.
He comes after me, but we’re going too fast to talk now.
I loosen the reins and let Gabe switch between a trot and a canter all the way around the pasture.
There’s still some fence left to check, but I’m ready to be away from him and let my lungs stop tying up in a knot every time I glance at him.
So, I turn Gabe home without a word, and Coen follows, cutting across the pasture to the barn.
He’s sexy and sweaty, shirt sticking to his chest when we both dismount.
“Here,” he says, taking the reins from my hand, “let me cool down the horses and put them away.”
“Alright,” I say, backing away with a plastic smile. “I have to go…start breakfast.”
He doesn’t move for a second, standing with a slight frown on his face.
The way he makes eye contact might be the most intense I’ve ever encountered.
I don’t know how I survived last night with him sliding inside me, big, dark eyes looking into mine.
I was drunk on it then, and right now, I’m not sure if I’m still drunk or having a bad hangover.
“Bye,” I whisper.
He doesn’t move or speak. I back up and start across the lawn, heart pounding. As I slip through the porch door, I glance over my shoulder, and he hasn’t moved, but there is a little smile on his mouth that wasn’t there before.
I shut the door firmly and go into the kitchen. My entire body is tingling and sweating. I gather up my hair and hold it off my neck.
Today is shaping up to be far hotter than anticipated.