Chapter 16
Eli
I stared out the kitchen window, drinking my coffee. Dirt, rocks, and more dirt. Without Ava, the whole ranch felt bland. The nice thing about being on the road? If a place got boring, you just moved on.
Dad shuffled into the kitchen in his polo and jeans, straight to the coffee. Someone had to tell him ranchers didn’t wear golf shirts, but it wasn’t gonna be me.
“Got any plans today?” he asked.
I pulled out my phone. “Working on one.” 6:19. Too early to text her? “No Luke again today. Kid’s got a bad case of food poisoning.”
“Bummer. Welp, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Just don’t ask me to muck.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” A minute passed on my screen, but all I saw were Ava’s cola eyes turning drunk when she watched me eat that cookie. She was definitely interested. And there was something I’d been dying to do. Been up all night thinking about it.
Dad opened the fridge. “Good idea. Call her.”
“You think it’s too early? I mean, who? Call who?”
“Tell her I’ll watch the kid.” As fast as he showed up, he disappeared around the corner with his insulated travel cup.
He’s in a good mood.
Another minute turned over on my screen. Just do it. Better to text early, before it got too hot.
I was stuck on a call when Ava showed up to leave Nina with my dad. By the time I met her at the stables, she’d already started raking. This time she wore a loose shirt and jeans. Still sexy as hell. I leaned against the railing. She seemed to like that yesterday.
“It’s rude to stare,” she snapped.
I grinned. “Nina’s building a fort with Dad. Well, it’s mostly built. She’s overseeing.”
“Great. Thanks for the play-by-play.”
“Just saying, they’re good for a while.”
She didn’t even look up. “I’m sorry. Am I going too slow for you?”
“Whoa. What’s with the hostility?”
She stuck the fork in the manure and shot me a kick-to-the-nuts kind of look. Good thing there was a fence between us. “What do you want, Eli?”
Did I miss something? “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She went back to cleaning poop and ignoring me.
Push it, or back off? “I’m just saying, we have all morning.”
“I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I will throw this rake at you.”
My laugh made her scowl. I ducked through the bars and crossed to her. She had the same feisty energy as Sugar. Muttering about bubbles, she wrenched her pronged weapon back, and it rained manure.
Even more reason to go for it. What did I have to lose? I looked her dead on so there’d be no confusion. Stood close enough, she’d have to stop and face me. “We should go for a ride.”
“Eli, personal space!”
I took a half-step back and repeated myself.
She pressed her palm into my chest, and I let her shove me a few more inches, if only because I liked her touching me.
“Better?” I asked. Something was off. She was like a bridge troll.
A sexy one. I just had to figure out the riddle. “Ava, let’s go for a ride.”
“Like on a horse?”
“Of course!” I laughed. “What’d you think I meant?” I couldn’t tell if the pink in her cheeks was new. “We should go now. Before it gets any hotter.”
She frowned and narrowed a glare at me. “Why?”
“Why?” Wow. Another hit to the nuts. “Uh, because it’s a sunny day and …” I took off my hat. Fixed the mess underneath. “And because I want to?”
She turned her back to me.
“It will probably make you feel better,” I added.
“I said I’m fine.” If that rake had a pulse, her white knuckles would’ve choked it out.
“You know how to ride a horse, right?”
Annoyed eyes cut to me. I could almost see her hackles rise. “Of course, I do! Do you?”
“I’m a little rusty. Maybe you can show me a thing or two.” She didn’t take the bait. “Tell you what,” I coaxed. “I’ll saddle the horses. You want Sugar or Chuck?”
“Eli, you can’t just ride other people’s horses without permission.”
“Then I guess it’s good I just got off the phone with the owner.”
She huffed, just like Sugar, and threw the rake out in a wide sweep, scraping metal teeth over my boots.
I stared at the little lines scored into the leather toe. “Well, now you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything. You shouldn’t be so close. In fact, if you had time to go for a ride, why did you call me to muck?”
I frowned. That didn’t seem like her at all. “I guess I’ll take Sugar out on my own.”
The rake stopped an inch from my foot, and Ava shot me a doubting stare.
“What?” I teased. “You don’t think I can do it?” I took a step closer, toe-to-toe, face-to-face. Was it me, or was she holding her breath? “Are you worried about me?”
“No!” came her too-fast response. Her focus dropped to our feet. “Will you back up, please?”
“You’re worried about me.” I didn’t bother hiding my smile.
She tucked an errant wisp of hair behind her ear. “I’m worried about the horse.”
“Fine, for Sugar’s sake, then. She needs some exercise.”
Ava stabbed the prongs of the rake into her poop pile. “God, Eli. You can be so aggravating.”
Aggravating? She wanted to talk about aggravating?
Aggravating was this need to touch her. Urges twitched under my fingers, taking way too much brain power to hold back.
That flash of skin at her waist, where her shirt hiked up, it taunted me.
The way the sun slid across her tanned arm, I wanted to slide my hand across it, too.
This woman had no idea what it took to hold back.
I curled my fingers into fists. “Go for a ride with me? Please?”
She chewed on her bottom lip as she cut a glance to Sugar, then back to me. That bottom lip ... It kept me up at night. I waited for the snap–the refusal. I had no more cards. If she said no, I’d have to walk away. Did I read it wrong? Had I imagined that lusty look in Dad’s kitchen?
With a breathy exhale, her shoulders sank, and she finally sheathed her daggers. “I’ll ride Sugar. But I’m saddling her.” She took a step back. “Give her some time in the ring first.”
When I didn’t move, Ava deadpanned. “And wipe that stupid, slap-happy grin off your face. You’re like a kid on Christmas morning.”
I grinned wider. “All that’s missing is the bow.”
“Eli.”
“Ava?”
She tilted her head to one side and stared at me. Wisps of hair escaped and flew around her face. I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out and tucked one behind her ear.
Her body stilled, and my favorite word rolled off her tongue. “Eli?” If only I could record it as my ringtone.
“Yes, Ava?”
Did she know she wet her lips as she stared back? Heat traveled down my body like adrenaline, only better. Way more addictive. My heart thudded, my eyes dipped to her mouth, and the world narrowed to the curve of her jaw and her honey skin.
Plump, very kissable lips parted. “You’re standing in my manure pile.”
The words buzzed in front of me, edging around my head, looking for an opening or a back door, finally seeping through my thick skull. I glanced down at my boots, now covered in muddy horse poop. “I’d stand in worse to be near you.”
Ava fisted her hand, looking like she wished it were around my neck. Then she opened it and shoved it into my pec. “Go. Put Sugar in the arena while I finish up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her voice as my ringtone, her handprint tattooed on my chest–hell, I could almost die a happy man.
With a scrapper in one hand and Sugar’s hoof in the other, Ava watched me saddle Chuck. “Check your strap. It looks loose.”
“This must be how Luke felt,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I tugged the leather to the next notch. If it was too tight, Chuck didn’t complain. He seemed more interested in nosing Ava’s back. Can’t say I blamed him.
She returned to scraping mud off Sugar’s hoof, stiff as a ship boarded up for a storm.
I tested the saddle. It didn’t budge. “How’s this?”
No response. Maybe she had trouble seeing from under the brim of that sexy straw cowgirl hat she’d grabbed from her truck? Sauntering over, I hunkered down to her level, while she tried her best to ignore me.
“Hey.” I tapped a finger under the brim so it lifted from her eyes. “Relax. This is supposed to be fun.”
She pushed it back down and moved to the next hoof.
I followed and tapped it up again, smiling.
Now that I’d seen that lusty stare, it got harder not to just kiss her.
I imagined it everywhere. Pushed up against the tack room wall.
Dragging her across the bench in my truck at a stoplight.
Lifting her onto the edge of the kitchen sink when her hands were all soapy, and her legs could wrap around me.
This time, when she shoved her hat back down, she said, “What, are you five? Knock it off!” Then she pushed past me to the tack room.
I ran a hand down my face. Took off my hat and slapped it against my leg. What did I do wrong?
We finished saddling in silence, and I started wondering if this was a bad idea.
But as soon as Ava threw a leg over Sugar’s back, her shoulders dropped.
She lifted her face to the sun, and I could practically see the walls coming down.
I scanned the ranch from Chuck’s saddle.
Yeah, the world felt lighter from higher ground. Perfect timing. I needed a lift.
Hooves on the rocky terrain tapped out a beat as we took the trail behind the house and climbed the mountainside.
Ava handled Sugar like a pro, finding the best footing, totally in control.
It had been years since I’d taken a trail ride, but Chuck and I found our groove, too.
Except for when he kept stopping to eat the vegetation.
The farther in we rode, the more the world slowed, the less important stuff seemed.
Life was simple. Just me and a pretty girl on horseback.
Nothing else mattered. Not gigs, not bills, not the stupid shit I did in high school, or the hell I’d put Dad through.
The ride cleared my head better than any day under a greasy engine.
We stopped at the peak. Phoenix looked like one of Dad’s models.
Little boxes with tiny reflective surfaces.
Fluffs of green polka-dotting the side of the freeway.
A sharp wind whipped over the cliff and dried the sweat on my neck.
Ava cried out and threw a hand to her head, but too late.
The gust caught her hat and blew it clear off.
I tossed her my reins and dismounted to run after it.
Not gonna lie, it felt a little heroic when I brushed off the dirt and handed it back.
“Thank you.” Her lips curved up–a little ray of sunshine.
“There it is,” I said.
“What?”
“That smile I’ve been waiting for.”
She forced the corners of her mouth down and shoved the hat back on. “You know, for a mechanic, you ride well.”
My turn to force down a grin. Play it cool. “That’s because I’m not a mechanic.”
“You’re not a mechanic?”
I stuck a foot in the stirrup, but Chuck thought it would be funny to wander forward and make me hop after him. “Come on, man.” Definitely not cool. The only silver lining, it got a snicker out of Ava. “No.” I hoisted myself up and settled back in the saddle. “Mechanics is just something I can do.”
“Oh.” Did she seem disappointed? “What would you call yourself, then?”
Adventurous? Carefree? I glanced back. She was studying me. Pretty sure those things wouldn’t impress her.
I shrugged. “Not sure yet.”
“Hmm.” Her eyes slid to the open sky.
“What about you? You’re not a real estate agent?” I teased.
“Office administrator, thank you very much.”
Was her ice finally melting? “Right. That. You’re not an office admin. So, what are you?”
Instead of spouting some ready answer, she stared at the city below.
I urged Chuck backwards to stand beside Sugar.
Sweat, horsehair, and dust itched my nose, and the heat made my muscles lazy.
I’d peg her as a cowgirl, but if she didn’t want to admit it, that was fine. Who cared about titles, anyway?
“Be a good boy,” Mom said as she was dying.
“Good Boy” was a title. One that came with a bunch of expectations. A set-up for letting everyone down. I gave Chuck a neck scratch. Sometimes, titles only made things worse.
Just when I figured she’d forgotten the question, she looked at me and said, “I think … I think I’m just lost.” She may have been talking about herself, but it was like she’d seen straight through to my soul.
Lost.
The word burrowed in my brain. Into places no one saw.
Thoughts and feelings I’d never shared started burning my tongue like hot sauce.
Dad once told me, “Pain either fuels a man to meet his potential, or leaves him for dead.” We were fighting about the drugs he found under my bed.
At the time, I thought he was talking about the pain in his ass I was causing him.
Ava let out a heavy breath, then blinked away. “Sorry. That’s probably not what you meant.”
“It’s a good answer.” Her sad smile made it difficult to swallow, and a new title came to mind.
Yours.
I shoved it away. She didn’t want a romp or a fling. She wanted plans and picket fences. A full five-course dinner, and I was just a fast-food hamburger. No amount of condiments would make me look like a steak.
She made a clicking sound and turned Sugar toward the trail. “We should probably head back. The horses need water.”
“Sure.”
As I followed silently, I hoped the new, sharp sensation in my chest wouldn’t leave me for dead.