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Mostly, he was confident in the fact that she didnot. Mostly, he was confident in the fact that the kind of heat and fire he’d felt when their skin had made contact last night could not be one-sided.
He wasn’t sure if that was a victory or defeat, but he was certain of it nonetheless.
“Grant says hi,” he mentioned offhandedly, getting the tack out of the horse trailer and beginning the process of readying the animals.
“Does he?” she asked, keeping her tone as smooth and placid as the expression on her face.
She was a beautiful, accomplished little liar, that woman.
“Yes,” he said. “I told him that you...expressed some interest last night.”
“Did you?” There was a small break in her composure. A slight twitch to her brow, a little hitch in her breath.
If she wanted to lie, then two could play that game.
“Yes. He was very interested.”
“Well. That’s...good. Very good. Because, I also am very interested.”
He stood there for a moment, the lead rope to the horse in his hands, his eyes fixed on hers. And he watched as the color mounted in her cheeks. Pink. Tempting. He wanted to kiss those blush-stained cheeks. Hell, he wanted to kiss her everywhere.
He had a feeling that that was written on his face as clearly as the blush was written across hers. “You are shameless, Lindy Parker,” he said, bending down and tightening the girth on the horse’s saddle. Gratified when he could feel her eyes moving over his body as he worked.
“I am not,” she snapped.
He straightened and turned to look at her. “My brother is a grieving man. And you would use him to get at me?”
Lindy’s mouth dropped open, then closed, like a fish. “I am not trying to...get you.”
“I mean to irritate me.”
She sniffed. “Well. If you didn’t think that I wanted to go out with him why did you tell him I did?”
“I didn’t,” he said. And then he winked, because he knew it would enrage her. “But, this was a fun little play we just acted out.”
She treated him to a very teenage facial expression and he couldn’t help but smile, imagining how she might have been when she was younger. Less polished. Less careful. “You’re such an ass.”
She reached into the small purse she was carrying and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, jamming them over her eyes.
As if that would protect her.
He could read her every emotion on that pale skin. He wondered if she knew that. He wondered if anyone had ever told her that anger made her flush a certain shade of rose, that desire made her flush creep down her neck, intensifying the color.
He knew.
He knew, because he had been watching her for the past five years.
There was no way on earth that didn’t sound creepy as hell, but it was the truth.
“Sure. I never said I wasn’t.” He kept staring her down, even while he got the second saddle on the other horse, while he bent down to tighten the girth. “And you started it. You were the one who asked me about Grant.”
“I have a feeling you think there’s something going on here,” she said, her shoulders going even stiffer. “But there isn’t. I wanted to make that clear.”
“All you had to do was say it,” Wyatt said, except, that was a lie too. Because he knew, whatever she said, that she felt this thing that existed between them.
“Okay. There’s nothing happening here,” she said, waving a well-manicured hand, her eyes still shielded by the large, dark glasses.
“All right,” he said. “Saddle up, cowgirl,” he said, gesturing to Trixie, the more placid of the mares.
“All right,” she said, snippy. She placed her foot in the stirrup and hauled herself up on the back of the horse. She wasn’t an experienced horsewoman, not as far as he could see, but she’d definitely been on the back of one before.
With ease, he put himself in the saddle, and maneuvered himself so that he was in the lead position. “How long has it been since you’ve ridden?”
“Oh,” she said, sounding slightly thrown at the change of topic. “I don’t know. Not since I was in high school probably? So...a long time.”
“It’s like riding a bike,” he said. “I assume. I’ve never gone a significant amount of time without being on the back of a horse. Also, I imagine you’re a hell of a lot more saddle sore than you are when you pick up bike riding after a good number of years.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Good to know. I look forward to the screaming muscles. And as I limp around the house, I’ll remember that you’re the reason I can barely walk.”
He thought about letting the moment pass by. But then, he thought no. He was going to take it. “Honey, you are not the first woman to say that to me.”
He couldn’t see her face, but if stiffness was something you could feel in the air, he was certain he felt it now.
“You’re disgusting,” she said.
“That is not the general consensus.”
“See, this really does make me want to go on a date with Grant,” she commented, keeping her tone light. “Because I doubt he would ever say things like that to a lady.”
“Grant has barely spoken to a woman in eight years. I’m not sure he knows what he would say to a lady at this point in time.”
That little bit of unexpected honesty made his chest turn a little bit.
“So he hasn’t... He hasn’t gone out with anyone since his wife died?”
“No.”
“I can understand that,” she said, slowly. “I imagine any experience with marriage makes you think twice about jumping in again.”
“You don’t want to get married again?”
“Right now? No. And I can’t imagine ever willingly submitting myself to that ever again.”
“I don’t think his reasoning is quite the same as yours,” Wyatt pointed out.
“No. I expect it isn’t. But it’s just... More than even the not trusting someone else, it sounds like a lot of work. I was married. I was married for a long time. It’s like, I’ve done it. I’ve seen what that life is like. I’ve seen what it can give me. I’m not really interested in checking it out again.”
“Been there, done that?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Damien had a lot to answer for, and that was the damned truth. No, Wyatt wasn’t any more interested in marriage than Lindy was, but she was the kind of woman who should be. The kind of woman who deserved better. Who should have gotten a hell of a lot better than she had. If she didn’t want marriage, it should be because there was something better and brighter out there for her. Not because she was exhausted emotionally. Not because her heart had been battered, ground into the dust underneath the heel of some jackass’s boot.
“I’ve always thought marriage seemed pretty overrated myself,” he commented.
She surprised him by continuing the topic. “Why is that?”
“One woman for the rest of my life,” he said, the lie slipping out easily. “I don’t think I could handle that.”
As if it all came down to him being afraid he couldn’t control his dick. As if it didn’t have anything to do with the hard, sharp truths he learned about himself when he was seventeen years old. The hard, sharp truths about what it cost to care for someone. Loss and betrayal and defiance, all mixed up together.
“Well, I admire you for knowing that about yourself.” She didn’t sound admiring in the least.
“So, we figured we would take the guests down by the river,” Wyatt said, changing the subject.
All of this was getting a bit too close to places he kept well guarded for a reason. It was one thing to try to get under her skin a bit. It was another to cut his own skin away from the bone and scrape it raw.
Anyway, the sun was shining and he was out on a horse, in the middle of a Tuesday. Another thing that drove home the fact that he had made good decisions in his life, in addition to a hell of a lot of bad ones. But, for now, he was going to go ahead and enjoy the ones he’d made that weren’t terrible.
Working outdoors, being able to spend the day out in the wilderness, with a beautiful woman... Well, it wasn’t all bad.
He maneuvered his horse down the narrow trail that cut through the thick, green grass and behind a copse of pine trees that shielded the river from the rest of the winery grounds. He knew—because Jamie had given him a map to look at last night—that the trail would take them to where the grapevines grew.
On the other side of the river was a thicker, denser grove of trees, and back in the distance, shaded beneath the firs, he thought he could see a little cabin.
“Is that your property too?”
“What?”
Clearly, Lindy had been thinking about other things too. “There. Across the river.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Right now, Bea lives in the little cabin.”
“Really?” The spread was bigger than he’d initially thought. Which made Lindy’s ownership of the place even more of a triumph than he’d realized. “So, your in-laws lost all of this land. To you.”
“For the want of a better prenuptial agreement, yes.”
“Do you ever feel guilty about that?”
He turned and looked behind him, examined the stricken expression on her face. “I’m not suggesting you should,” he added.
“No,” she said. “I don’t feel guilty. Because Damien had ownership of the winery at that point, not Jamison and his wife. I think, if they’d had it still... Well, first of all, it wouldn’t have gone to me. Second of all, I might feel bad. But the fact of the matter is I was doing a good portion of the work when Damien and I were married. I was the one trying to lead new initiatives, initiatives that I’ve put in place now. He was mostly preoccupied with his work for the rodeo. And that’s fine. But this was my passion project, not his. And I don’t know...maybe it’s not...strictly fair. Maybe assets should be divided directly in half. But he wasn’t left with nothing.”
“Do you wish he had been?”
“What kind of question is that?” Her tone was sharp.
“An honest one. He cheated on you, Lindy. How long were the two of you married?”
“Ten years,” she said softly.
“Ten years,” Wyatt reiterated. “Ten years you gave to that man. He cheated on you. He ruined it. And somehow, managed to walk away with enough of a dent in his pocketbook that he looks like a victim. I think that’s messed up. I want to know what you think. Honestly.”
For a moment, she said nothing. The only sound was the plodding of the horses’ hooves on dirt, and the rushing river alongside them.
“I think... Yeah, I think he should have lost everything,” she said finally. “My honest answer. I’m angry that he was able to walk away with anything. Not because I wanted it all. Just because I wouldn’t be that sorry if his life had been reduced to rubble. Or...maybe that’s more how I would have felt two years ago. I don’t really care now.”
“Really?”
“Mostly,” she said. She sighed heavily. “I’m not heartbroken anymore. I mean, how much time can you waste feeling heartbroken over a husband who slept with other women?” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I guess you could waste a lot of time on it, but I don’t want to. He’s not worth it. The man I loved doesn’t exist. I think that’s the hardest thing to come to terms with. The person I thought I was married to... If he was ever that man he’s not anymore. I can’t waste my time grieving over someone who’s basically dead. Wondering what I did to make that happen? That’s another story. And anger... Anger over wasted time, over wasted tears. That’s something else entirely.”
“Makes sense.”
He might not know about the dissolution of a marriage, but he’d experienced heartbreak. And he sure as hell knew about regret.
“Maybe it does,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s true enough.”
They rode on in silence for a while, as the trail wound around the riverbank, and then separated from the water, heading a different direction, where the trees thinned out and the sky opened up, the sun shining down on row after row of twining grapevines.
“This is a helluva place,” he said. “You should be proud of it.”
He meant that. He might be an asshole of the highest order, he might find it tough to be sincere at the best of times, but she had done a great job here. She was a damn fine businesswoman. And she was right about what she had said about Damien. She had done more with this place. She had done better. In his opinion, she deserved everything she got.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice suddenly soft. “I remember the first time I saw it. The first time Damien brought me out here. And I just... I didn’t think that I was the kind of person who would ever be allowed to have something so lovely.”
Something twisted inside his chest. “Why not?”
He was surprised she’d shared that with him, and the look on her face told him that she was too. Almost like she didn’t understand the words that had come out of her mouth.
“I don’t know.” She looked away from him. “I guess...you know. Some people have beautiful things. Some people have beautiful lives. Some people don’t. And when you’ve lived an entire life of dirty and ugly it’s hard to imagine you could ever have anything else. That you could ever deserve anything else. I used to think of him like that too.”
Wyatt swallowed hard. He related to that a little more closely than he cared to admit. Even to himself. That feeling of being someone who could have a life that looked a certain way. Or being someone who could never aspire to such a thing. Someone who didn’t deserve it.
“It must feel more real now,” he said, unable to keep the gravel out of his voice entirely.
“I don’t know.” She paused for a moment. “It didn’t last, did it?”
“This place is going to last,” he said, knowing that she meant her marriage, but moving on to the winery anyway. “What you’re doing here? It’s going to last. You can’t control what other people do. They’re going to cheat.” He gritted his teeth, hating that when it came to his own experience with this kind of thing he couldn’t stand on the right side of the line. “But this is different. It’s not a person. It’s land. It’s not going to betray you. It’s not going to hurt you.”
“Now that’s spoken like a cowboy,” she said. “I imagine the other faithful things in your world are your horse and your pickup truck.”
“Damn straight.” He took a breath, doing his best to dispel the pressure that had begun to build in his chest. “Speaking of horses, how are you doing on that one?”
“Good,” she said. “You’re right. It is like riding a bike. In that, I remember how it’s done.”
“Well, and Trixie here is a pretty easy ride.”
“Funny. I think I read that on a bathroom wall about a girl named Trixie once.”
