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She walked out of the house, and made her way down the beautifully manicured cobblestone path that led to the main grounds of the winery. A place like this... It would have been beyond her wildest dreams to even visit when she was growing up. Now, she lived here.
The fact that she lived here alone was something she preferred not to focus on.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of pine, the cold, fresh smell of the river beyond the grove of trees that enclosed Grassroots Winery.
The sun filtered through the tops of the evergreens, making the needles look like tinsel. Like Christmas in June.
This place belonged to her, not just legally, but in some real, inextricable way. The way that it wound around her soul, the grapevines entwined with who she was... The exhaustion she had felt a moment before when she had been talking to Dane seemed to vanish. By the time she got down to the dining area, it was gone.
Sabrina’s car was already in the parking lot when Lindy arrived, and she pushed the door open to find her friend sitting at one of the tables working on inventory.
“Taking orders down to Copper Ridge?” Lindy asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sabrina said, looking up and smiling. Then, she got a look at Lindy’s outfit and frowned. “You’re wearing jeans?”
“Weirdly,” Lindy said, “it’s only 8:00 a.m. and you’re the second person to comment on that.”
Sabrina’s eyes widened further. “I’m the second...”
“Dane is staying at my house,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking...stop it.”
“Okay. I was wondering if I had missed more not going out last night than I thought.”
“You didn’t miss anything,” she said.
“We were going to come,” Sabrina said. “We got...distracted.” The word was laden with meaning that was impossible to miss.
Lindy rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”
“If you’re jealous, you could always find someone to deal with your physical frustration...”
“I’m not physically frustrated enough to deal with the emotional frustration that comes with having a man in your life.”
That much was true. Anyway, she was so exhausted she couldn’t fathom trying to make room in her life for a lover.
She gritted her teeth, trying to keep visions of Wyatt out of her brain.
Wyatt Dodge, and the fact that she found him attractive, had nothing to do with that.
“Indulge me,” Sabrina said. “Why are you wearing jeans?”
“I’m going out for a trail ride,” she said crisply.
“A trail ride?”
“I know that you are aware of the route and everything that’s going to be used for the ride that Get Out of Dodge is going to conduct on winery property. But I haven’t actually seen it.”
“So, Jamie is going to take you out?” Sabrina laughed. “I would pay to see you on a horse.”
“I do know how to ride. And, Jamie isn’t taking me.”
Sabrina lifted a brow. “Who is taking you?”
“Wyatt,” Lindy said, trying to sound casual.
“So, you’re wearing jeans. For Wyatt.”
“No. I’m wearing jeans to ride a horse, because a pencil skirt would necessitate me riding sidesaddle. Which isn’t happening. I don’t even think they make sidesaddles anymore.”
“I’m sure they do,” Sabrina said, “but that’s beside the point.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“He gets under your skin,” Sabrina pointed out.
“Yes,” Lindy said, “he does. Because he’s that kind of guy. That cocky, arrogant asshole that thinks he can get away with anything. That thinks a smile and his easy charm is going to cover up any mistake he might make.”
“He’s not Damien,” Sabrina pointed out.
That forced Lindy to compare. Damien’s slick charm versus Wyatt’s rough, down-home variety. Damien would never give a woman a hard time, never tease the way Wyatt did. He’d only lie. Pretending to love, honor and cherish while he snuck around.
She couldn’t imagine Wyatt sneaking.
Wyatt was a full-blown hurricane. And hurricanes didn’t sneak.
She didn’t like that they weren’t as similar as she wanted to pretend they were. Because as long as Wyatt was just Damien in different clothes, it was easy to convince herself she wanted nothing to do with him.
Well, easy was a stretch.
“Too similar,” she said anyway.
“Is there any man you wouldn’t think was too similar right now?”
“No,” Lindy said. “I’m not in the market. Like I said, I have too much to do.”
“Right. I mean, I get you. I was you.”
“That’s different. You didn’t date because you fell in love with Liam Donnelly fourteen years ago, and it never changed. Even when he left. I’m not still in love with Damien. I’m not hung up on him. I’m trying to make my way on my own for a while. When I have a handle on that...then maybe I’ll worry about bringing someone else into my life.”
“A physical relationship doesn’t have to intrude on that,” Sabrina said, looking innocent.
“If I want to place an ad online I’ll remember that.”
“Why place an ad?” Sabrina asked, her tone saccharine. “You’re going on a trail ride with Wyatt later.”
“Did you not hear me the first time? I’m immune to men like him. Anyway, I have to work with him. That puts him squarely off-limits.”
Sabrina shrugged. “Suit yourself. But whenever you two are in the same room it feels like there is literal electricity in the air. If I were you... I would be tempted to see where that might end.”
“I know where it ends,” she said. “Divorce court.”
“It was like that between you and Damien?”
It wasn’t a leading question, but a genuine one. And Lindy wished that she could say it had been. That the strange undercurrent that existed between herself and Wyatt was just old hat to her. Nothing she hadn’t navigated before.
But it was like something else entirely. So different that most of the time she tried to pretend it was irritation, that it wasn’t attraction at all.
But then...
Then she was reminded of that first moment she’d seen him. Five years ago. With her husband’s ring on her finger.
They’d been traveling together that year for Damien’s work with the rodeo, and that had meant more nights in honky-tonks than she cared for. But she’d gone anyway.
She’d gone to meet Damien after an event one night. And he’d been there, sitting on a bar stool across the room. He’d looked at her. Which was nothing. Nothing new, nothing extraordinary. People looked at each other every day.
This had been like a lightning strike. Electric. Immobilizing.
Lethal.
She’d had to force herself to keep moving forward, and the whole time he’d stared.
His brown eyes locked on to hers, his expression filled with a kind of intensity she had never seen before.
It had been like her entire body had been hollowed out, making room for this feeling that he had created and placed inside of her. There had been nothing but that. For a full thirty seconds. Nothing else existed outside of it. Not her life. Not her marriage.
Then Damien had stood up, smiled, grabbed hold of her and introduced her as his wife.
It had been like watching a train she had been meant to catch move away from the station, far ahead of her, going somewhere she would never be able to follow.
After that, she felt like she’d been slapped in the face by reality. And whatever feeling she had felt moments before had been replaced completely by anger. Resentment.
At him. As unfair as it was.
“Yes,” she said, her throat dry. “It’s just a little bit of a spark. I’m a woman. He’s a man. It’s nothing...” Again, she flashed back to that first moment in that bar, when the earth had shifted beneath her feet. “Nothing I haven’t felt before. Nothing I won’t feel again. If you don’t catch one train, another will always be by,” she said, in defiance of that earlier metaphor that had passed through her mind.
“If you say so.”
“I do. And I have work to do.”
“Okay,” Sabrina said, writing on the order form in front of her with a flourish. “I have to get down to town. Enjoy your ride.”
Lindy clenched her teeth. “Oh, I will. I will.”
CHAPTER SIX (#udf1a6109-358b-58a2-91a7-45f19f3f8bb8)
WELL, HELL. HE had anticipated how much he’d want her if she showed up in a little pencil skirt, the kind he wanted to shove up her hips so he could step between her thighs. He had expected her hair to be in a prim little bun. Had expected that he would want to take it down and run his fingers through it. He always did.
What he hadn’t expected was for her to be wearing jeans. Jeans that molded to her long, slender legs and showcased her figure in a new, tantalizing way, that the styling of her skirts didn’t.
Neither was better than the other. Not really. But it was a new look at her body, and his own body reacted favorably to that.
The damned pervert.
She still looked prim in her way. She was wearing a button-up shirt, and all those tiny little buttons made his fingers itch to undo them. But she had on a pair of tennis shoes, and that made him smile.
He got out of his truck, his boots hitting the gravel in the drive, the rocks crunching beneath his feet. And she was standing there, her arms crossed, her blue eyes sharp and assessing.
She was trying to get a read on him. Trying to figure out what he might do, so she could figure out what she should do.
If there was one thing he’d figured out about her—besides the fact that her ass had the most delicious curve to it—it was that she liked to be in control.
Too damned bad for her. Because so did he.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” she said, affecting an impatient tone.
He damn near shook his head.
He had expected better from her. She had gone and shown her hand. She was already eager to get this over with. And he didn’t have anywhere else in the world to be. Which meant he was gonna take his sweet-ass time.
He closed the door to the pickup truck slowly, then made his way around the back to the small horse trailer that was hitched up there. “It’ll take a couple of hours to do the whole trail,” he commented.
“I know,” she said. “When Sabrina and Jamie worked out the route, they discussed that.”
He nodded. Also slowly. “Right.”
Only a man who’d made a study of Lindy Parker would have any idea how agitated she was. But, he was a man who’d made a study of her.
The way her blue eyes flashed when she was angry. The way she pursed her lips together and pressed her mouth into a flat line to keep from displaying any emotion she hadn’t damn well chosen to display.
The particular set of her shoulders, the way she squared her hips. Like she was ready to face an opponent in battle.
He saw all those things contained in her still form and placid expression.
Because he was a fool.
A fool who was really enjoying drawing all this out.
He undid the latch on the horse trailer, then slid it open. He climbed up inside and encouraged the two horses they were taking out on the ride—Emmy Lou and Trixie—out into the lot.
All the while very aware of the fact that Lindy was standing there, stiff-necked and anxious. Her very noncasual mood at stunning odds with the outfit she’d chosen to wear today.
No. She was not more relaxed than usual at all. But then, he wondered if that was him, more than it was anything else.
Unless it was Grant.
Annoyance kicked him in the gut.
He didn’t believe that she wanted to date Grant. But, clearly she wanted him to think that she did.
