Page 75 of Hero for the Holidays

Have a couple civil conversations with the guy, and it felt like she was back in high school.

Well. Not quite. She hadn’t ripped his clothes off. And in high school she would have definitely done that by now.

She ignored a pulse between her thighs.

Why had she told him that she hadn’t had sex since they’d been together? She had no idea why. Except she’d been so shocked by his admission that there had been so few women for him.

His brothers were registered hound dogs. She had kind of assumed that he was the same. She had let herself be wounded by it. Victimized herself often by imagining Landry seducing women and discarding them. Fortified herself with it. She had decided that it was best to think of him that way, so that she couldn’t actually feel jealousy.

But she wanted to know more. Why was hooking up not something he enjoyed?

If memory served—and she knew it did—he’d always had a very strong sex drive. Granted, he was a teenage boy, but he’d been a teenage boy when they’d broken up too. So it stood to reason he would go out and carve a swath through the willing populace with his penis.

It was just strange to her that he hadn’t. And continued to not.

She wanted to think that it was about her. That she had ruined him for other women.

She never let herself think she didn’t hook up because he’d ruined her for other men. She felt like the experience had ruined her for love. And casual sex was definitely not on the menu, considering she knew what the consequences could be. Considering she knew that she specifically lost her head when she was high on desire.

That had been what she told herself anyway.

But Landry...

And now she was fixating. Great.

That wasn’t healthy. Particularly when they needed to be fixating ontheir child.

Fia and Lila were sitting on the front steps of the farmhouse when Landry pulled up with the horses.

“There’s an easy trail we can take just off the dirt driveway,” she said. “We can ride around Sullivan’s Lake and back.”

She and Landry had spent a lot of time at Sullivan’s Lake. On the far side away from everyone, under the trees. She really needed to stop.

“Sounds good.” He got all three horses out of the trailer, and Fia smiled. It had been a long time since she’d been on a trail ride. Horses weren’t part of the daily life at Sullivan’s Point.

And in general, she was glad of that. It was a lot of maintenance.

But it would be nice to take a ride.

As for Landry...

She watched him help Lila up onto the back of Genevieve. And then he began to give her instructions

“This is an easy ride. She’s going to follow the trail. And you will be following my horse. Fia will be behind you.”

“Okay,” said Lila. “I’m good, Landry, you don’t need to worry.”

“It’s my job to worry about everything,” Landry said, grinning.

Fia was getting flushed, and she knew why.

It was sexy, watching Landry be so good with Lila. It was that dad energy. It was undeniably hot. A man being a caregiver.

But the other problem was that Landry himself was just undeniably hot.

His whole cowboy thing had always done stuff to her.

That white hat, his tight shirt. His tight jeans.

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