Page 25 of Walking the Bird

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“God, I love this time in the morning.” Melinda tipped her head back, allowing the ocean breeze to push the hair away from her face, drinking in the warmth the rising sun blanketed her skin with.

“It does have a particular reverence about it.” Cade voiced, regretting the formalness his rogue words held. He blamed the beautiful blonde beside him, both loving and hating the effect she’d had on him since their initial meeting.

“And to think you get to do this every day.” Shifting her focus from the dawning of a new morning, to the larger-than-life man sitting atop the mare beside her. Melinda worried when she had to initially decline Cade’s invitation for dinner last night, countering an early morning ride and breakfast instead would be too much to ask of a man on vacation.

“Well,” Cade gripped the reins, giving him something to focus on, instead of the smell of Melinda’s perfume, the pheromones making his dick hard. “Colorado Springs is a long way from the ocean, but the view of the mountains on horseback makes it worth getting up in the morning.”

Pulling the reins to the left, Melinda fixed her gaze on the barriers at the far side of the beach, squeezing her knees to encourage the horse to move.

“Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure,” Cade agreed, his gaze flashing from Melinda’s fine ass to the strands of her hair blowing in the breeze. He’d dreamed of her last night, woke up and had to jack off twice to the fantasies playing inside his head.

“How is it, a man with such great qualities and good looks as yourself, hasn’t been saddled with a ring and the theft of his last name?”

Adjusting his ball cap, “Came close once.” His thoughts flooded with the bad memories Vickie had left behind. “I had a ring and everything.”

Jealousy reared its ugly head toward Melinda. The thoughts of a faceless woman holding Cade in a way Melinda never had, angered her.

“Thankfully, my friend Brutus showed me how evil she was before I popped the question.”

“Brutus? Was his mother a Greek mythology scholar?”

“No, she was a Clydesdale.”

Tipping her head to the side, “Excuse me?”

“Brutus is my horse.”

“How did a horse stop you from getting engaged?” Melinda pulled her horse to a stop, her curiosity overriding the good sense she prided herself on.

Spearing his fingers through the thick hair atop his head, Cade replaced the ball cap before turning his face toward Melinda. “I got a call one morning from a friend of mine who’s a game warden. He’d responded to a report of some poachers and instead of finding illegal hunting, he’d found an abandoned horse.” Cade purposely left out how his friend disturbed more than a rare morning off. He’d hit the bar the night prior, taking home a redhead who’d caught his eye and sucked every ounce of common sense out of his head, both of them.

“When I arrived, I found several people trying to calm Brutus down, but he wasn't having it. Took me a while, but I was able to convince him I wasn't going to hurt him. I got him home, called the vet, who told me what I already knew, that he needed some weight put on him.” Allowing his mind to drift, he thought back to the first morning he’d spent outside Brutus’s stall, the quiet conversation which bonded them together.

“Around the same time, I met this girl, Vickie. She was all curves and sex appeal, and I was a lonely guy open to a relationship. We dated for about six months when I made the decision to ask her to marry me.” Turning his focus to the water, Cade stared blankly at the surf as it raked sand back and forth. He wanted to kick his own ass for falling for the bullshit Vickie had fed him.

“I had it all planned out; perfect ring, roses, the words memorized.” He huffed, turning his attention back to Melinda. “I woke from a sound sleep to the sound of something banging. We’d had a rash of thefts in the area, so I grabbed my gun and headed outside, thinking I was going to put some thieves in jail. When I reached the barn, Brutus was out of his stall and doing everything in his power to get into the area where we store our equipment. I managed to get him to stop banging on the door when I heard the sound of an engine running on the other side.”

Melinda held her breath as she listened intently to Cade’s story, her heart pounding with such intensity she feared it would leap out of her chest.

“I jerked the door open to find Vickie and some guy, loading tools into the back of an old van. I hollered at them to stop and the guy pulled a gun from behind his back, pointing it in my direction. Vickie told him to put it away, but the guy ignored her, keeping his hate filled eyes on me. After what felt like forever, the guy tipped his head back in laughter, shocking the hell out of me when he called my name, telling me to go handle the horses like a good stable boy instead of fucking his wife.”

Melinda let out a sharp gasp, her hand automatically reaching for Cade. “Your girlfriend was married?”

Nodding his head, Cade reached over, interlacing their fingers together. He’d wanted to be this close to her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her and was willing to take any opportunity which presented itself. “And that wasn't the worst of it.”

Melinda wanted to jump down off the horse and wrap her arms around Cade. No, that wasn't entirely true, she wanted to wrap her hands around this Vickie’s neck and squeeze as hard as she could.

“The husband, or Robert as Vickie shouted when she’d demanded for a second time for him to lower the gun, took great pleasure telling me how he’d read in the paper of my arrival in Colorado Springs, and of his two-minute computer search where he found my family's holdings in Montana.”

Melinda wasn't sure she wanted to hear where this was going, heartbreak created from lies was a tough pill to swallow.

“He’d counted on me falling for Vickie, like the dozens of other men they’d scammed, too blinded with love to know what hit them before it was too late. He went on to say he saw me at the jewelry store picking out a fat diamond to slide on Vickie’s finger and was tempted to wait so they could sell the ring, but she’d demanded they leave.”

“Why?”

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