Page 41 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

Zack’s mouth quirked. “So I gathered. When did he run the background check on me?”

“Argh.” I covered my face with my hands and groaned into them. I should have known Jeremiah would look into Zack when I told him he was helping me with rodeo. “Probably when I asked him to help us find Hurricane Red. I’m sorry. I should have warned you. He has a tendency to run checks on anyone I spend a lot of time with.”

He pondered that for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m not proud of everything I’ve done, but I’ve got nothing to hide.”

I stared out the window. “He has a tracker on my phone. That’s why he called. He expected me to be heading east back to Aspen Springs, but instead I was going north.”

“He might be taking his big brother duties a little too far. Then again, if I was responsible for something precious, I might take it too far, too,” Zack said.

Heat suffused my entire body. He thought I was precious? Or maybe he didn’t meanme. He meant sisters. Family. That made more sense.

“You can turn off the tracker, you know,” he said.

“If I turned it off, he’d find another way.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t really bother me. I’m used to it. Sometimes I even like it. It makes me feel safe. And he’s never crossed a line of telling me where I can and can’t go, even when he doesn’t like it.”

“He’s the one who came and got you? From…the compound?”

I nodded. “Honestly, I don’t think he’s ever recovered from that. He hadn’t thought they’d marry me off so young. He was almost fifteen when he was sent away, and I was only seven. He managed to get me a letter a couple years after that, when I was twelve, telling me where he’d settled and how to reach him if Ineeded anything. But it never occurred to me to leave until they told me I had to marry. Most women didn’t marry until they were seventeen or eighteen.”

Zack’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle popped. “That’s still too young. Teenagers have no business getting married and having babies. Why did they marry you at fourteen?”

I pulled my embroidery out of my bag. My hands shook slightly as I took up my needle and pushed it through the resisting linen. “My uncle told me I was tempting other boys into sin. I was too pretty, he said. My hair attracted too much attention. I needed a husband to keep me from leading other boys to hell.”

The silence was deafening. I chanced a look at him and found him glaring out the windshield, both hands on the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip.

“Hannah,” he said at last. “That’s bullshit. You know that’s bullshit, right?”

“I know.” I stabbed another stitch. “Or at least I try to. Some days are harder than others.”

Five hours into our drive,we stopped for provisions at a small town in northern Utah just shy of the Idaho border. It had dawned on us that we were embarking on a four-or-five-day trip with nothing but the clothes on our backs and the snacks in my purse. Zack kept an overnight bag in his truck with an extra pair of clothes and a toothbrush, but I had nothing. At the very least, I would need clean underwear and a toothbrush.

We pulled up to a store that would have everything we needed. I told him I’d meet him at the register so we could bothfind our personal items without the other looking over our shoulder. I was already feeling scraped raw from the events and conversations of the day, and we still had to make it through the night together. It was too much. I had never been alone for more than ten minutes growing up. After I left the compound, Jeremiah gave me plenty of space while he worked, and I often found myself alone for hours at a time. I grew to relish the time to myself.

Right now, I needed a moment without Zack’s outsized presence taking up all the oxygen in my brain.

I started in the beauty aisle and grabbed a travel set of a toothbrush and toothpaste, travel-sized bottles of hair products and body wash, and deodorant. Even though it was stupid, I threw a disposable razor in the basket, too. No one was going to see my unshaved legs, but then again, that was true almost every night of the week. I shaved because I liked the feeling of smooth skin, not because a man was going to touch me.

And then it suddenly occurred to me that in all probability, a manwasgoing to touch me, actually.

Zack.

I had never gone on vacation with a boyfriend or spent a weekend away. I had never even spent two nights in a row with him. That was my choice; I liked my personal space, and towards the end of those relationships, I tended to need even more of it.

And now I was going to spend three nights in a row with a man who wasnotmy boyfriend but probably did expect sex since I had very deliberately propositioned him. What was the protocol here? Would we share a hotel room? Was I supposed to buy condoms? What about sexy underwear?

I stared at the rows of condoms. I couldn’t possibly be expected to handle that. There were too many variations.

“Hannah, what are you doing?” Zack asked behind me.

I didn’t turn around, just kept staring at those darn condoms. “Having a nervous breakdown, obviously.”

“Obviously.” The inside of his bicep grazed my cheek as he reached over my shoulder and grabbed a box. “Size large. The regular size tends to break for me. Can’t have mini Zacks and Hannahs running around, can we?”

My brain short circuited. I had seen his baby pictures. I knew exactly how cute little Zacks would be. “Um…no?”

His soft laugh gusted against the crown of my head. He dropped the box in his own basket and turned me around to face him. “What’s got you nervous, duchess?”

I frowned at my basket. “I don’t know the rules. In most romantic relationships, going away for the weekend is a big step. But you and I…this isn’t that kind of relationship, and we’re not going away together onpurpose. It’s for a horse. So, what are the rules? Do we share a room? Do we…” My gaze fell on the condoms in his basket. “Well, I guess you already answered that question.”

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