Page 89 of Bloom

“They’re friends, I think. Drinking buddies. They were at Bishop’s together a couple weeks ago.”

“You knew he was in town?”

The accusatory question makes me cringe, makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong by not telling her. I didn’t think I needed to—everyone knows he’s back. It’s all anyone can talk about, really. And why would she care? “Do you want me to get rid of him?”

Her jerky nod is instant and confusing and incites at least a hundred questions, none of which I ask. I know better than to push—I break when I’m pushed but Lux, she bites, like the surly horses she’s so good at rehabilitating. She won’t tell me anything unless she wants to, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s the last thing she wants. So, I do what shedoeswant.

Shouldering open the screen door, I eye the gray sky warily as I hurry down the porch steps and across the yard, hoping the summer storm clearly brewing waits until I’m back inside before breaking. Everett, I regard just as cautiously, since I don’t have a freaking clue what I’m wading into. The casual stance and upturned mouth could easily be a ploy, luring me into a false sense of security before he… I don’t know. I really, really do not know. “Can I help you?”

Everett’s cocksure grin is one I’m sure could—and probably has—send a woman to her knees. “I’m looking for Hunter.”

I don’t let my polite smile falter as I jerk a thumb towards the barn—the one we cleaned out last month, where the ranch hands have been ripping down rotten rafters all day. “He’s in there.”

Everett glances to where I gesture, but he doesn’t move. Instead, his gaze drifts, hopping from that barn to the bigger one, skating over the house, taking in the landscape with a long whistle. “Y’know, I grew up next to this place, but this is my first time here.”

I do know that—and a lot more, too. I know Everett graduated three years ahead of me. I know that, even if we were closer in age, we likely wouldn’t have been friends because hewas the epitome of the hot, arrogant, unapproachable jock. I know that he had a reputation for skipping class to hone that bull-riding skill of his. I know that, before he joined the circuit, he left Alder Grove, his family’s property, about as often as Lux leaves Serenity yet in the years since, I can count the number of times he’s been home on one hand.

What I don’t know, though, is what about this man has my fearless friend cowering inside. “You haven’t met the Jacksons before?”

“I met their grandparents once.” Everett’s grin turns wry as he runs a hand through chin-length dark hair. “The old lady didn’t like me. Called meunkempt. Reckon she’d want me back on her land like a hole in the head.”

Yeah, I can imagine that. Jackson’s grandmother always did have an issue with his long hair, and his is nowhere near as… windblown. “It’s not her land anymore. Jackson—Oscar, I mean—bought it.”

He whistles again, impressed. “No shit?”

“His sister runs it, though. Lux.”

Not a single ounce of recognition flashes across his ruggedly handsome face. Green eyes glimmer with something else instead—something that screamstrouble. “She as pretty as you?”

I flush. “I—”

“Hey.” Like the storm clouds darkening the sky, Hunter rolls into the conversation, and I swear the temperature drops a couple degrees. “What’re you doing here?”

It’s instinct, really, the compulsion I feel to answer, to justify my presence, even though I know damn well he isn’t talking to me. Sad, defensive instinct.

Everett’s response, I don’t quite hear. Not all of it, at least. Not when my brain is so honed in on the hulking presence beside me, oblivious to anything but the long, thick arm pressing against mine. What I do catch, though, is the sound of Lux’sname, and a throwaway comment about needing the resident ‘horse whisperer’ to lure an injured horse spotted nearby.

Reluctantly turning to Hunter, I address the notch at the base of his throat. “Can you deal with it?”

His frown is tangible, burning into my skin, but I don’t give him what he wants—I don’t lift my gaze. When he asks if Lux is okay, I nod—Ilie—and when the neck I’m staring at so intensely tenses, I evade the incoming argument before it can start. “Please, Hunter.”

He’s not wearing white today. It’s a weird thing to notice, to focus on, but I can't help it. Not when those broad shoulders, that wide chest, heave with a deep breath, and the navy material already stretched taut groans at the seams, the cuffs digging into swollen biceps as he crosses his arms. “Okay,” comes his reluctant agreement, throat bobbing as a deep rasp builds inside it. “You good?”

I nod again, and the rounded planes of his pectoral muscles bulge. Worn boots nudge the tips of my toes—mybaretoes, I realize with a sigh, because I ran out here so quickly, I didn’t even think about shoes. There’s no time to lament about muddy soles or the chipped red polish on my big toe, though. No, I quickly become far too preoccupied by the heavy hand that lands on my shoulder. “Wegood, honey?”

I think about him disappearing last night, about the dark circles beneath my eyes, about the awful, persistent throb in my chest, but I nod once more.

I don’t have to see Hunter to know he doesn’t believe me, but at least he lets me go. Not that I really give him a choice—I slip away before he can get a word out, my escape aided by Everett herding him in the opposite direction.

If I was in a better mood, I’d marvel over what a pair they make. And if Lux wasn’t gone by the time I made it back to thekitchen, locked in her bedroom with her son, I reckon she would too.

“Did somethin’ happen?”

Gaia huffs her displeasure when I jolt in surprise and accidentally yank the lead rope attached to her halter a little too hard. Soothing her with a muttered apology and a scratch between the eyes, I briefly glance over my shoulder at the human personification of a storm cloud darkening the doorway.

Clearing my throat, I turn my attention back to the big baby of a Shire sulking about being extricated from the paddock. “I thought you left.”

“Didn’t take that long.” Heavy steps scuff the barn floor, boots and hooves clacking in unison. Unable to help myself, I peek at the lithe, dark brown equine body he guides into an empty stall, hastily averting my gaze when the man doing the guiding seeks it out. He repeats, “Did something happen, Caroline?”

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