Page 23 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

He glanced at me from the side. The orange light from the fire highlighted his face, casting faint shadows beneath his cheekbones.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I nodded. “That’s okay.”

I understood wanting to keep my sad stories away, and if he wanted to do that, I wouldn’t blame him.

After a pause, though, he seemed to reconsider.

“My ex cheated on me. Multiple times,” he said, quickly and bluntly. “He wanted our whole relationship kept secret, the whole time. But it turned out he was ashamed of himself and was banging women all of the time behind my back.”

“Fuck,” I said. “He made you hide it?”

Jesse set his jaw, the shadows of the fire moving over his stony expression. “He would only allow us to be together in two places. His room in the frat house, or on these stupid little one-night camping trips, far away.”

So hehadbeen through some shit.

“And… the women? They didn’t know, I assume?”

“None of them. He got one of them pregnant, then finally kicked me to the curb.”

How on fucking planet Earth could anyone not want you?

“Wow,” I said softly. “Was that recently?”

“Just a couple of months ago. But we’d been having problems for a lot longer than that.”

That was recent as hell. No wonder it seemed like Jesse’s wound was fresh.

“He sounds like a colossal asshole.”

He nodded. “I lived like I was walking on eggshells for so long around my ex, while he just lived a lie that looked perfect on the outside. I’m never doing that shit again.”

The rain had settled to a drizzle outside. It was clear that Jesse didn’t want to talk more about his ex, and I wasn’t going to press the matter.

“I need to go check on the horses, but you can stay here by the fire and warm up a little more if you want.”

“I’ll come out with you to see them.”

I grabbed my handheld electric lantern and headed for the back doors. “They’ve always hated rain, but they’ve been doing a little better with it since spring. Don’t like thunder, either, but most of it was pretty far off tonight, until the past half hour.”

I opened the back doors, showed him a pair of muck boots he could wear, and led him out onto the dirt path that led to the nearest stables. Jesse followed beside me.

The air outside smelled like fresh, wet earth. I loved the way the ranch smelled after the rain, even if it meant more mud. We slowly walked down the path, which was still somewhat lit up by dim solar lights I’d put all along the edges and under some of the trees.

“Do the horses get alfalfa? Timothy grass?” he asked.

I glanced his way. “Both, depending.”

“Any hard keepers?”

I paused for a moment. “Wait. Do you know about horses? Did you and Kane grow up with them?”

He laughed. “God, no. We grew up with an overworked single mom, and we could barely afford rent, let alone riding.”

“How do you know about hard keepers?”

He squinted off into the distance, looking up at the far-off clouds. “There was only one time my ex brought me home to meet his parents—introduced me asjust a friend, of course. But his family had two horses. Star and Treacle. I really fell in love with them.”

---