Page 10 of Catching Coy
“You riding with me?” Lucy asked, patting the back of the saddle.
Coy laughed. “Not sure there’s room, ma’am,” he said. Lucy gave a quick pout but grinned back a moment later. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun on top of her head today, a good choice given the wind that kept gusting up around them. It also displayed her delicate, model features to their advantage—sharp cheekbones, wide blue eyes, and of course the full, heart-shaped lips.
He stepped aside and Casey led Lacy’s horse forward. Another ranch hand came forward with Coy’s. Coy put his hands on the saddle horn and back of the saddle, then lifted one leg into the stirrup. Thought it had been years since he’d ridden a horse, he slipped into the saddle smoothly, as though it had been yesterday.
Lucy wolf-whistled, and Coy looked up to catch her turned and watching over her shoulder. “I’m good,” he murmured to the ranch hand helping him, nudging the horse forward after Lucy. When he came alongside her, she reached out a hand across the space. She had the reins clutched in a bundle in the other hand. It hardly mattered, since Casey led her horse. Coy bit back a smile and adjusted his own reins, reaching over to take her hand. No matter the slow pace, this is what the cameras wanted—romantic horse rides over barren Wyoming landscape. At least the mountains jutted up in the distance. One of his dates included a hike on those mountains and a picnic lunch. He found his mind wandering to thoughts of hiking hand in hand down a forested trail with Bellamy. She probably had hiked her fair share of these trails, and they wouldn’t need crewmen or ranch hands to guide them.
He shook the thoughts from his head. Lucy. Lucy got his attention today. He wouldn’t be a jerk just because he’d found the girl of his dreams a little too soon. Or maybe it was a little too late, considering that if he’d met Bellamy earlier, he never would have agreed to this.
“So, you’re a natural at this,” Lucy commented, squeezing his fingers.
“I’ve ridden a time or two. I have friends who have a farm back in South Carolina, and I hung out there a lot growing up.” The answer to his question was obvious, but he asked anyway. “Have you ever ridden?”
She laughed softly. “First time, surprise, surprise.”
They chatted back and forth on the short ride, nothing momentous, just small talk about Wyoming, his life in Denver, and her modeling jobs.
Their ride ended at a cozy loveseat set on a wooden platform in the middle of a field of sagebrush. The set designers had piled the couch with pillows, and a big basket stuffed full of snacks sat on the rug in front of it. He slid off of his own horse, then helped Lucy, keeping his hands at her waist, even as Casey led the horses away.
Lucy stared up at him, arms wrapped around his neck, and leaning into him. “This is crazy, you know? How right this feels between us?” She didn’t wait for an answer, instead standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. He didn’t deny that the pull was magnetic with her, his reactions automatic. He wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her up toward him. She was taller, taller than Gillian, so maybe five-nine or -ten. It was still a several inch difference, but it felt right. So she was correct about that. Physically, they fit.
Eventually they walked over to the couch, hand in hand. Lucy snuggled next to him and he dove into the questions to get to know her, to sort out the connection he’d felt to Lucy from the first moment they’d met.
“What made you decide to sign up forThe Catch?” he asked. “It’s a … different way to find love, right?” He let his fingers brush over her bare shoulder.
She adjusted her head on his chest so she could turn and look up at him. “I’ve always been involved in sports and things like that growing up, soThe Catchseemed like a fun way to get to know someone who was an athlete too.”
“Oh yeah?” Hope bloomed in his chest. Her toned arms said she stayed in shape but knowing that she enjoyed things like that spoke to a possible future. It wasn’t a requirement for him to have a wife who loved basketball or any sport, but it would make it easier to relate to someone who got that world. His world. “What kind of sports?”
She leaned in closer, her face inches from his in an intimate gesture that had his heart racing. It was so strange to sit out on this sofa with her, to kiss her, to feel the spark hopping between them—and at the same time know that same attraction, the same longing had threaded through him back in Bellamy’s kitchen every time she moved near him.
He’d underestimated how difficult this would be to pursue so many women at one time. “I play on a rec league volleyball team right now.” She had lowered her voice since she’d settled so close to him. The statement should not have been as sexy as it was. He lifted a few fingers to brush back tendrils of hair away from her face. The wind that whipped around them every so often made it impossible to keep her hair all tied up.
“I’ve played basketball…” She smiled as she closed the distance between their lips and kissed him.
“Good,” he murmured.
“And soccer once or twice,” she said. “But I’m not very good.” They kissed again. “I’m up—” Another kiss. “For pretty much—” Another. “Anything.” She shifted at that, moving so that she knelt next to him, putting her hands on his cheeks and bending over him to continue the kissing. The breeze blew her hair across his cheeks.
Once of the cameras moved in, breaking his concentration. He pulled away, frowning as he caught it out of the corner of his eye, irritated at the idea of thousands—maybe even millions—of people watching this personal moment. But Lucy didn’t even notice. She leaned in closer, her arms moving to around his neck now.
“I can’t believe this,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his, keeping their lips just a breath apart. “You could be my husband.”
Coy drew in a long breath. He didn’t mind her boldness or that she didn’t shy away from letting him know how she felt. The truth was, it made things easier. None of them, not Coy or the six women who remained, could afford to play games about their feelings.
The problem was, Coy couldn’t stop counting Bellamy as one of them.
* * *
Coy, 27
Charleston, South Carolina
Shooting Guard for the Denver Mountaineers
“Things with Lucy are … electric. They’re good.”
The restof the date contained a little more talking, but mostly a lot of kissing. Coy even kind of forgot about the other women—except that every so often Bellamy’s voice would sneak in and remind him that a lot of what he kept calling his connection to Lucy had to do with their lips.
