Page 95 of Tate
Ford’s eyes darkened. “You let me take care of Axel.”
“Ford. C’mon. What are you going to do? You can’t shoot him.”
He wore a look like that might beexactlywhat he wanted to do. “Guys like Axel are just cowards at their core. Trust me, I know. You get Axel alone, and he’ll fold.”
She blinked at him, and he took a breath, looked away.
Huh.
But before she could chase that, he turned back to her. “Let’s get out of here.”
She frowned.
“I’m going to change out of this sausage casing, and I’ll meet you in the barn in ten minutes. Wear jeans.”
“Ford.”
“Please?”
Well, when he said it like that. “Aye, aye.”
He grinned at her and then took her hand and pulled her to the house, letting go as they walked inside. He didn’t look back as he headed upstairs to his room. She was sleeping in the main floor den, so she went inside, changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and her Converse tennis shoes.
A slow song was playing as she came out and noticed the dance floor was packed. She wanted to high-five Ford for his brilliant escape idea.
She met him in the barn. He wore a pair of faded jeans, his cowboy boots, and a hat.
He had a pretty Appaloosa bridled. “What—no, Ford. I can’t ride.”
“C’mon, Red. Trust me.” He stood next to a bench, jumped on it and threw his leg over the horse’s back. He held out his hand, and she took a breath.
“You can’t be a spec ops soldier without knowing how to ride. Did you never hear ofThe Horse Soldiersor12 Strong?”
“You should be the team negotiator.” She held up her hand, and in a second he’d pulled her on behind him.
“Arms around my waist.”
“Where else am I going to hold on? The tail?”
But sure, she’d put her arms around his lean waist, tuck herself against him, breathe in the strength radiating out of him as he urged the animal forward, into the darkness.
“I’ve never been on a horse,” she said as she moved with him, with the horse. Its body was wider than she’d imagined, but the smell of horseflesh, earthy, honest, bled into the night as the sounds of the cicadas, the occasional low of a cow rose up to fill the silence.
“Just hang on to me. You’ll be fine.”
The mantra of her life, maybe. Oh, she was turning into a romance heroine. What happened to the wannabe rescuer?
Maybe she could be both tough and sappy?
Ford had a wide back, strong arms, and rode easy, like the horse might be one with him. He took them down the dirt driveway, then cut up around the far pasture, and back along a coulee behind the house on a trail that both he and the horse seemed to know well.
She heard a rushing that sounded deeper than wind. “Is that a river?”
“Yep. The bottom of a falls that winds into Geraldine. It’s got a few cool caves and a swimming hole.”
“Just for the record, I’m not going skinny dipping.”
He laughed, and his entire body rumbled. “It’s also the best place around to star gaze.”
