Page 8 of Our Sweet Destiny
Chapter Five
JADE WOKE UP early on Monday morning and went down to check on Flame. She’d given him an acupuncture treatment after coming home from the meeting with the hopes of alleviating any remaining discomfort. She took him out of the stall and walked him for a few minutes, watching his gait, and was relieved to see him back to his normal self. She didn’t want to take any chances. Rex was right. Flame could be temperamental, and he was a big boy.Rex is a temperamental big boy, too.If he had even a slight injury, he could reinjure it with one gallop. She decided to give him a rubdown and ice him throughout the day again, just in case.
While she was icing Flame’s leg, she thought of Rex and again wondered if he might soften with the right care. She let her mind drift further and wondered if he would have offered to help if he’d run into her father or her brother down at the ravine. Had he helped her simply because it was her? Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Jade wanted to know even more about him. She was an intuitive woman. She saw the way he looked at her, and she wondered if maybe he was thinking about her, too. She knew she was pushing the envelope with her next thought, and she knew she was rationalizing, thinking that she might be on his mind, too, to put her plan into motion, but she didn’t care. Something told her that she should extend an olive branch and see if he grabbed hold.
She was headed toward the house when she saw her parents walking toward their car.
“Mom, Dad!” She jogged over. “Where are you going?”
Her mother looked pretty in her fitted blue dress. Jade had her father’s eyes, but she had her mother’s dark hair and slim figure.
“Just taking a quick trip to the bank. We’ll be back later. How busy is your schedule today?” Jane Johnson smiled at her daughter.
“I’ve only got a few clients, so not bad. I’m going to ice Flame again later, too. He seems fine, but I want to be sure before I let him run.”
“That’s good, honey. You haven’t heard from Kane at all, have you?”
Jade knew her mother worried about Kane, and she knew how often she bit her tongue rather than bring him up. Jade had been honest and had told them both about how he’d stalked her after she’d ended their relationship. For the first few weeks after she returned home, her father had been painfully protective every time she left the house. She hadn’t heard word one from Kane, and until now, her parents had backed off about him.
“No, Mom. He’s not going to come all the way out here looking for me,” she reassured her. When she’d first moved, Kane had called her several times and had texted often. She’d finally blocked his number, and that seemed to put an end to it.
Her mother blew her a kiss before getting into the car.
Jade headed into the house and began mixing the ingredients for her mother’s famous brownies. She was comfortable in her parents’ kitchen, but she longed for her own once again. She was itching to get her own place, but she still wasn’t sure that Weston was where she wanted to put down roots.
Jade hadn’t done anything fun in weeks, and she needed a little inspiration to lift her spirits. She’d been too busy making enough money to cover her school loans, and recently, worrying about Flame’s leg. Even if Rex wasn’t an appropriate inspiration—you know better than to do anything to embarrass this family—as she licked the batter off of her finger, her mind traveled back to that moment in the truck. Being that close to Rex had stirred up all sorts of tingling in those secret places that she’d been trying to forget for the past few months. What would Rex’s mouth taste like? Would he kiss aggressively, or move his tongue over hers slowly and lovingly? Would he taste like he smelled—manly and pungent—or would he taste so sweet she wouldn’t be able to get enough of him?
The oven beeped, pulling her from her reverie. She had to stop thinking of him that way. She’d obviously gone far too long without being intimate with a man.I really need to get some action.Maybe she’d go out with Riley to someplace where no one knew her. Yes, that’s exactly what she needed to do. She needed to get out or shewasgoing to end up embarrassing herself for sure. But first she was going to take the brownies to Rex.
She put the brownies in the preheated oven and texted Riley.
Free 2night?
Ke$ha came on the radio, and she moved her hips to the beat of the music.Dancing. That’s what I need.
Her phone vibrated with Riley’s text.Absofrigginglutely.
She could always count on Riley. They’d been besties their whole lives, and even though they’d gone to separate colleges and Jade had stayed in Oklahoma after school, she and Riley had always remained close. She texted back.Dancing?
Less than thirty seconds later she had her answer.Def! Allure? New dance club. Fingers. 8?
Fingers? What kind of name was that for a dance club? It sounded dirty to Jade. She texted back,Perfect.She hadn’t gone dancing in years, and now she couldn’t wait.
THE WHITE SUV pulled into the driveway as Rex was coming in from the fields. At first he didn’t recognize the truck as it crept down the driveway, but as it came closer to the house, he recognized Jade in the driver’s seat.
“You got to be kidding,” he said aloud.Just what I need.Treat was inside handling his resort business, and thankfully, his father had gone into town. He stalked toward her car, trying to ignore the way each nerve rose to the surface of his skin.
When she stepped from her car in a short white skirt that hugged her slim hips and a dark blue tank top that accentuated her breasts, the world stood still. Rex’s legs stopped moving, and he couldn’t get his brain to think past her unimaginable beauty. She turned with a wide smile, and her hair fell into her face. Years of pent-up desire rushed through him in flashes of images: his hands beneath her hair, his lips on her neck, his—
“Hi, Rex!” she yelled with a wave.
He shook the dirty thoughts away and closed the distance between them. “Jade.” He tried not to sound angry, but even he heard a tinge of panic in his voice as she stole a glance toward the house.
“Well, hello to you, too. I brought you something,” she said cheerfully.
She reached into her car, all those enchanting curves so close he could touch them as she bent over and reached farther. A groan slipped from his lips, and he tried to cover it with a feigned cough.
She came out of the car holding a plate full of brownies and kicked the door shut, hiking her skirt up just a little farther. “You okay?” she asked with an arched brow.
