Page 29 of Broken Roads
Something flickers in his expression, there and gone so quickly I almost miss it. "Foaling mare," he says after a beat too long. "First-timer. Needed monitoring."
I'm not sure I believe him, but I nod anyway. It's none of my business where he's been or what he's been doing. None of my business if he was in town, throwing back whiskeys with some local woman pressed against his side. None of my business at all.
So why does the thought twist something sharp and unpleasant in my stomach?
"How're those marketing ideas coming along?" he asks, changing the subject with all the subtlety of a freight train. "Find any more ways we should change everything about this place to appeal to city folks?"
The barb lands precisely where intended. My arms tighten across my chest, fingers digging into my own skin. "I'm not trying to change everything. I'm trying to help your family keep this place from going under."
"We've survived decades without social media-worthy moments or whatever the hell it is you think we need."
"And you're currently operating at sixty percent capacity during peak season," I shoot back. "Times change, Bradley. Adapt or die, isn't that the first rule of nature?"
He pushes off the doorframe and takes a step into the kitchen. The movement shifts the light, allowing me to see his face more clearly. The dark circles beneath his eyes. The stubble shadowing his jaw. The intensity in his gaze that never seems to diminish, even at this hour.
"Some thingsshouldn'tchange," he says, voice dropping lower. "Some things are worth preserving exactly as they are."
I'm not entirely sure we're still talking about the ranch.
I open my mouth to respond, but the words die in my throat as his gaze drops, just for a moment, to where my arms are crossed over my chest. It's brief—a flicker, nothing more—but in that instant, something shifts in his expression. The annoyance, the perpetual guard he keeps up around me, slips. Revealing something else.
Something that makes my breath catch.
His pupils dilate, black swallowing brown until only a thin ring of color remains. His lips part slightly, the bottom one fuller than the top, and a wild, inappropriate part of me wonders how it would feel against mine. Against my neck. Against other places I shouldn't be thinking about while standing in his family's kitchen in the middle of the night.
His throat works as he swallows, the movement drawing my attention to the strong column of his neck, the hint of collarbone visible where his shirt lies open at the throat.
The air between us changes, thickens with something electric and dangerous. My skin prickles with awareness, every nerve ending suddenly, painfully alert. I can feel the wet fabric of my shirt against my breasts, the way it adheres to my skin with each shallow breath. Can feel his gaze like a physical touch, even though he's a good six feet away.
Neither of us speaks. Neither of us moves. It's like we're suspended in time, trapped in this moment that stretches and expands until it fills the entire kitchen. My heart, a betraying drumbeat of want I can't silence, pounds so loudly I'm certain he must hear it.
This is insanity. This is Bradley Walker. The man who's fought me at every turn, who clearly resents my presence, who looks at me like I'm gum stuck to his boot rather than a person to be known.
So why does my body hum like a live wire under his gaze? Why does heat pool low in my belly, a liquid warmth that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the way his eyes have darkened?
Shame and panic hit me like twin tidal waves, drowning whatever insanity had momentarily possessed me. Without a word, I bolt, pushing past him toward the hallway, desperate to escape the suffocating intensity of that kitchen, that look, that moment that should never have happened. I have to get away before I do something unforgivable, like act on these wild thoughts inside my head.
My shoulder brushes against his chest, the brief contact sending a jolt through me. For a fraction of a second, I feel his breath catch, the slight tensing of his body as we connect.
Then I'm past him, bare feet slapping against the hardwood as I flee down the hallway like I'm being chased. My heart hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs, blood rushing in my ears loud enough to drown out any sound of pursuit. Not that he would follow. The last thing Bradley Walker wants is to prolong any interaction with me.
Except that look in his eyes tells a different story.
When I finally reach my bedroom door, my fingers, suddenly clumsy, fumble with the knob. The latch gives way and I practically fall inside, pulling the door closed behind me with asoft click. I lean back against it, as if my weight might keep out the confusion that threatens to follow me inside.
My chest heaves with each shallow breath, the wet shirt now cold against my skin, raises goosebumps across my flesh. I'm trembling. Not from cold, but from something deeper, more primal. My body feels wound too tight, a guitar string tuned to the breaking point, vibrating with tension that has nowhere to go.
The memory of Bradley's face burns behind my eyelids when I close them. The sharp angles of his jaw, the fullness of his lower lip, the heat in his gaze that transformed him from the cold, dismissive rancher into something else entirely. Someone who looked at me and saw not the city girl, the outsider, the unwelcome intruder but a woman. Just a woman, standing before him with water soaking her shirt and her heart in her throat.
I press my palms flat against the door behind me, needing to feel something solid and real. This is madness. Complete madness. Bradley has made it abundantly clear that he resents my presence, my ideas, my very existence in his carefully ordered world. One heated look in a moonlit kitchen doesn't change that fundamental truth.
And yet.
I can't deny what I saw in his eyes. What I felt in that charged silence between us. The recognition of something mutual and unwanted and powerful enough to leave us both speechless.
"Stop it," I whisper to the empty room. "Just stop."
Pushing away from the door on unsteady legs, I make my way to the dresser. I need to change out of this wet shirt, need to wash away whatever madness possessed me in that kitchen. My fingers find the hem, peeling the damp cotton away from my skin. The air feels cool against my bare torso as I drop the shirt tothe floor, but it does nothing to cool the heat that seems to have taken up residence beneath my skin.
