Page 28 of My Cowboy Trouble
"Just came to watch the show. Heard the city girl was learning to rope." He winks at me. "Looks like you're a natural at getting tied up."
"Gavin," Trent warns.
"What? I'm just observing. Making sure everyone's having a good time." He hops the fence with annoyingease. "Mind if I help? I'm excellent with ropes. All kinds of knots."
"We're fine," Trent says at the same time I say, "Sure!"
They look at each other, some kind of silent male communication happening that I can't decipher.
"Actually," I say, because the tension is getting weird, "I should probably check on the horses. Make sure Pepper hasn't started a revolution or something."
"The horses are fine," Trent says.
"You sure? Because earlier you said?—"
"They're fine."
"Okay, then." I back away slowly. "I'll just... go find something else to screw up. I mean, fix. Find something to fix."
I practically run back to the barn, my skin still tingling where the rope had been. Where his hands had been.
Oh boy.
I'm hidingin the feed room, stress-eating an apple I stole from the horses, when Trent finds me. Because of course he does. The man has a supernatural ability to appear wherever I'm trying to avoid him.
"That's for the horses."
"They have plenty." I take another defiant bite. "Besides, I'm basically livestock at this point. I smelllike a barn, I'm up at dawn, and I'm pretty sure I've got hay in places hay should never be."
"You've been taking shortcuts."
"Excuse me?"
He pulls out his phone—of course he has photos—and shows me a picture of the water buckets I filled. "You used the hose from outside instead of the proper water system."
"Water is water."
"The outside hose isn't filtered. It's got sediment that can cause colic."
"I didn't know that."
"Because you took a shortcut instead of asking." He swipes to another photo. "And this is how you stacked the hay bales in the loft."
"They're stacked. Vertically. Like bales."
"They're unstable. One wrong move and they'll fall on someone."
"Or," I counter, "they're efficiently stacked to maximize space."
"Efficiently?" He steps closer, and I hate that I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "You think risking someone's safety is efficient?"
"I think you're looking for problems because you can't stand that I might actually be getting good at this."
"Good?" He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You've been here four days and you think you're good at ranching?"
"I'm learning!"
"You're playing. This is a game to you. Thirty days of dress-up and then you're gone."
