Page 70 of My Cowboy Trouble
She laughs, and it echoes through the barn like music. Like hope. Like everything I never knew Iwanted. "You negotiated lumber prices by blackmailing a man about his wife's egg-buying habits."
"Sophisticated negotiation tactics."
"You tried to organize my bathroom shelves without permission," she says.
"Sophisticated organizational skills."
"You tried to seduce me against a bathroom counter while Trent watched."
"Sophisticated seduction techniques." I grin at her, moving closer. "Did it work?"
"Almost." She takes the brush back, our hands touching again. This time, neither of us pretends it's accidental. "You're not as smooth as you think you are, Asher Holt."
"But I'm smoother than you expected, Kenzie Rhodes."
She doesn't deny it, just continues brushing Pepper with long, steady strokes. The morning sun slants through the barn windows, turning dust particles into gold and making her skin glow. She looks peaceful, content in a way I haven't seen before. Like she's stopped fighting something.
"You know what?" she says quietly, so quietly I almost miss it. "I think I might actually miss this."
"The horse?"
"All of it. The early mornings that used to feel like torture. The barn smells I used to hate now smell like work and getting stuff done. The routine that used to bore me but now gives me purpose. Even Sir Clucks-a-Lot and his demon ways." She pauses, her voice getting quieter. "Especially you three idiots."
My chest tightens like someone's got a fist around my heart. "You've still got nineteen days, Kenzie. That's a long time."
"Not long enough." She sets down the brush and turns to face me fully, and there are tears in her eyes she's trying not to let fall. "I'm starting to think a lifetime wouldn't be long enough."
Before I can respond, before I can tell her that I feel the same way, that these past days have been the best of my adult life, that I wake up every morning excited just because she's here, Pepper decides she's done with social hour and wants her next meal. She nudges Kenzie toward the stall door with enough force to make her stumble.
I catch her, pulling her against me, and for a moment, we just stand there, her hands on my chest, my arms around her, breathing the same air.
"Asher," she whispers.
"Yeah?"
"I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"Of how much I want to stay. Of how much it's going to hurt to leave. Of how you all look at me like I'm already gone."
I tighten my arms around her. "Then don't leave."
"It's not that simple."
"It could be."
She pulls back, shaking her head. "I have a life in New York. A business. An apartment. Friends."
"You have a life here too."
"For nineteen more days."
"Stop counting."
"I can't. If I stop counting, I might forget this has an expiration date. And then when it ends..." She trails off, but I can fill in the blanks.
When it ends, it'll destroy her. Destroy all of us.
