Page 10 of Paper Horses

“My ex-girlfriend.”

The words cut like a knife, and I stumbled slightly.

“Oh. Must have been serious to let her decorate for you.” I tried to maintain my indifference, but it was difficult.

“Guess it was.”

And the knife stabbed again.

He looked down at my feet. “Tell me you brought something other than heels.” His eyes roved up my legs and my dress. “And fancy clothes. You have jeans and boots, right?”

“I don’t own jeans,” I said, and his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t bring boots. They don’t go with what I packed.”

He gave me a look that screamed he wanted to strangle me and stormed through the kitchen toward the back of the house. After rummaging, he returned with a pair of cowboy boots.

“Put those on.”

“I don’t need to change.”

“Damn it, Olivia, put the fucking boots on.” My teeth ground, hating how he sounded like he was scolding me. “You can’t ride in heels.”

“I don’t need boots to ride in a car.”

“We can’t take my truck,” he said, his jaw ticking. “We’re taking the horses.”

I gaped at him, something that was happening too frequently.

“Horses?”

“Yes, now put the boots on. I have no idea how you’ll ride in that fancy dress, but you’ll have to manage.”

I picked the boots up and held them in front of me. “These look like women’s boots.”

“Because they are. Jessie left them. She wears them when she comes riding.”

“Jessie?” I was going to murder Gabe. Hudson had a girlfriend. If he’d wanted to hurt me this horribly, he could have just stabbed me. I didn’t want to know that Hudson had moved on. Not that I thought he hadn’t, but it made it easier not to know the truth.

My eyes lifted from the boots, and I searched for an escape. Some way out of this, but Gabe had left me cornered like a caged animal brought to slaughter.

Chapter 5

Hudson

Olivia was holding the boots in front of her with a wounded, panicked look on her face. When I mentioned Jessie the first time, she acted surprised and almost jealous. But that made no sense. She had broken up with me. What did she care if I had dated other women?

Not that there had been many steady ones. Most had been short-lived, and the few who stayed longer had thought they could change me. Turn me into the settle down and start a family type. But I wasn’t. There’d only ever been one woman I’d wanted that with, and she’d thrown me away.

Jessie had tried, but after nine months, she realized I hadn’t lied to her. That my words at the beginning were the same as they were at the end: I wasn’t the marrying type or the loving type.

Olivia still had a cornered-animal look. I contemplated letting her fester in it, but some part of me, the same idiotic one who had invited her into my house, felt bad.

“My ex,” I said. Relief flashed across her features, and she lowered the boots. A response that seemed juxtaposed to how she had left me all those years ago. Head high, no emotion…unless she’d masked those emotions. I tipped my head, studying her. Seeing cracks in her façade and wondering why the mask was there in the first place when it never had been.

Her nose crinkled, and she dropped the boots to the floor.

“I’m not wearing another woman’s boots. Especially your ex’s,” she hissed, removing the sense of doubt that had snuck past my defenses. I wanted to snap back that she was no different. Just another ex, even if she was the one who overshadowed all the others.

“Just put the damn boots on, Olivia.”