Page 42 of Thaw My Heart

We stand there for a moment in the silence.

The fireplace crackles and creaks in the space between us. Foxie’s legs are now splooted out on the rug as she finds her happy spot, looking like a flying superhero. Kit assesses me, thoughtful and calculating, like he’s deciding what to do with me. My pulse races.

“So, now what?” I ask him.

He sighs, tucking his hands into his jeans. “I need you to trust me.”

I smugly laugh, not taking him seriously.

He takes slow steps towards me. “I’m serious, Sadie. For your own safety, I need you to trust me.”

He stops inches in front of me, and I swallow hard. “Can you do that?” he softly asks. There is something genuine in his eyes as he towers over me, but there’s only one person in the world I truly trusted—my brother Jax.

And I don’t think that would ever change.

My eyes drop to the floor. “Trust and I have a difficult relationship,” I admit.

“Well then, that’s another thing we have in common.”

Two people with trust issues. Well, that explains a lot about the friction between us.

“Can you at least try to trust me?” he asks. “When it comes to the rules on the ranch and your safety here?”

“Is it necessary?”

He frowns. “Sadie⁠—”

“Yes, Cowboy.” I could try at least.

“Good.” He chews his lip for a moment, lost in thought. “Do you give this kind of grief to Blake, or am I just lucky?”

A laugh breaks from me. “Just you.” Blake wasn’t such a pain in the ass.

He sighs. “Look, no one can know what really happened today. Especially Blake. If anyone found out that you can’t swim and… Well, it would be my ass, too. We found them in the woods and brought them back, and that’s it. Simple as that. Got it?”

This isn’t easy for him, but I’m thankful for this moment of trust between us. Fragile as it is. “Thank you, Kit.” I grab his strong forearm, brushing his skin without even thinking about it.

He glances at my hand, still resting on him. “Is this what it takes for you to call me by my real name? Fear and recklessness?”

My fingers trail along his skin. “I think we both know you like it when I call you Cowboy.”

His eyes move to my mouth. “I do not.”

“Lies. You nearly smile every time I say it.”

“I do not,” he repeats louder, deeper as he frowns at me.

I laugh, biting my lip. Finding his frustration sexy in a way I never realized before. “Are you now wishing you’d let me drown in the river?”

“Only wishing you’d somehow magically lost the ability to run your damn mouth.”

But it’s my mouth he constantly stares at, so I know that’s not true. “Speaking of my mouth, I⁠—”

“Still not the time,” he snaps, pushing past me to grab his navy Carhartt hanging by the fireplace.

“Well, when is the time?” I ask, frustrated as hell that he won’t just talk about it with me.

“Sadie,” he scolds, threading his arms through his coat, shrugging it on. “Look, you were drunk. There’s nothing to talk about.”