Page 107 of The Cowboy and the Stray

I leaned in, touched my forehead to hers. “I love you more.”

We stayed like that for a while, neither of us moving, just breathing the same air. My arm went around her shoulders, and she settled in, content.

After a while, I nudged her up. “Come with me,” I said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

She followed, barefoot down the steps and across the grass, which was still warm from the day. We walked past the barn, where the horses snorted and shifted in their stalls, out to the far pasture. There, at the edge of the ridge, the land fell away, and the sky opened up.

Waiting for us was a horse. One of the younger ones. Black as a thunderhead, with a crooked star on its forehead. I’d saddled him earlier, after dinner, on a hunch.

Tess stopped a few feet away. “That’s not your horse,” she said.

“Nope.”

She eyed the animal, then me. “You want me to ride it?”

I nodded. “Him, and I do.”

She hesitated, just for a second, then squared her shoulders and walked up to the horse. He flicked his ears but didn’t move.

I cupped my hands to give her a boost. She put her foot in, then swung up, clumsy but determined. The horse shifted, but she found her seat.

“You sure about this?” she called down.

“Never been surer of anything,” I said.

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

I climbed up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. The horse snorted, then started forward at a slow walk, hooves muffled by the soft ground.

We rode out to the bluff, the wind pulling at our shirts, and the sky so full of stars it looked fake. Tess sat tall in the saddle, hands steady, eyes on the horizon.

The horse picked up speed, almost a trot, and for a second, I worried he’d spook, but Tess just laughed, hard.

I pulled the reins, and the horse stopped at the edge of the world. We looked out over the ranch. The fields, the creek, the glow of the house in the distance.

She leaned back against me, and I could feel her heart, steady and strong.

“What’s his name? I know I’ve ridden him before, but I can’t remember.” She nodded at the horse.

I grinned. “Panic.”

She burst out laughing. “You named a horse Panic?”

“Yes,” I said. “And now he’s yours.”

She stared at me with wide eyes, then her face melted, and she reached down and stroked Panic’s neck. “I think I like it,” she said. “I think I like all of it.”

The wind picked up, cool and sweet, and Tess closed her eyes, just letting it hit her face.

She turned in the saddle to kiss me. I wrapped my arms around her and held on.

49. TESS

After dinner, the day after Calder gave me Panic, I waited in his room, which was really my room now, too. Calder came in after a while. He set his hat on the dresser, looked at the ceiling, and exhaled like the day had worn through him. It probably had.

He peeled off his shirt and wiped his neck with it. The muscles in his shoulders stood out, dark and hard. I watched him move, but I didn’t say anything.

As soon as he got out of the shower and walked back into the room, he noticed I wasn’t exactly myself. “You all right?”