My shoulders stiffened and I pulled my gaze away from her. “You think an ill-fated vacation fling with a guy, who I know nothing about and who definitely isn’t an actual cowboy, will fix everything that’s wrong with me, fix everything that has been wrong with me from the start?” I couldn’t keep my incredulousness or how absurd that idea sounded to me out of my tone.

“Nothing is wrong with you, Leo. Nothing has ever been wrong with you, but I’ve known you a very long time and I know how reluctant you are to take any kind of risk. You like things predictable and staid. That isn’t any way to live, because no matter how hard you try you can’t control everything. Look at the situation with Chris. You let him in because he was all the unassuming and simple things you told yourself you wanted. Maybe the sexy, not quite a cowboy is exactly the kind of outrageous and unexpected experience you need so you can see not all risks will end up with you getting hurt. Then maybe you’ll realize that even if you do get injured, sometimes the experience on the way to the pain was worth suffering through. I see you on that horse, Leo; we both know you shouldn’t have given riding up just because you got thrown one time. You’re a natural.”

The discomfort that came from sitting in the saddle too long definitely didn’t take away from the fact I really did enjoy being mounted back up. I knew my granddad would be so proud of me for eventually conquering my fear. A pang of regret stabbed into me that I was too late to show him that I could overcome the fear that always held me back. He had passed away a few years ago after a valiant fight with a heart that just wouldn’t work right anymore. He’d passed peacefully in his sleep. After my grandmother got their affairs in order, she had surprised both me and my mother by packing up her entire house in Nor Cal and moving it all to a swanky retirement community in Florida. I never thought of my grandparents as elderly or old, but with granddad gone, she insisted the house and its upkeep was too much. She’d outright laughed in my face when I offered to move back to help her out so she didn’t have move all the way across the country from me. She told me it was her job to raise me well enough that I could live out in the world on my own, and she wasn’t interested in going backwards or reversing roles where it was my turn to take care of her. She told me she fully intended to have a life on her own terms and that meant being around people her own age and out of the middle of the constant tug of war between me and my mother. She loved us both (I liked to think she loved me more) and that was much easier for her to do with some space between all of us.

I’d promised to visit as often as I could. So far, I’d been to see her twice. The last time was after I broke things off with Chris and knew I needed to get out of the city so I didn’t do something I’d regret, like show up at his house in the ’burbs, pulling the curtain off his double life and breaking his family apart in the process. It might have made me feel better, but I knew what it was like to be a child with a parent who was nothing more than a stranger. I didn’t want to be responsible for putting Chris’s kids in that situation. So far, my mother had yet to get on a plane and I don’t think my grandmother was at all surprised. I know I wasn’t.

Lost in thought, I was glad Boss was paying attention to the horse in front of me as he pulled his head back and came to a halt. I didn’t even notice that the trail had dumped us into the center of a postcard. The mountains rose in the background, tall and majestic, as a riot of colorful flowers blanketed the ground under a sky that seemed bluer than any blue I had ever seen before in my life. There was a brook that was actually babbling, and like the brothers had purposely set the scene so that their guests wouldn’t be disappointed, a doe lifted her head from the water where she was drinking as we all came to a stop. I could have sworn she looked right at me before she startled and leapt over the water, disappearing back into the trees. I didn’t think places like this actually existed outside of landscape calendars at mall kiosks and screen savers on the computer.

Lane pulled out of his place in the lineup and rode up next to Cy. The brothers exchanged some words and Lane took the leads attached to the mules and grabbed the bridle on Cy’s horse as he started toward the water.

Cy put his hands on his hips and told us, “You can all hop off the horses. Take them over to Lane. He’ll take care of them while you all eat lunch. Remember, it’s the last prepared meal, so what you catch here in the brook or later on tonight by the river is what’s going to be for dinner.”

“Can you help me down?” Evan’s voice had a practiced whine to it and I couldn’t help an eye roll as I worked myself out of the saddle.

I didn’t hear Cy’s response. My yelp of surprise as blood rushed to cramped muscles and hit sore places I didn’t know could hurt so badly, drowned out everything. My knees almost buckled and I almost hit the ground but hard hands caught me around the waist and pulled me back into an even harder chest. He smelled like sunshine and man, without even a hint of horse or sticky bug spray. He felt solid and real behind me, like someone built to bear his fair share of burdens and never break under the weight of the responsibility.

“I have Tiger Balm in one of the packs. I’ll dig it out for you, but it stinks like hell and it’s greasy as fuck. You won’t be able to wash it off until we hit the camp the day after next, but it will help with your muscles being saddle sore.”

I put a hand over his where it rested against the soft curve of my belly and couldn’t ignore that where he touched me did indeed get warm, then hot, then something hotter than hot. Through my clothes, his touch burned and smoldered against my skin. He was made of fire and Emrys was right, I was made up of things that wanted to go up in flames whenever he got close to me.