All The Way. Beverly Bird

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      She’d been afraid of horses from the first moment he’d met her, Hunter thought. Her father had been a college professor, her mother an artist. Though she’d been born and raised in Phoenix, Livie had never set foot near a horse until she landed on the Res.

      He’d done his best to ease her out of her fear, if only for the sake of her survival. It had been a long distance from point to point back there in Navajo land. But Liv had always preferred to walk or stick her thumb out whenever she needed to go somewhere.

      Now her new job demanded that she know how to manage a horse. She’d been hired by one of the major Flagstaff resorts to work in their stables and guide their group rides. She’d let her past speak for itself, implying that a girl from the high-country could gallop with the best of them. She needed the job, so she hadn’t bothered to mention that she preferred her heels planted solidly on the ground. She’d written him a frantic letter for help instead.

      So Hunter had come back from New Mexico. He’d picked her up at dawn at her apartment and they’d slipped out to this isolated ranch north of the city. The owner was the father of a guy he’d crossed paths with in the Army.

      Hunter was suddenly struck by inspiration as he continued to watch her critically. “You know what you’re doing wrong?”

      “Besides sitting on top of a thousand pounds of unpredictable animal?” But her fingers loosened on the saddle horn.

      Hunter grinned. She was the only person he’d ever known who could make him do that—grin himself right out of frustration. “It’s in your hips, Liv.”

      She wiggled her brows at him. “You like my hips.”

      “Not on a horse, I don’t.”

      She sighed and reined the animal in. “Okay. Tell me what’s wrong with them. I’m all ears.”

      “You don’t move them right. You’re all rigid. Move them like you do when I’m inside you.”

      Her reaction delighted him. Her breath caught and her eyes went wide, then she looked around quickly to see if anyone was close enough to overhear them. They were alone.

      She grinned wickedly. “Um, I forget exactly. Better remind me.”

      He hadn’t been angling for such an invitation…and for the life of him he couldn’t walk away from it. Hunter started toward her horse with slow, deliberate strides. She made a move as though to dismount. Then something—maybe the snap of a twig as his heel came down on it, or the sudden tension that he could only imagine was zinging through her body—made the horse spook. It reared, and Liv went head over heels off the back of the saddle.

      Hunter shouted and closed the rest of the distance at a run. When he reached her, she had a wild look in her eyes and she was breathing hard, but he knew in an instant that she was unhurt. She was spitting mad.

      “That nasty beast tossed me!”

      “Did it hurt?” He helped her sit up, brushed her off.

      “Of course it did! It jarred the breath right out of me!”

      “Will you live?”

      She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ll never touch me again if you don’t show a little sympathy here.”

      “Sorry. But think about it. The worst happened. You got thrown. If you’re going to ride, it had to happen eventually. But how bad was it? Something to be so terrified of that you can’t do this job they’re offering you?”

      He could tell by the way she refused to let herself smile that he’d made his point. “I hate you.”

      “You love me.”

      “Some days less than others. You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You spooked my horse to make a point.”

      “Nope. It was an accident.”

      She finally let herself grin. “I’m still not exactly sure how to move my hips.”

      He had her flat on her back before she could breathe again. “Ah, Livie.” There was no one like her, no other woman who could make him crave and ache and smile during long nights alone in the barracks.

      As they began fumbling with each other’s clothes, Hunter maneuvered her to her feet. “Not here.” They weren’t on the Res anymore.

      “The barn,” she gasped against his mouth.

      They headed that way, trying to walk decorously, but her mind was on other things and she stumbled once. Liv giggled. He caught her elbow and propelled her inside, into a stall. And they laughed and touched and feasted and it ended too soon because he had to leave again, but for that one high noon, everything was the way it had been before. He slid inside her as they rolled on bales of hay, and he whispered the truth in her ear, that she was all he ever needed.

      There was never any doubt that she would go to the Spirit Room.

      Liv prowled her sitting room at 7:30, her hands scraping restlessly through her hair then fussing with the belt of her robe. Her stomach was alternately a knot, then something squishy and weightless. She tried a glass of wine to calm her nerves, but it only made her nauseous.

      “Okay,” she whispered aloud to walls that undoubtedly knew many more secrets than her own. “I’m fine.”

      All that mattered was Vicky, Liv reminded herself. She would die to protect her, would keep any of this from affecting her, and that was that. Liv paused in her pacing to swig more wine, then her throat closed and she found it hard to swallow.

      She had lied to Hunter all those years ago for one reason—to make him go before he realized she was pregnant. She’d known by then that he wasn’t ever going to stay with her, and she would not subject their child to a fly-by-night father slipping in and out of their lives. He would do the same thing now—fade in and out, a tantalizing wish—if she let him. So somehow she had to make him go away again, once and for all.

      Kiki was right. She’d given Vicky a reasonably stable life. Maybe it wasn’t everything she’d ever dreamed of for her child, because in the end, she hadn’t had it in her to stay with Johnny. But it was enough. She would not let Hunter change that.

      Liv moaned aloud, her stomach heaving. She had never been able to make Hunter do anything he hadn’t wanted to do. That was how she’d known that he’d never really been in love with her. Because when she’d told him to leave, he’d gone.

      Liv was so grateful to be out of the stables, she almost didn’t mind the hokey uniform they’d given her for her promotion to barmaid. She ducked into the rest room to check her appearance before her shift started, reminding herself that this was actually a step up.

      She’d lasted with the riding operation for five months until it had closed for the season right before Christmas. Hunter had come back three more times to hammer the tricks of the trade into her. She’d done well because she’d made it a point to do well. She’d hadn’t been thrown again. But she wasn’t about to spend the remainder of her life on horseback and mucking out stalls.

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