Good Time Cowboy. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ well,” he said finally. “I’m a little tacky.”

      “I believe that.”

      They rode on through the rows of vines, the sun casting long shadows across the path as they went. It was a spectacular ride. If they paused for some wine tasting, it would be the kind of experience people would go home and tell their friends about.

      The kind of experience that would make Grassroots Winery and Get Out of Dodge prime tourist destinations.

      And right now, he didn’t care about that. He could hardly think about it.

      He was supposed to be out here thinking of exclusively that. But then...but then there was Lindy.

      He tightened his hold on Emmy Lou’s reins and stopped her midgait. “We figured that right up here would be a great place to stop for a picnic.”

      He’d force himself back on track if he had to.

      There was more grass at the end of the grape vines, a few picnic tables set out there, with the glorious view of the mountains around them. Back behind them was the row of pine trees, the river now completely obscured. There were no buildings in view. And it gave the sense of being wholly and completely closed in. He paused his horse.

      “It’s serene out here,” Lindy said. “I get so caught up in doing all of the office work that I forget to come out here.”

      “Well, you’ll have to come out on the tours sometimes.”

      “I don’t know if I’ll have time.”

      “It’s a double-edged sword,” he said, to her or to himself he didn’t know. “You make the thing you love your work, and often that means you start neglecting the parts of it that you loved most.”

      “I guess that’s true.”

      He dismounted, looking back at Lindy. “Why don’t we stop here for a minute?”

      Lindy’s eyes were still covered by her sunglasses, but he could see the hesitation move through her entire body. The subtle twitch in her shoulders, the way her hands choked up on the reins, as if preparing to double down about staying on the horse. About not stopping with him.

      He could almost read her internal war with herself. To make a big deal out of it and let him know that she was battling anything at all, or to give in and subject herself to a greater amount of time in his presence.

      He’d casually dated women he couldn’t read as well as the woman in front of him. And for some reason...he could see through her, clear as day.

      Which seemed more curse than blessing in general.

      “Okay,” she said, getting off the horse quickly, as though the moment of hesitation before hadn’t happened at all.

      “So, you actually make the wine here?” he asked, turning away from her and surveying the grapevines.

      “Yes,” she said. “All of the equipment is housed in one of the other barns on the property. Before my in-laws bought the place years ago, it was a big, working ranch. So, a lot of the original buildings are intact. We’ve just repurposed them.”

      “I see,” he said. He turned to face her then. She wasn’t looking at him. At least, he was fairly certain she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were still obscured by the sunglasses. Purposefully so, in his expert Lindy opinion.

      “What changes have you implemented?” he asked.

      She jerked, as if in shock, and then she did look over at him. “Since the divorce?”

      “No. All of it. How much of it is yours, Lindy. I want to hear about it.” He did. God knew why, but he did. He was fascinated by her. This prickly, inaccessible woman. Maybe that was why. Because she didn’t bat her eyes and try to get his attention. No. She was hell-bent on running from the attraction between them. Not tempted to lean into it at all. Maybe he was that simple. Enticed by someone who didn’t want him back.

      Because it was a novelty.

      Because he was a man, and men were pricks.

      Or at the very least, led around by them.

      “Damien didn’t really want it,” she said. “In fact, when his parents decided to retire, and they turned the place over to him he immediately started trying to figure out how he could pawn the work off on someone else. That’s fine. I mean, he did have a career that was separate from the business. I think to a degree he felt like his father was forcing his hand. Either way, he never wanted anything to do with it. But I... I did.” The corners of her lips turned down into a frown, and he could see a slight pleat forming between her brows, right above the edge of the sunglasses frame. “I never really had dreams. I mean, nothing that was above myself. Until I met Damien, and suddenly so many other possibilities were opened up to me. Money doesn’t buy happiness, Wyatt, but it sure as hell changes your opportunities. Suddenly...there were a lot of different ways for me to figure out how I might find happiness. Damien was done with school, so, that was never really on the table. Anyway, I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about what I would study in school. It was one of those things that was never an option for me.”

      She paused for a moment, tilting her head to the side. “It’s a funny thing. You move in certain circles, and it never occurs to anyone that you might not have gone to college. Which was crazy to me, heading into that social circle. No one in my family has gone to school. I would never...assume that someone had. Now, it seems like more often than not I never meet people who assume someone might not have. Class creates interesting divides, even in small towns. I never really realized how complicated it was until I had lived on both the green side of the fence and the dirt side.”

      “I didn’t go to school,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “Nothing beyond the school of getting thrown off an angry animal onto my ass. Grant got married. Bennett... He had a goal, and he figured out how to make it happen. I used to envy him a little bit.”

      “You did?”

      He had never said those words out loud before, and he had no earthly idea why he was saying them to her now. “Yeah. Both of them, actually. They both found something they wanted and went for it. I... I kind of fell into rodeo.”

      “I don’t believe that,” she said. “I have too deep of an appreciation for how difficult the work is. For how competitive it is. You forget, my brother does it too.”

      “No. I didn’t forget. But I’ll be honest and say that I fell into success there. At first...at first I wanted to get away.”

      She looked interested in that, but she didn’t press. And that was good. He didn’t really want to talk about the circumstances that surrounded his leaving home for the first time. Not with her. Not with anyone.

      “I understand that,” she said softly. “Damien was like a nice escape from my real life. When he first showed interest in me... I couldn’t believe it.”

      “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you meet him?”

      “At the winery,” she said, looking around them. “I applied for a job here. I thought it would be a step up from what I was doing. I was working swing shift at a fast-food restaurant in СКАЧАТЬ