Honor and Desire (Gold Sky #3) - Rebel Carter Page 0,28
but she was of no mind to heed him. She was a seasoned horsewoman, she could handle herself, and he knew it.
She much expected August was only yelling at her on account of him no longer being able to tell her how easily she communicated her emotions or some other truth she wasn’t keen on. On Seylah rode, the seconds passing to minutes before the site of their work was in front of them, and she pulled her horse to a stop.
When August arrived beside her, nearly a minute later, Seylah was happily unpacking the tools needed for the fence-mending. She cautioned a look up at him and saw that the man was glowering at her from where he was still astride.
“What?” She asked yanking her leather gloves on with a snap.
“You’re goddamn infuriating,” August bit out and swung down from his horse with another glare. “You’ll be the death of me. I know it.”
Seylah rolled her eyes at him. “Stop being so dramatic.”
“Says the woman riding like the devil was chasing her. You need to take more care when you’re out here.”
Seylah approached the fence, the barbed wire at this point of the line had fallen, and clucked her tongue when she saw the braces responsible for holding the fence intact had been knocked loose. Most likely from the hard winds they’d had all summer. “Oh, I know the land like the back of my hand, you know that.”
“Then you know to pay mind that we’ve been having a rough storm season this summer. Plenty of the grounds have been washed out over the past few weeks, Seylah. Running your horse that fast without minding the new holes is foolish. The last thing any of us needs is for you to go breakin’ your neck, because you were careless with your horse.”
She froze at August’s words and stared at the fallen fence. He was right, of course. There had been countless storms over the past weeks, more washouts than normal, and the land this way did have a tendency to be weak and sandy in some areas. She had closed her eyes, and he’d seen it, knew she hadn’t been paying attention like she normally did because she was wound up.
Seylah grit her teeth. She was wound up, because of the same man that was right. She hated that he was right.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied stubbornly, because once Seylah had dug her heels in, she took great care to dig in doubly when August was involved.
“You damn well know what I’m talking about.” He was at her side, then, and yanking on his own gloves with a snap of his hands. “You take any more chances like that and—“
“And what?” she interrupted, glaring up at him. She was mad at him, because she knew he was in a poor mood, and that he was unwilling to tell her why he was in such a poor mood, even though in her heart Seylah had a sinking suspicion what it was about.
Her scheduled outing with Elliot Meyers.
August raised one finger and pointed at her. “If you think for one second that I’m going to let you run wild and reckless you’ve got another thing coming, Seylah Wickes-Barnes. I’ll not have it,” he told her, his voice dropping an octave and filling the space between them with an air of authority she hadn’t heard directed at her by August. She’d heard this voice, his no-nonsense, stern voice that commanded, left no room for arguments, but it had never been used on her.
She reared back on him, and slapped his finger away with an audible gasp. “You’ll not have it? Who do you think you are to order me about?”
August avoided her hand when she made to slap at his pointed finger. Instead, he caught it and curled his hand around hers bringing it to his chest. “I’m your best friend, that’s who I am. And I’ll not see you hurt.”
As if by magic, that simple touch, just the weight of his hand around hers, the steadiness of his chest against the back of her hand, served to leach all the anger and frustration right out of her.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered, and the stormy expression on August’s face melted away to a reluctant smile.
“I know,” he said, simply.
She wiggled her fingers slightly, the move working to press their fingers together. “Why won’t you talk about what’s put you in a mood?”