The Rancher and the Event Planner - By Cheryl Gorman Page 0,19
on the top rail. The horse lifted her head and pricked her ears.
Rafe turned. His gaze collided with hers and every exquisite memory of their kiss that morning played out in her head. The flavor of his lips, the hunger to get closer, to feel him next to her, skin to skin, with nothing separating them, not even air. Her pulse skittered and hunger pooled in her stomach. Seconds seemed to turn to minutes before he said, “Jennifer, how did the meeting go?”
“Great. I wanted to find out how things went with you and Cade this morning.”
He led the horse over to the fence, pulling a bandana from his pocket and wiping sweat from his forehead. “Things went fine.”
“And?”
He started toward the paddock gate. “We can talk while I give Honey a rub down.”
Once inside the barn, he tethered the horse in the middle of the alleyway and filled a bucket with water. “Cade and I came to an understanding,” he said sweeping a wet sponge over the mare’s sweaty back and flanks.
JC perched on a hay bale and inhaled the animal scents saturating the air. “What kind of understanding?”
Rafe glanced her way and his gaze filled with barely banked heat. “The kind where I keep my hands off you for the rest of the month.” He turned back to the mare and used a metal scraper to sweep away the excess water from her coat. Afterward, he applied a round rubber tool over the mare in circular motions. He looked at JC again then focused his attention back on the horse. “He’s right. I should never have allowed anything to happen between us. You could get hurt. We could both get hurt. You’ll only be here for a month then you’ll go back to your life and I’ll get back to mine. End of story.”
JC’s temper flared inside like a lightning strike on dry brush. Her cheeks flushed but her humiliation morphed into annoyance. “Cade told you, didn’t he?”
Rafe was silent for a moment with only the sounds of the rubber grooming tool moving over the horse’s coat, the distant mooing of cattle in the pastures and the soft rush of wind against the walls of the barn. “Yeah, he told me.” He stopped brushing the horse and stared at her. “I wish you’d told me instead. Why didn’t you?”
They both knew he wasn’t referring to her marriage ceremony itself but the why behind it. And the why had nothing to do with love for her ex-husband and everything to do with escape. “Because you married Caroline and your life was settled. It was time to stop dreaming about a stupid fantasy that was never going to happen. When Dave asked me to marry him, I didn’t have a reason to say no anymore.”
Rafe rested his arms on the horse’s back as a range of unreadable emotions flickered over his features. “I’m so sorry you got hurt. If I had known maybe I could have—”
She shook her head. “No, the marriage was my decision. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
He shook his head but didn’t look at her. “I didn’t mean your marriage. I meant your feelings for me.”
Her heart set up a drum beat behind her ribs. “What would you have done if you’d known?” She held her breath craving his answer and dreading it at the same time.
He untethered the horse and secured the mare in her stall then turned toward JC. “Probably run like a scared rabbit at first then I would have told you what a wonderful girl you were and that you deserved someone a whole lot better than me.”
Let her down easy, of course. Her heart settled and she exhaled. “Are you planning to run now?”
His expression grew serious. “I tried to do the right thing by Caroline and I made a mess of things. I refuse to put another woman at risk. Especially you.”
As a girl, she’d dreamed of Rafe sweeping her into his arms and declaring his love then the two of them riding off into the sunset. A stupid girl’s fantasy. But she wasn’t a starry eyed teenager anymore. She’d grown a woman’s heart.
JC walked to his side, took his hands in hers and looked up into his vivid, blue eyes. She could happily drown in them. “I don’t know if I can ever be the kind of woman you want or need. I’ve always believed that romantic love could never happen to someone like me after living through my parent’s