Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,57

home to a little elephant sleeping on the couch.”

“Or taking your tiny giraffe for a walk.”

We arrived at the gardens. A woman was standing with two horses that were already saddled up and ready to go.

“You excited?” I asked.

“I’ve never ridden a horse before,” she said. “You think it’s okay?”

The woman with the horses overheard and smiled. “You’ll be fine. I’ll take a few minutes going over the basics, and then I’ll let you and Mr. King take them around the grounds.”

“By ourselves?” she asked. “Is that safe?”

“Mr. King is an experienced rider. These horses are also extremely well trained. You’ll be absolutely safe.”

Miranda looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “I never took you for a horse rider.”

“Yeah, well, I went through a little bit of an equestrian phase after high school. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Do your brothers know?”

“Of course they don’t,” I snapped. I blew out a breath and shook my head. “Sorry, it’s just . . . yeah, please never breathe a word of that to them. Especially Cade. He’d never let me live it down.”

She was smiling wide now. “Did you wear those tight beige horse-riding pants and the little hat?”

“It’s a helmet. And I wore the equipment you’re supposed to wear. Sometimes the pants were beige,” I added.

She clapped her hands and laughed. “Oh my God. I can’t even picture it, but I want to. Is it some sort of requirement that all men in the King family have to have a weird hobby?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Rich has the dinosaur thing. You have horses, apparently.”

“Had,” Nick corrected. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy riding, but I don’t compete or anything like that.”

“Actually,” Miranda said, “does Cade have a weird thing, other than, well, being weird in general?”

“Yeah. Never ask him about bugs or snails. He will talk for hours about them.”

She smirked. “I think I caught the tail end of one of his snail talks, come to think of it. But what made you get into horses in the first place?”

I shrugged. “This girl I liked talked about how she always wanted to ride. I guess I imagined I’d get the chance to sweep her off her feet and ride into the sunset someday.”

She gave me a funny look. “Did you?”

“Not yet,” I said.

Her eyebrows twitched together, but I didn’t think she understood exactly what I meant, which was probably for the best. Holding in the way I felt about her, even just for a few days, was making it feel like it all wanted to come exploding out of me now. If she knew how fast my heart was pounding just from going on an innocent little ride together, I thought she’d probably run for the hills and never come back.

“You ready?” I asked.

Half an hour later, Miranda had the basics down. We thanked the trainer and set off at a slow trot down the horse trail. We could see most of the Julian Ridge grounds once we led our horses up a hill, and it was quite the view. Streetlamps dotted the hills, and a few cabins with their warm yellow lights were visible as well. If I squinted, I could see the occasional movement of pairs or groups of people, some with dogs on leashes, as they moved from place to place.

“This is incredible,” Miranda said. “I feel like we’re in our own little world up here.”

“Yeah. I always enjoyed riding like this. It’s pure.”

As if on cue, Miranda’s horse lifted its tail and took a giant, thudding shit into the mud.

Miranda looked back, horrified. “Did it just . . .”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Mostly pure, I guess.”

She laughed. “When we genetically modify miniature horses for our business of the future, we’ll have to figure out how to potty train them too. Maybe there’s a gene for that.”

“Hey, wait,” I whispered. I motioned for her to stop her horse and pointed through a patch of trees, where we could see a road. “Is that who I think it is?”

There was a bright-orange sports car parked on the shoulder with smoke hissing out from under the hood. And I’d be damned if Max Frost himself wasn’t on his cell phone, leaning against the car.

“Oh my God,” Miranda said. “That is him.”

“Is it just me, or would this be the perfect opportunity to get some childish payback?”

“Like what?”

“Follow me.” Miranda and I jumped off our horses and then started carefully picking our way down the sloping path