moment.
Until Rocket encroached in his space, apparently wanting in on the action, so Kerry disengaged our fingers to attend to his horse.
When I finally drew my hand back, Kerry smiled. “Well, now you’ve made a friend for life.”
I snickered. “I feel like I accomplished something, and all I did was pet a horse.”
He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s the little things.”
And then there was another one of those moments where our gazes clashed for entirely too long, and fuck if his eyes didn’t soften a fraction, which made me feel all melted inside. From a damned look.
I realized right then that Kerry was right. Sometimes it was the simplest gesture that took up the most room in your heart. And Kerry’s kindness was something I wouldn’t soon forget.
Kerry’s breath hitched, and he took a step back, as if grasping for the first time how close we’d been standing—and staring. “I, uh, should go talk to Dr. Barnes.”
I blinked a few times, watching him head away from me, then averted my eyes like I’d been caught gawking too long. I felt dumbfounded for an instant longer, then finally got moving. I walked my ass back to work on the silo, wondering the entire time if this tension between us would come to a head for either of us—one way or another.
14
Kerry
“Ainsley will be ready to ride her before we know it,” Dr. Barnes said as I walked her to her car. “But we never want to rush it. Let’s see what next session feels like.”
“Sounds good.” I waved to her as she drove away.
Afterward, Ainsley helped me feed the chickens, and as she was intent on the task, I couldn’t stop my brain from rolling back thirty minutes to when Julian had stopped to watch Ainsley with Dr. Barnes again. He was obviously curious about the sessions, the horses, or both, and in the process had inadvertently witnessed a proud parent moment between Sienna and me when Ainsley finally mounted her horse. She had been so patient in her work with Dr. Barnes, and soon enough, we’d be riding as a family again. I didn’t realize until right then how much I’d missed it.
Ainsley had been raised on horses just like Sienna and me. But her recent fears had kept her from enjoying them again. When Piper had come to us as a rescue and Ainsley had immediately taken to her, we knew it was the right time to get Dr. Barnes involved.
And now look how far we’d come.
I cracked a smile as Ainsley squealed and chased after Cookie, her favorite chicken.
I glanced back toward the paddock. That moment between Julian and me…what had that been about?
It certainly wasn’t the first time that same sort of transcendent feeling had passed between us. It was as if the tendrils of my attraction were weaving themselves around the tender and bruised places inside me, and I wanted to…what? Hold him? Spend more time with him in a different way? That could only end in disaster.
And what was I thinking? What if Sienna had returned to the paddock and saw us standing so close together? Or Ainsley had finished with Dr. Barnes and ran up on us?
And so what if they did? I was simply helping him get over his trepidation around horses. He was thrumming with the same raw energy as the night of his bad dream, and I wanted to assist him in bridging that gap between his irrational fears and his curiosity.
Why did a badass soldier—an explosives guy, no less—feel uncomfortable around horses in the first place? His mom had been raised around them, though that wasn’t always a good predictor of interest; look at me and my family’s ranch. Besides, Aunt Melinda hadn’t stuck around in Wyoming and didn’t visit all that often, so maybe that had something to do with it.
I also wondered if Julian’s fears stemmed from the same reasons my daughter was struggling so much. The aftereffects of a traumatic event. We certainly would’ve never guessed that Ainsley would develop the kind of anxiety she did after such an ordeal. So maybe these animals seemed as uncertain to Julian as some things did for Ainsley. Julian also had nightmares, and it seemed to me that he worked himself to the bone on the silo every day just to keep moving.
After delivering a basket of fresh eggs to Marta, and while Ainsley chilled out with a favorite show in the family room, I hopped on a four-wheeler and