CHAPTER FOUR
Boomer stood shoulder to shoulder with Sidney by the round pen, in quiet solidarity as Hank and Mac approached. He shifted from foot to artificial foot and rubbed the muscles at the base of his neck. If Mac or Hank didn’t want the burro, he’d find a home that could take it and the buckskin, because he wasn’t about to let them be split up.
Boomer wasn’t sure he liked what that said about him. Next thing you knew he’d be eating berries and nuts and swearing off steak. He straightened, not giving a flying fuck what anyone else thought. This decision he would own and defend.
Bryan shook Hank’s outstretched hand.
Hank turned his attention to Sidney. “You must be—”
“Holy cowboy! You’re Hank Nash!” She shook his hand as if she’d met Bon Jovi and Captain America all rolled into one, as if she wanted to ask him for a selfie and to sign her breasts with a Sharpie. For hell’s sake.
“In the flesh,” Hank said.
“I saw you win the finals in Vegas, that bull was brutal, I—”
“What happened to your head?” Mac pointed at Sidney’s right temple, drawing the attention away from her husband.
Maybe Boomer needed a silver belt buckle too. They seemed to be some kind of metallic aphrodisiac.
Sidney raised a hand and came away with a smattering of sand and blood. “I…uh…” She glanced back at the round pen, then her shoulders sagged, and Boomer knew she’d decided not to lie. To tell her new bosses that she’d lost her shit.
“My fault,” Boomer said. “I tripped her up while she was working the horses.” The truth, essentially. More of a mental trip, but he claimed fault.
“It’s a scrape.” She sneaked a thank-you glance at him then turned her attention back to Mac and Hank. “Come on, I’ll show you the horses.”
As they walked toward the mustangs, Boomer fell in behind them. Sidney carried the conversation. The horses were her deal. Phantom pains shot up his leg—hot and scorching and excruciating, as if a razor-toothed demon were using his leg as a chew stick. He froze mid-step. Sweat slicked his scalp and sluiced down his spine as goose bumps erupted on his skin. His heart rate spiked, his stomach roiled, and he swallowed a bubble of bile.
“Hey, Bryan, you coming?” Sidney asked.
He tugged his hat down low before looking up, trying to hide the pain. Sidney hung from the corral, two rungs up so she could see over the top.
“Be right there.” His words came out low and harsh, as if the demon had taken hold of his soul and growled them out.
Sidney turned back to the horses.
Mac stepped over to him. “You okay?” she said under her breath.
“Yeah, sure.” He tried to smile, but the demon chomped down again and stole it away.
“Bullshit. Sit down and take a load off.”
The beast answered. “You know what I need? I need you to leave me the fuck alone.”
Mac cracked her knuckles, prepping for a fight, and smiled—slow, salient, dangerous. “Sit your ass down, or I’ll take you down. Your choice.”
Fat chance. “I’m not gonna sit in the dirt and cry over my boo-boo. I’m not a kid with a skinned knee.” Then another scorching wave of pain hit, sucking the oxygen from his lungs. He heaved in warm, dry air. “Corral,” he managed. “I’ll lean on it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pain pill mixed in among the lint and horse treats and galvanized screws and popped the pill into his mouth, crunching it between his molars like a Tic Tac.
Mac wrapped her arm around his waist and bore his weight as they trudged to the fence.
At the rail, a few yards from where Hank and Sidney compared the horses’ conformation, the demon unhinged his jaws and released his leg. Boomer removed his hat and swiped the sweat from him brow. Sometimes he didn’t know what he’d do without Mac. When he spoke, he pushed the words past the emotion in his throat. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
She gave his waist a squeeze before letting go. “Am I the pot, or the kettle?”
He latched onto the top rail, transferring his weight from Mac to his good leg. The burro spotted him, pushed through the herd, and trotted halfway over, his long, fuzzy ears quivering as he brayed.
“A donkey?” Hank’s voice jumped from bass to soprano.
“I—”
“He’s bonded to the buckskin.” Sidney cut Boomer a look that screamed shut the hell up. He did, though the burro was his deal. Why was she protecting him?
Sidney continued, “I couldn’t pass up the buckskin, and I figured that if your plan was to train and sell horses to the dude ranches, then a string that comes with a pack animal could add a lot of value.”
Boomer tuned out as Hank asked her another question. Mac nudged his shoulder in a spill-the-beans kind of gesture. He leaned in and whispered, “No matter what she says,” he tilted his head toward Sidney, “the donkey’s on me. I couldn’t leave him behind.”
Mac met his gaze. He didn’t find pity or concern there, just utter and complete understanding. “Of course not.”
“See those two horses over there?” Hank said to Sidney. “That’s the mare and the colt the horse was pregnant with when Mac saved them from the kill buyer at auction a couple years ago. I’d sent her there to buy some saddle horses.”
Hank had raised his voice to be heard by his wife and Boomer. After he was finished talking, Hank said to Mac, “If I hadn’t seen you two in action, I would think y’all were a couple a pushovers.”
“Come closer and say that to my face, cowboy.” Mac’s eyes went dark, mischievous.
Hank backed off, with a smile on his face. “Not in front of the children, dear.”
Mac rolled her eyes. Sidney laughed. It was low and throaty, completely at odds from how Boomer had expected her laugh to sound. He shouldn’t have been surprised. In the two days he’d known her, she hadn’t once been what he’d expected.
He looked at her then, really looked at her. He looked past the short red hair she’d moussed up from her scalp like tiny flames, past the flush on her cheeks from a day in the sun, past the sandy raspberry on her temple, past her firm breasts and exquisite ass. Past all that, he saw the woman beneath: tough, strong, intelligent, with a depth he suspected he could mine for an eon and still not hit bottom.
“Burro or no burro, you picked a solid string, Sidney. Good job,” Hank said.
It might have been Boomer’s imagination, but Sidney seemed to grow two inches right in front of his face.
Hank didn’t give Sidney a chance to respond before adding, “I got a call today, from a potential buyer,” he said. “Coming up in a couple weeks to check out what we have. He’s a big fish. People see he’s buying stock from us, others will want to as well. A good impression is vital.”
“Sure.” A smile. Tight. Forced. Sidney raised her chin. “I won’t let you down.”
Hank looked Sidney in the eye.
Did Hank see what Boomer saw? A woman determined to prove her abilities worthy and her detractors wrong?
“No, I don’t believe you will,” Hank said.
Hank and Mac turned toward the big house when Mac called over her shoulder. “Take care of that wound for her, Boomer.”
* * * *
At the barn, Bryan stopped Sidney with a hand to her arm and drew her around to face him. He lifted her chin and angled her wound toward the sun. With a light touch, he plucked a caked-on piece of hay from her forehead.
Sand rained down from her hair. Sidney reached up. The abrasion was superficial, the sand ground in, stuck on with dried sweat and blood. The wound stung every time the wind blew.
“Come on,” Bryan said. “I have a first aid kit at my cabin.”
“It’s fine. I’ll clean it when I take a shower tonight.”
“You know there’s manure in with all that sand.”
“It’s a scratch. I was raised in a barn. I probably nibbled on a ball of manure by the time I’d learned to crawl. If nothing else, I have one freaking fantastic immune system.”
“Humor me.” His blue eyes narrowed. He wasn’t taking no for an answer.
She sighed for dramatic effect. “Okay, fine. But I need to get Eli settled first.”
Bryan glanced over to where Eli was still saddled in the shade, his hay bag still partially full. “He can wait.”
“Eli, then me.”
He looked her up and down, measuring her resolve. He must have figured it was greater than his because he nodded and followed her over to Eli, his limp more profound.
“I’ve got this, if you want to sit and wait for me.”
“I can help.”
She stepped in front of him. “Your stride is short. The lines around your eyes are long, and if you clench your jaws any tighter, you’ll shatter a molar. Jesus, Bryan, if you’re in pain, stop.”
Then his face softened, a few of the stress lines on his forehead relaxed. “Only my mother calls me Bryan.”
She wrinkled her nose and suppressed a shiver. His mother? Bryan’s mother was probably a perfectly wonderful person, but having a hot guy tell you that you remind them of their mother, that was sixty-one kinds of wrong. “I remind you of your mother?”
He laughed. The rumble warm and smooth, like chocolate melting in the sun. He looked her up and down. Long and slow, as if he were mentally comparing every inch of her to his mother. Every. Single. Solitary. Inch. She flushed.
“Hardly,” he said.
Her stomach did a weird flippy thing and the synapses in her brain misfired, so she didn’t know what to think about her reaction. She led Eli to the barn. Bryan cranked on the water and handed her the hose.
Since changing the subject when things got awkward seemed to be working for them, she went with it. “So, you’ve liked to blow shit up—”
“For a very long time.” Bryan made the mental shift without slipping the clutch or grinding any gears.
“Legally?”
His slow smile transformed his face. “Mostly.” When she raised her brows at him he added, “Two or three or four fence posts may not have survived my elementary school days, and there was an old outhouse that fell victim. But that stinky old toilet taught me the need to learn how to shape my charges so the explosion goes in the right direction. I’d call it a win.”
She squeegeed the water off Eli then turned her horse out with Mac’s mare and colt. “Your mother must have been a saint.”
“See,” he grinned. “Nothing at all like you.”
She tried to sock him in the gut, but he moved faster than she’d expected considering his leg was bothering him.
As they walked down to Bryan’s cabin, Sidney’s mind whirred and shifted into hyperdrive. Two weeks. Two weeks to get four wild horses far enough in their training to impress the buyer. To impress Hank and Mac. To make or break her employment.
Her heart thumped in her chest, her breath quickened, and her stride lengthened. This wasn’t the start of another panic attack. The panic attacks were all about flight. This? This was all about the fight.
* * * *
Boomer held his cabin door open and ushered Sidney inside. She stopped in the center and did a slow 360, taking in the two sets of bunk beds on either side wall, the mini-kitchen with a refrigerator, sink, and microwave that shared a wall with the bathroom tucked behind it.
She rubbed a hand over the two-seater table, the top scarred and worn at the edges from years of use. There wasn’t much else to see. A one-room cabin didn’t take long to tour. He decided to skip showing her the bathroom, with its baby-shit green shower, toilet, and sink. No point in scaring her off.
“Very…retro,” she decided.
“It gets the job done.” He pulled out one of the ladder-back chairs. The joints were weak and the chair racked when you sat in it, but as little as she weighed, it wouldn’t matter none. “Sit.”
She did. “You live alone.”
“For now. Alby and Santos have the other cabin. This one was Mac and Hank’s before they moved into the foreman’s house. If they hire anyone else, I guess they’ll bunk here.”
“What about the cabins you’re building?”
“Guest cabins.” He retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom. “Hank’s talking about the Lazy S doing their own guided pack trips into the mountains, hunt trips, things like that.”
He set the kit on the table, grabbed the other chair, and scooted her chair sideways. He tilted her head to give him a better angle to the light dangling above the table. He dabbed at the wound with a gauze pad soaked in hydrogen peroxide, but every time the pad brushed her hairline, more sand rained down into the wound.
“This isn’t gonna cut it.” He tossed the pad into the trash, returned to the bathroom, and came back with a couple of bath towels and some shampoo. “On the counter. I’m going to wash the sand out of your hair.”
“I could go back to the barn and shower and take care of this myself.”
“You could.” He folded one of the towels as a neck rest and laid it on the counter beside the sink. “Or you could lay your ass on the counter and we can get this done.”
Sidney didn’t move. She could take his offer or leave it. It didn’t matter to him.
Yeah, tell yourself another lie, like you buy tickets to the World Series to eat the hot dogs.
Then she stepped to the counter and he couldn’t help the grin that slid across his face. She boosted herself up and lay back with her neck on the towel, her head hanging over the sink and her legs dangling off the far end of the counter.
He pulled a plastic pitcher from the cabinet above the sink and glanced down at her face as he waited for the water to warm. Even though her eyes were closed there was an animation to her features, an excitement that radiated from her. He opened his mouth to ask her about it when she started talking.
“I can’t believe I’m working for Hank Nash. Hank freaking Nash! I mean, I knew Mac’s last name was Nash and I knew her husband’s name was Hank, but holy cowboy, I didn’t put the two together.”
Mac had told Boomer all about the buckle bunnies that flocked around Hank like he was a monstrous, juicy carrot. Boomer chuckled. “You know he’s married, right?”
“I don’t care about that. Training for him and Mac, having their support, their stamp of approval…” Her voice wavered and she swallowed hard a couple of times.
He finished wetting her hair, then plopped some shampoo into his palm and started working it into the soft, bright strands.
“Training for Hank could do amazing things for my career.”
Working the suds across her scalp, he gently scrubbed and massaged. She groaned, deep in her throat. Boomer’s jeans shrunk a size as he thought of more fun ways he could get her to moan.
“You know, if the construction thing doesn’t work out for you, you could make a mint washing hair at a beauty salon.”
“I think I’ll file that under Things I’d Rather Kill Myself Before Doing.”
“You should keep your options open. You’re pretty amazing at it. Of course, it isn’t as amazing as, say, being a bull-riding champion—”
“Bull riders only have to hang on for eight seconds. I have far more impressive skills.” He refilled the pitcher and poured water over her forehead and rinsed away the sand, suds, and dried blood.
She opened her eyes and her face lit. “Oooh, impress me.”
“Well…” He dug way back into his childhood. “At the age of six I was a master of the atomic wedgie.”
She rolled her eyes. “Handy skill.”
“By ten I could burp the alphabet backwards. By thirteen I’d perfected my directional detonations…” And by twenty-three you were your company’s next best thing to a sniper. By twenty-seven you’d lost your leg, your career and your wife. Yeah, pretty fucking amazing.
Her smile slipped from her face and she sat up. Water dripped onto her shirt. “There.” She pointed at his eyes. “What was that?”
He wrapped the other towel around her shoulders. “What was what?”
“What were you thinking right then? It was like someone kicked sand on your fire.”
“It was nothing.”
“Liar.”
Suddenly he wanted a drink, wanted some pills, wanted to get the fuck out of his head.
Her eyes held his, a dense, lush forest full of private, probing questions.
Questions he had no intention of answering.
“What about kissing?” Her eyes darted to his lips.
His mental gears ground at the unexpected change in subject. It made him like her that much more. “What about it?”
“Are you amazing at kissing?”
“Uh…” His brain jumped the track trying to shift gears so fast.
“If all the women you’ve kissed were given a multiple-choice test, would they say: A, Yowza, my toes curled and my insides went jiggly; B, It wasn’t as bad as kissing my brother; or C, I’d rather French my pug?”
He nudged her legs apart, stepped between them, and cupped her jaw. “Kissing is very subjective.”
“If you acquire an adequate polling size—”
He leaned down and kissed her. He kissed her to shut her up, he kissed her to stay out of his head, he kissed her because he wanted to.
Her lips were warm and dry from being out in the sun all day. She nipped and sucked his upper lip, diving in deep when he opened his mouth to hers. She was bold and voracious, exploring his lips, his teeth, his tongue. She smelled of dirt and horse sweat, and a lightness more intoxicating than the booze could ever be.
He groaned when she wrapped her booted heels behind his ass and squeezed him closer. Because he wanted nothing more than to carry her to his bed and slowly, painstakingly explore every inch of her tight, lithe body. He broke the kiss.
Her eyes remained closed, then fluttered open, a lazy, well-kissed smile spread across her lips. “Yowza.”
A huff of a laugh escaped him. He pressed his forehead to hers while his racing heart slowed and they both caught their breath. He dropped his hands to her strong thighs and stroked the length of them—which didn’t help the whole wanting-to-go-caveman thing.
When he could talk again, he said, “Yowza is right.”
Her eyes explored his face. He felt everywhere her gaze landed, nose, cheeks, chin, lips. Back to his eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re waiting for me to wish it away, to take it back, to regret I kissed you.”
“Do you? Regret it?”
Seconds ticked by. Her eyes brightened from forest green to lush pasture. “About as much as I regret streaking at Aaron Edelstein’s bar mitzvah.”
His heart shrunk by a third. “So…a lot?”
“Aaron Edelstein was a pompous, pretentious prick. My streaking was the most excitement the town had seen in ages, and, as a bonus, my parents never made me go to an event I didn’t want to again. So, no regrets, not a sliver.”
He smiled and helped her off the counter. “Good to know.”
A few minutes later he had Sidney peroxided and all lubed up with a generous dose of triple antibiotic cream. “That should about do it.”
“Thank—”
Two heavy feet landed on the front porch and the cabin shuddered, snuffing out her just-kissed glow.
“Oh no,” she said.
The lever handle on the front door rattled and turned, and Sidney scrambled to her feet. The door slammed open, cracking against the wall and bouncing back. Sidney caught it on the backswing before it slapped Eli in the face. The horse brought a bold hoof inside.
“Get out!” Sidney hollered, even though it looked like she was fighting the giggles. “Go. Get.” She waved her hands and shooed him back, step by step, until he had all four feet off the porch and on the dirt.
She turned to Boomer and said, “Well, I guess my ride is here. Sorry about that.”
Boomer stepped out onto the porch, tucking his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. Sidney tapped Eli on the knee. The horse’s legs folded like a card table and Sidney climbed on. She gently squeezed her horse forward with her calves. He squashed the prick of jealousy as he remembered how those heels had felt locked around his thighs.
Sidney pointed to her head and said, “Thanks.”
Boomer tipped an imaginary hat and watched the pair leave, Sidney’s hips swaying back and forth in step with the horse’s long, ambling strides. He stepped back into his cabin, where the scent of his shampoo and Sidney still lingered. He grabbed a short glass and a tall bottle of whiskey and poured himself three fingers. Because he liked the burn as the liquor went down, he poured himself two more.
His first assessment of Sidney had been as spot on as a sniper’s bullet at point blank range. He breathed in deeply as her scent faded away. She smelled…she smelled exactly like trouble.
* * * *
The week passed in a blur of dust and sweat and cold meals eaten way too late and hot coffee drunk way too early. Too much work and not enough Bryan. Sidney had caught glimpses of him in the distance, nailing shingles on the top of one of the cabins, and had been with him and everyone else at mealtime.
Shortly after breakfast, with the sun still low in the sky, the breeze blew with a teasing hint of warmth. The days were warming up fast as summer approached and the white caps on the mountain peaks slowly rolled up.
In the round pen, Sidney worked Thing Two—the sorrel gelding with a blaze down his nose double the width as the other sorrel’s, Thing One.
Though all the horses had progressed well since she’d increased the training to two-a-days, Two was the calmest, so she’d picked him to ride first.
He was saddled and standing at the end of the reins like an old broke kid’s pony. She stepped forward and scratched the base of his neck with her fingernails. Two’s lips quivered as he bobbed his head and rocked side to side to make sure she got the itchiest spots.
“Ready?” Bryan called from behind her.
“Is the Pope Jewish?”
He climbed over the top of the round pen and dropped in on her side, dressed in tan camo cargo shorts, a plain gray T-shirt, his running prosthetic, and an expansive grin. “You’ve got nuthin’ to worry about. You did your homework.”
“Don’t mean I won’t fail the test.” Really, she wasn’t worried. Much.
“One way to find out.”
Crap. Tossing her baseball cap out of the pen so it wouldn’t blow off and spook the horse, she handed Bryan the lunge whip and said, “Remember, this first ride, I’m a passenger. Two is going to look to you for all the cues. Don’t let him stall out. I’m safer if you keep his feet moving.”
“Got it.”
He unclipped the lead from the bosal and backed to the center of the ring.
She gently pulled the horse’s head around and gathered up the reins. Right before she put her foot in the stirrup, she noticed Hank and Mac walking down from the big house. Alby approached from the barn, and Santos rode up on his horse, Taco, and settled his hat back on his head. In the distance, the kitchen screen door slapped and Lottie came out drying her hands on her jeans. Dale materialized from somewhere, she didn’t know where.
“No pressure,” Bryan deadpanned.
She focused on his grin, on his sarcasm, on the complete faith he seemed to have in her abilities, and heaved herself up. She didn’t throw her leg over at first; she kept Two’s head turned toward her while she slapped at the saddle and flopped the stirrup on the other side to make sure he didn’t spook when she swung her leg over. When he relaxed, she stepped down to the ground, praised him, then did it again.
On the third try, she threw her leg over then nodded to Bryan. She kept Two’s head tipped inward while Bryan made Two move his feet. They did several tight circles. When Two didn’t offer to buck, she gave him his head for a few strides, then circled him again.
Soon, they moved up to the trot and then to the canter. When Two became reluctant to move forward, Bryan slapped the end of the whip on the ground and made him speed up.
Twenty minutes later, she and Two were both out of breath, her pulse stampeding in her ears. She climbed off, patted Two on the neck and loosened the girth, unable to keep the cheek-busting grin off her face.
“What the hell, Sid?” Alby called from the sidelines.
“What?”
“We didn’t come here to watch the pony class at the rodeo,” Santos piped in. “No kicking out, no bucking, no crow-hopping.”
“I want my money back.” Alby turned away in mock disgust.
“Sorry, not sorry, boys.” She waved them off. Riding the buck out of a horse was fun until you landed wrong and cracked your spleen, your spine, or your skull.
She turned. Bryan was close. Real close. Block-out-the-sun-and-the-rest-of-the-universe close.
“Holy. Fuuck.” He drew the last word out, his voice low and full of awe. She took it as a compliment.
“You really like that word.”
“It’s pretty universal. It can be a noun, an adverb, an adjective, a verb—transitive, intransitive, and active. It can be used to convey dismay and disbelief, ignorance and incompetence, exasperation and enjoyment, anger and…”
“And?”
“And amazement, to name a few.”
“Wow, were you like the English teacher’s pet or something?”
“My mother was the English teacher everyone dreaded. She made grammar Nazis nervous.” His grin was oversized and infectious.
He reached out and ran a tentative hand down her arm. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
Her pulse stuttered and slowed. “Wait, what?”
“You heard me.”
“I have dinner with you every night.”
“No, you have dinner at the house with everyone else and I happen to be there. Not the same thing.”
“Uh…” Dinner? Like a date? “Uh…” With my supervisor? “Is that a good idea?”
“Best one I’ve had in a while. Right up there with ditching the jockstrap while swimming and kissing you the other night.”
Sidney swallowed hard. Her heart stumbled, and her girly parts heated just thinking about that kiss.
The latch on the pen’s gate dropped with a resounding clang. Two did a quick sidestep and looked behind him.
Bryan leaned down and whispered in her ear, a hint of his minty mouthwash wafting over her. “Think about it.”
Bryan stepped back. Dale reached her first, with Lottie, Mac, and Hank not far behind.
Dale stuck out a hand and Sidney shook it. “Wow. Impressive.”
“Nice job,” Hank said.
Mac stopped beside her husband, her I-told-you-so smile bright on her face.
Dale said, “You impress Richard Hockley like that next week, we may get the string sold before the training is even done.”
“I’ll do my best.” Sidney forced a smile. So much depended on next week. What if the other horses weren’t as easy as Two? What if the man wasn’t impressed, what if she failed, what if her career crashed before she even got it off the ground…what if, what if, what if?
The oxygen levels must have dropped, because her head spun and she took a step to catch her balance.
Bryan waved his hand in front of her face. It was just the two of them in the round pen again. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere. Sorry. Ready for the next horse?”
“Bring it on, Irish, I can take whatever you dish out.”
“You obviously don’t know me that well.”
“We can remedy that over dinner.”
She wanted to say yes, knowing she should say no. She compromised and said nothing.
By the time they were done with the last horse, there wasn’t a muscle on her that wasn’t sore or stretched or strained. Her legs were soft as Jell-O left out in the sun, and the buckskin had landed one wicked crow-hop that might or might not have dislodged Sidney’s right kidney.
“So, about that dinner,” Bryan said.
They stood in the barn aisle, the horses settled into their pen for the night. It was early evening, her lunch long gone, and even dinner with the devil on the backside of hell sounded viable. Not that Bryan was the devil.
It was that his body invited sin.
The powerful way he moved, his massive shoulders, his muscular chest…his ass. What she wanted to do to him, with him—
“If you keep looking at me like I’m a chocolate sundae after you’ve been told you can’t have dairy, we could skip dinner and get straight to dessert.”
“No,” she said, maybe a tad too fast. “Dinner is good.”
The cool breeze vanished and the temperature spiked. Or maybe the heat was from his proximity. Sidney wiped the sweat from her upper lip.
“My cabin?”
“Not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Honestly?”
With a sly grin he said, “Unless a lie fits better.”
She paused, considered a good white lie, like her goldfish needed a walk, or that on Friday nights she always polished her spurs. She settled on, “I don’t trust myself around you.”
“What are you gonna do, throw me on the bed and take advantage of me?”
“Crossed my mind.”