Josh tensed but stayed right where he was. If he ran to get dressed, Steph would be bared to the world and he didn’t want to leave her naked and in plain sight of whoever was walking nearby.
He bent his forehead down and pressed it against hers, both of them still breathing heavily and trying to stay as quiet as possible as they waited for whoever was approaching to find them…
Then there was the sound of voices. It was too far away to hear what they were saying, but one of the speakers was angry about something. All of the sudden, the footsteps retreated.
Steph let out a little laugh. “I guess they needed an experienced guide,” she whispered.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead before he finally disengaged from her. Even though the day was heating up quickly, he already missed her warmth surrounding him.
It took a few minutes for them to find where all their clothes had gone, but soon enough Steph was, sadly, fully clothed again. He had absolutely no regrets about what had just happened but he really wished they were somewhere near a closed bedroom so he could really take his time with her.
Next to where her shorts had been on the ground, he noticed that her phone had fallen out of her pocket during the rush to undress. He bent to pick it up, but right before his fingers touched the smartphone, it lit up. It must’ve been on silent mode because it didn’t ring or vibrate. Someone named AJ was calling.
“You’ve got a call.” He handed the phone to her.
Steph, who had been so carefree and wild a second ago, stiffened as he said the words. He wondered whether he should just chuck the phone over the cliff. But he went ahead and handed it over.
She glanced at the screen before she ignored the call and put it back in her pocket. “Thanks.” She walked back to the rockface they had just been resting against. She ran her hand along the smooth surface. “How did this happen?”
Well, she didn’t want to talk about the call. That was the price he paid for sleeping with someone he just met, he supposed. He had no right to ask her about who was calling her and why. Was AJ a boyfriend? God, he’d never even asked whether she was single. He couldn’t imagine her being with anyone who wasn’t him, whatever that meant. She mentioned she rarely dated. That had to mean she was single. Right?
In this day and age, getting a phone call from a guy didn’t mean anything. AJ could be anyone. He forced the sudden paranoia back and he came up next to her and put his hand on the rock too. “Well, once upon a time there was a super-hot blonde who came to the picturesque town of Hope Falls and made the poor, experienced tour guide loose his mind.”
She gave his arm a playful punch. “No, smart ass. Why is this rock so smooth? It barely even feels like rock…”
“When the winter snow melts, this is one of the ways the water escapes. I guess over a few hundred years of these sporadic streams, it’s worn the rock down to this.” He ran his hand over the perfectly smooth stone that felt like a soft marble. Just one of the unexpected wonders of these mountains.
Her hand finally fell away from the rockface. “You bring all the girls up here?” Her tone was joking, but she wasn’t looking at him so he couldn’t tell whether she was drilling him about his own relationship status. Maybe they were both thinking the same thing.
“Just you,” he said honestly. In a town this small, it was hard to date without hundreds of eyes watching his every move. And after his first year there, the Hope Falls residents had become surprisingly possessive of him. Any time a tourist showed the slightest bit of interest in him, he’d be drilled with questions every time he went to Sue Ann’s Cafe.
They headed back down the trail in silence. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Personally, Josh was pretty damn content at the moment. Beautiful day, beautiful woman by his side, damn good sex. Quite frankly, this day was already a ten out of ten and it was only noon.
Every once in a while, he’d stop to give Steph a bit of the tour guide treatment, showing her signs of animals that had passed through recently or show her some of the more unique plant life.
Once they were closer to the main trail, they passed a few hikers here and there and every single time, Steph would get that adorable blush again. He knew she was thinking about what they just did and damn it if his cock didn’t perk up to attention again. It didn’t make for comfortable walking, but it was worth it to see that cute blush.
They reached the fork in the trail again and Steph pointed in the direction they’d chosen not to go. “Stables?” she asked.
“Yeah, but we can drive. I think we got our workout in for the day.”
She raised a brow. “Got our workout in? Or are you conserving your energy for later?”
He snorted. “Maybe both.”
It would’ve been a twenty-minute walk to the stables but in the truck, it was only about five minutes. It was a Thursday, so it wasn’t that busy, but there were still some families and couples taking vacations or a long weekend who were there.
The stables were one of the oldest standing buildings on site, but they had been modernized over the years. On the coldest days, the horses had heat and there were even some fans installed a few years back that would allow the air to flow on the stifling hot days of the summer. But no matter how nice the barn, it still smelled like a barn. He glanced over to Steph to see whether she’d have the city-girl response of wrinkling her nose, but she just looked around in wonder.
He thought back to what she admitted about her family life. About her privileged history. He hated to admit it, but if he had known sooner, he might’ve never asked her out. He was out of his league when it came to money. He’d never even had a savings account until he got this job at Hope Falls.
So the idea that he could take Steph anywhere that would impress her was comforting. And he shouldn’t worry too much about impressing her. It wasn’t as if she was going to be hanging around for long.
He blinked at the thought. That didn’t make him feel better. He ran a hand over his head and through his hair. He’d known this was complicated but every time he thought about her leaving him, he felt a strange constriction in his chest, as though she had a literal hold on his heart.
He didn’t believe in love at first sight. Hell, he barely believed in love at all, but he couldn’t pretend that what was happening between him and Steph was normal.
“Oh my goodness,” she said as they approached a stall with the new horse. He was tall, one of the largest horses there. He was almost all black, but had a white star on his forehead and a large white splotch on his chest, along with some gray and white hairs threaded into his mane. “Who is this?” Steph approached and ran her fingers over his star.
“I call him Pain in the Ass, but his official name is Pepper.”
She glanced over at him quickly. “He’s the one you mentioned yesterday, isn’t he? The one you knew I’d like.”
“All the girls fall for Pepper. They must like the assholes.”
She rolled her eyes at him before she turned all her attention back to Pepper. “Is he too much of a pain to ride?”
“He’s great to ride. It’s why we rescued him.”
“Rescue?”
“All our horses are rescues of some kind. We have to go through a big screening process, since the horses here all interact with guests and they have to have a good temperament, but there are enough rescues out there that there are plenty of good ones.”
“That’s awesome. I’ve always wanted to adopt a dog,” she said wistfully as she scratched Pepper’s big neck.
“Why don’t you have one?”
“Because once you get a dog, you’re their entire life for ten plus years. And I have no idea what I’m doing from week to week, let alone for the next decade.”
He nodded as he saw through her words. “You don’t want the commitment.”
“I’m not afraid of commitment.”
“You don’t have long-term relationships. You don’t adopt dogs. You don’t have any steady jobs even though I bet you could get one in a heartbeat.” He hadn’t known her long, but could tell she was smart and obviously had family connections. If a bum like him could get employment, she would be a shoo-in anywhere she wanted to go.
“Well, you don’t have a dog either,” she pointed out.
“Maybe I don’t like dogs.” She didn’t even bother to respond, just giving him a skeptical look. “Okay, I did have a dog once. I had a messy breakup and she got the dog.” When he thought about Rocco, he still got upset about it. Somehow taking the plunge into giving his heart and home to another animal hadn’t seemed like an option, even now that his life was more stable.
“That’s horrible.” Steph’s eyes clouded with sympathy. “I can’t believe she would do that to you. You couldn’t work out visitation or shared custody?” Her face scrunched as she said it, realizing how strange the idea of shared custody of a dog was.
“Hey, I would’ve been up for every other weekend, but it was more complicated than that. Where I was going, I couldn’t really bring a dog.”
“Where were you going?”
He looked down at Stephanie’s beautiful face. She had an upturned nose and the skin of a movie star. Somehow, he had gotten this little piece of perfection to be totally into him. Was he going to ruin it by telling her the truth? “Well,” he said tentatively. “You remember when you said you were a bad person? Well, you’re not. I am.”
“Josh, you’re not—”
He cut her off before she could say anything without knowing all the facts. “I couldn’t have the dog because I was in prison, Steph.”