Chapter 16

“So? What do you think?” A couple of hours later, Jasper reined in his horse at the top of a rise, and Emma pulled up beside him. “Is this view enough to make you forget about the cowboys?”

Emma shaded her eyes and looked toward the western horizon, where the Crazies jutted toward a sky that was a color she hadn’t seen since her first box of crayons. Below her, a valley filled with golden-tipped grasses made for a rippling seascape in the soft breeze. Beyond that, dark firs dotted a hillside, drawing her eye upward toward the purple-gray mountains in the distance.

“It doesn’t look real.”

“Blink and look again.”

“I tried that. Didn’t work.” She pointed at the mountains. “They look like they’re a million miles away, but also like they’re right at the top of that hill. It’s surreal.”

“Isn’t it amazing?”

“I don’t have words.” She sat in the saddle, just looking at the view, feeling like she’d been transported to an alternate universe where the only sounds were birds and leaves, and the only smells were the firs and the late-summer flowers, and the delicious horsey scent of Honeydrop, who’d been carrying her for miles now.

“Are you going to take pics?”

She shook her head. “It’d be impossible to capture this. I just need to memorize it.” She took a deep breath. “All of it.”

He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but see the satisfaction in his eyes as he did so.

Fine. He’d been right. She did need to get her head—and her body—out of the office more, proverbially or otherwise.

“What’s your favorite thing you’ve seen so far?”

“Still the cowboys. Sorry.”

Yeah, she’d go with that. Because otherwise, she’d say something about the sight of his butt in those Wranglers, or how when he tipped his Stetson just right and smiled back at her, it kicked off just about every cowboy fantasy she’d ever had.

She honestly had never realized how many she could come up with, on short notice.

He laughed. “Clearly I have more work to do here, then. Did you not see the mountains over there? How the sunlight’s hitting those leaves above you? The deer we saw in that meadow an hour ago?”

“Yup. I saw them. They were awesome.”

“Just not as good—”

“Not as good as the cowboys. Sorry. It’s really a shame so many of them are married, though they sort of gloss over that fact on the website, don’t they?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

Emma laughed. “I’m kidding.” She swept her arm toward the valley. “I haven’t thought about the cowboys in—like—fifteen minutes. This view is beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve got ocean views to compare it to. It’s not like I’m from Arkansas.”

“True.”

“Thank you for dragging me out here. I had no idea what I was missing.”

“You still don’t.” He slid down from his horse and pulled the reins over its head. “Come on. There’s something over here that I think you’ll love. We can give the horses a little break.”

Emma kicked her leg over, sliding down with far less grace than he just had. When she hit the ground, her legs wobbled, and omigod, her butt hurt. She paused for a moment to be sure she wasn’t going to tip over, then straightened up and got Honeydrop’s reins situated.

“Exactly how far have we ridden? Just out of curiosity?”

He smiled as she came around the front of her horse. “Why? You sore?”

“Nope. Not a bit. Just trying to figure out if my hip bones are still connected to my leg bones a little. It’s not entirely clear.”

“Ah.” He laughed. “Wait till tomorrow. You might wonder if anything’s connected to anything else.”

“Fabulous. If I’m in traction by Monday, give everyone at Shady Acres my regards.”

“I can do that.”

She put her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath. “Can I just say how much I love the smell of the air out here?”

“It never gets old.” He mirrored her actions, looking upward. “Nor does that sky.”

“Can I tell you a secret? I didn’t actually think the whole big sky thing would impress me all that much. I mean, I’m from Florida. We have a pretty good lock on blue skies.” She spun in a slow circle, her arms outstretched. “But this sky—good Lord. I just want to lie down in the grass and breathe the Christmas-tree air and find shapes in the clouds, like I’m six years old.”

“So do it.”

She rolled her eyes. “And then take a drumming lesson?”

“Exactly.” He smiled, then grabbed her hand, pulling her down the hill a few feet before sinking into the grass. “I’ll start. That’s definitely an elephant right there.”

Emma looked up at the cloud he was pointing at and shook her head. “No way. It’s definitely a giraffe.”

“When’s the last time you went to a zoo, woman?”

She laughed, sitting down beside him. “Fine. That one there. Train engine.”

“Nope. Unicorn.”

“Who needs an anatomy lesson?” She lay back in the grass, one hand behind her head. She pointed at another cloud—one that was unmistakably a stuffed animal. “How about that one?”

“Mormon tabernacle.”

She side-eyed him. “Teddy bear. You are really terrible at this game.”

“With those ears?”

“Fine. He’s a donkey-bear, okay? Long ears run in the family. It’s a thing.”

Jasper laughed. “You had some very strange toys as a child.”

“Noted. Agreed.”

He snapped off a long blade of grass. “Did you ever learn how to play a grass whistle?”

“Um, no. Didn’t know that was a thing.”

“Totally is.” He pressed his thumbs together with the grass between them, then lifted his hands to his mouth and blew. The sound that came out made Emma laugh out loud.

“That sounds like a dying bird.”

“Does not.” He blew again, and it was even worse. “I have it on good authority that it actually sounds like a hippopotamus’s mating call.”

She laughed again as she sat up. “Who in your circle of weirdos even knows what a hippo’s mating call sound like?”

“Not important.”

“Well, if I hear hooves coming our way, I’m getting on Honeydrop there and leaving you at the hippos’ mercy. Just saying.”

“Here.” He picked her a blade of grass. “You try it.”

“I have no desire to call in a herd of hippos, thanks.”

“They’re not native. No worries. Worst thing you’ll do is tick off the resident moose population.”

Her eyes popped open. “No desire to meet those, either, thanks.”

“Just try it.”

“Fine.” She sighed, trying to position the grass the way she’d seen him do it. She raised her hands to her mouth and blew, but no sound came out besides her own air.

“Harder than it looks to call in a hippo, isn’t it?”

“I can do it.” She inhaled, then blew again. Nothing. “Huh. My grass is defective.”

He smiled. “Try another piece.”

She picked one, lifted it, and tried again. Still nothing. “Must be a country-boy skill.”

“I’m from L.A.”

“Details.”

“Want some help?”

“Nope.” She blew again. “Fine. Yes, please. Because now it’s a thing. I didn’t even know it was a thing I didn’t know how to do, but now it is. So I need to know. Now.” Her words faded as she realized he was watching her lips, and the way he was watching her lips—oh, hell—was sending streaks of liquid longing straight to all the places.

“It’s all in the lips,” he finally said, and was it her imagination, or did his voice sound a little strangled?

“All in the lips.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. What do I do with the lips?”

“May I?” He reached toward her mouth with one hand, touching her top lip with his index finger, then sliding it slowly around to the bottom. “Here and…here. Tighten those up, and you’ll be good to go.”

It was all she could do not to kiss his finger, not to wrap her lips around it and pull it into her mouth…all she could do not to close her eyes and beg him to kiss her.

“Okay,” she said. “Got it.”

He pulled his hand away, but his eyes stayed focused on her lips, and she knew it was because he was checking to see if she did it correctly, but holy hell. The heat in those eyes!

She pulled her hands up to her mouth and took a deep breath, blowing as hard as she could. A strangled-duck sort of sound came out, but hey. It was a sound.

He laughed. “See? All in the lips.”

“Excellent.” Her voice shook, dammit. “That flock of geese we just saw? They’re going to think somebody fell out of the vee.”

“Possibly.”

She blew again, getting a better sound this time. “So who taught you this auspicious skill, anyway?”

“Dad.”

“All part of your vanilla-milkshake-Jell-O-salad childhood?”

“Yes. I also know how to do duck calls with my armpit, but I’ll save that one for another time.”

“Charming. Thank you.”

Another long vee of geese honked their way from the northern end of the valley over where Emma and Jasper sat in the grass, and Emma shaded her eyes to watch them.

“Feels like they leave earlier every fall,” he said. “Even though it’s probably the same every single year.”

“Do people get depressed about winter when they see them start to flee?”

“Some do. They definitely get excited when they see them come back.”

She laughed quietly.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing. It’s just—that’s sort of the opposite of how we think of the snowbirds. People from up North, I mean. They all come driving South once the snow flies in New England, and we brace ourselves. Then, come March, most of them drive back out, and we get our state back. I won’t lie—we certainly like the money they dump into our economy, but it’s nice to see them go, too.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Of course I do. It’s—home.”

“What do you miss most?”

Emma took a breath, figuring that was certainly an easy question to answer, but…it wasn’t. Right now, sitting in this sunny meadow with Jasper, she wasn’t homesick. Not one eeny-weeny ridiculous little bit.

Oh, no.

“I miss…the ocean.”

“Yeah, I suppose that would be a no-brainer.”

She picked another piece of grass and twisted it between her fingers. “I miss my best friend, of course.”

“The one who demanded cowboy pictures?”

“That’s the one.” Emma smiled. “She’s the sweetest thing on Earth. Hard not to miss her, though we still talk every day, pretty much.”

“That has to be hard.” He nodded. “How about your family? Do your parents live down there still?”

“Nope. They’re in Connecticut, right outside the city.”

“Do you see them much?”

She shook her head. “No. Not really. But before you give me the hairy eyeball about choosing work over my parents, that’s not really how it is. They’re way busier than me.”

“I don’t give hairy eyeballs.”

“You totally do.”

“When’s the last time you saw your parents?”

“Not answering that.”

“Touchy topics 101. Okay. Not talking about parents.”

“We can talk about yours all day long. But I don’t particularly enjoy talking about my own.”

“Because?”

“Because they’re very good at having one daughter. Not especially skilled at three. There just isn’t much to talk about in that department.”

Emma bit her top lip, turning her head away from him. Great. Just great. Now he’d paste a screwed-up-childhood label on her forehead and walk on eggshells for the rest of the day.

Way to go, Emma.