“Not here,” he said. He turned to the woman. “Crystal, can you wait just a second?” He hooked a hand around Jamie’s elbow and led her toward the front door of the bar. And right outside into the cold.

“Hey,” Jamie said. “What are you doing?”

“I think the question is what are you doing?”

“I saw you over there. I thought I would come say hi.”

“That’s not what you’re doing. You have the need for a fight written all over your face, and I don’t know what your problem is, Jamie, or why you think every encounter we have is an opportunity for you to wage war, but it’s got to end.”

“I didn’t know there was anything wrong with coming over and saying hi to my boss,” she said.

“You’re not that naive,” he said. “I’m not having a pleasant conversation with Crystal. I’m trying to hook up.”

Why did that make her feel like he’d hauled off and punched her in the stomach? Like he’d knocked the wind out of her?

“Well, I know that,” she said, admitting it to herself at the same time she did to him. “She looked at me like she had something to prove, so I figured she could prove it to my face.”

“Why? Why do you feel the need to do that? Like you need to get in there and face everybody head-on and be right all the time.”

His words felt sharp and strange, particularly given everything she was grappling with at the moment. Way too sharp.

“I don’t need to be right all the time,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “You do.”

“No, I don’t. And this isn’t me trying to be right all the time. It’s just me being right about myself.”

He snorted. “You’re like a live firecracker waiting to go off at any minute, and damned if I know why.”

“You’re just... You’re wrong. I don’t... I’m not challenging you. I’m not trying to make a fight. I just came over to say hi.”

“Is that why you looked like you wanted to light Crystal on fire?”

Jamie sputtered. Her heart was pounding so hard it was making her dizzy. A lot like when she’d fallen off her horse earlier today.

“She started it,” Jamie said. “She kissed you. At me.”

“I see,” he said. “Or maybe she just kissed me because she wanted to.”

Jamie laughed. “No,” she said. “That is what she was doing. Believe me.”

And Jamie didn’t know for the life of her why any of it mattered or why she felt invigorated to have him outside with her. To have his hand on her elbow.

He was touching her now. Not Crystal. And why that was a victory, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what she wanted. But she knew being near him made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t known she could.

“The way I see it,” Gabe said slowly, “you’re competing for attention.”

Jamie leaped away from him, her heart thundering. “I’m not.”