She felt it in her soul.

And standing in front of Wyatt when he said things like that just drove it on home.

“Wyatt, I love you,” she said. “But you know I need to find something else for me, too.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Barrel race.” She barely suppressed a smile.

“Wow. You know, it’s hilarious that I was worried about you working with Gabe Dalton. And now you’re going to go right in the rodeo around all those pricks.”

“Yeah,” she said, her stomach turning. The color flooded into her cheeks when he said Gabe’s name. But she knew it was there. She felt hot. Unsettled.

“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said. “For everything.”

“No. Thank you,” she said. “For everything. I think that’s a lot better.”

“I don’t know about that.” Wyatt drew her in for a gruff hug and kissed her on the forehead. She pulled back, wrinkling her nose and rubbing out the spot.

Wyatt shook his head. “All right, get on your trail ride.”

Jamie did, and she enjoyed her group. A family of four who had come from Portland, a couple who was on their first weekend away together, and three friends having a girls’ weekend. They were chatty, and the kids were fun, and Jamie enjoyed their squeals of delight and exclamations of awe as they traversed the terrain, heading up to the top of the mountain where they could enjoy the magnificent views.

But it gave her too much time to think.

They all kind of chatted softly among themselves, listening intently when Jamie would point out an area of interest, but not asking further questions of her.

And so she was stuck replaying memories of last night in her head.

She had been so focused on the humiliation of crying that she had lost a bit of what had transpired.

The heat. The insane, glorious heat that had fired up between them.

She shifted, feeling embarrassed to be dealing with an intense tingling between her thighs while she was in front of people.

But the very thought of him was intoxicating.

And she had to wait till Monday to see him again.

She nearly groaned. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to see him again. Well, she would see him again, so it was kind of a moot point. She made it through her three groups without going completely insane. Thankfully, group number three had an incessant talker. One who wanted to make pronouncements to the entire crowd, and not just to their companion. Ordinarily, she found those people a little bit irritating, but considering she wanted a vacation from her brain, the mind-numbing commentary from the man helped.

She finished up with her duties and headed back to her house, and when she got there, she stopped.

There was a truck in her driveway. A familiar truck.

She pulled up to the side of it, looking through the driver-side window to where Gabe was sitting. Her heart lurched, jolting into her throat, rattling her entire body.