And there was something in the fire in his eyes that sparked something deep inside her. And it was more than attraction, more than the heat that had flared between them when they had kissed. More than that combustion that had occurred when their bodies had come together.

Because that was what she believed, too. In her soul, she believed that her connection to the land, her connection to animals, was a deep, altering thing that went far beyond logic. It was something almost spiritual.

The Dodge family wasn’t a churchgoing one. Not to say that Quinn Dodge didn’t instill a sense of faith and gratitude in his children, he did, but it wasn’t based in anything taught in a building.

Jamie’s concept of God had come from riding through the mountains, had come sitting on the back of a horse.

Her peace. Her healing.

Her wonder and awe at creation.

“I know that there are a lot of facilities that rely on ranch work and equine therapy to help people in bad situations. I just want to do more research on it. And I want you to help me. Because you have the best instincts when it comes to horses. Of anyone.”

This was strange. Because of course when she had first seen Gabe sitting in front of her house, she had expected he’d come here for more sex. And she hadn’t been sure how she would handle that. But the fact that he wasn’t here for sex was maybe even a little bit stranger.

And maybe a little bit wounding.

Then he stood up. “I should go.”

She wanted to ask him to stay. But she couldn’t. For reasons of pride, and also that her brother was somewhere on the same property, and she couldn’t risk him coming by while Gabe was here. Staying. No. That would be horrible.

“Okay,” she said, the word sounding flat and lame.

He looked down at his hat, then up at her. He moved over to where she was, the couch still between them, and pressed his knee down on the cushions, leaning forward and gripping her chin, tugging her to him, pressing a quick kiss to her mouth.

It was like a lightning strike.

When they parted, it left sparks behind.

Scorched earth and crackles that sizzled over her skin.

“I’ll see you Monday,” he said.

“Yeah,” she echoed. “Monday.”

And when he left and closed the door, he left a thousand questions behind.

Why had he joined the rodeo in the first place, really? If he felt this way about ranching, why wasn’t that what he’d done? Gabe Dalton wasn’t a pushover, and she knew it, but this whole conversation, which he’d come in and made all about her, had a layer to it that she couldn’t quite reach.

But more shocking than all of those questions was how much she wanted the answers to them.

None of this was simple. None of it was what she thought.

She knew that her brothers—particularly Wyatt—had slept around, and they’d never acted like sex had left pieces of themselves embedded in the other person. She hated the idea that she might just be...inherently different when it came to sex because she was a girl.