“That’s not why I’m sitting here.”

“Why are you sitting here, then?”

“Maybe I’m waiting for something inside me to feel different.”

“Well, I doubt that’s going to happen with you sitting here by yourself.”

Gabe had been sitting with himself for a long damn time, and it had taken Jamie to make him see things a little bit differently. He had a feeling it was going to take something like that to reach Jacob. But up here on a mountain, he had no idea how he was going to find someone to do any changing.

“Well, I’ll see you around, then,” Gabe said.

As he drove away he had to hope that no matter how disinterested his brother was, maybe one of the things he’d said would appeal to him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“WANT TO JUST catch a ride back home with me?”

Jamie looked up and saw Gabe. She was just finishing up with the last horse, getting him brushed out and ready to get put away.

“I...I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I...I should. I should have my truck. And I should probably go home tonight.”

“Why?”

“I can’t leave my truck here. Someone will see it.”

“There are like twenty trucks here at any given time. No one’s going to realize it’s yours. Not that your Ford’s not super original, Jamie. But it’s basically what everybody has.”

She shifted. She didn’t know why she was resistant to this. Mostly because it seemed... Well, she wouldn’t have her escape plan. Her exit strategy. She wouldn’t be able to just jump into her truck and run back home. If things got real, she would have to stick it out. And she didn’t know how she felt about that.

But also, she did want to go home with him. And she didn’t really want to be weird about it. Really, she didn’t want to expose her inexperience. They hadn’t had a discussion about it, so she was kind of hoping he didn’t know... You know, about the fact that he was her first. It would all be so much easier if he never realized that.

And, if he hadn’t by now, he probably wouldn’t.

She took some comfort in that.

“You can drive if you want to, Jamie, but I figured we could catch a ride over together.”

She wanted that. Suddenly, she wanted that very badly. She had been skipping breakfast occasionally since she’d begun work at the Dalton ranch, so it wasn’t like she would owe Wyatt an explanation. And like he’d said, there were tons of trucks here at any given time. Nobody would notice if hers got left behind tonight.

“Okay,” she said, feeling breathless and a little bit giddy.

Giddy.

It was a strange, surreal kind of sensation. Being giddy over a man.

She wasn’t sure if she liked it. But she felt it. So there wasn’t much use fighting it.

They finished work silently, the only sound the metal buckles on the tack clinging against each other, and the shuffle of boots over the cement floor. Once they finished up, they both walked out toward his truck. Then Jamie looked around once before getting inside.