“I am being chauffeured. I’m just sitting in the front seat. Unless you want to hand me the wheel?” I nodded to the reins in his hand.

“Nah, I got it. Couldn’t nap?”

“I didn’t even try. I’m wired.”

“I’m not surprised.” He gave me another side-glance. “You really should be proud, Emily. You were brave. Amazing, actually.”

“If I knew all I had to do was chase down a speeding buggy and then hang off a horse for a few death-defying moments to win your approval, I’d have done that at the start and saved us a lot of bickering.” I elbowed him gently.

“Ha. I prefer the bickering over the death-defying stunts, but…we worked together when we needed to.”

Warmth traveled along my skin. Why did Tuck’s approval make me feel so damn glow-y inside? All the applause, all the accolades, and at the moment, I wasn’t sure if any of that had felt much better. Which was concerning, honestly, but…another of those vague thoughts I simply wasn’t going to deal with now.

“Do you think Lavina is going to be okay?” I asked after a moment.

He was quiet for a few beats. “I don’t know her, but I hope she’s strong enough to put whatever happened behind her. And I hope she has a mother or a mother figure who can help her through it.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “That’s going to be important.”

“How are you doing regarding the man you…”

“Stabbed in the neck?” I sighed. “I feel oddly…okay. I mean, maybe other emotions will come. But after seeing how they victimized those two people. After seeing the helpless anger on Abram’s face and looking into Lavina’s haunted eyes… And knowing that what I did, what we did, stopped it from continuing… I’m not going to feel guilty about that, because if given the chance, I’d do it again.”

He looked over at me, pride clear on his face, along with a bit of surprise, and that same inner glow infused me. His thigh rubbed against mine and inspired a different kind of heat, and I cleared my throat and looked away. Your boyfriend is sleeping behind you, Em. Stop getting turned on by Tuck.

And maybe this was a byproduct of the adrenaline surge too, but I suspected it was not because I’d responded to him this way before, though until this moment, I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it.