“See?” he said, as if that were the closing statement to an argument they hadn’t actually been having. “Gotta go.” He grabbed her hand.

She threw a longing look back at the cake even as he towed her across the kitchen. “Where?”

LJ dropped his hat onto his head as she stuffed her feet into her boots. He opened the door and spun her out through it without ever releasing her.

He’s holding my hand.

Okay, but was he holding her hand or “holding” her hand? Before she could sort it out, LJ let her go, hopping off the porch without touching a single step. “Wanna take the palomino express or stick to the boot train?” He motioned to the pasture next to the house, where her horse, Gracie, had paused in her grazing to watch them cross the yard.

“Depends. Where are we going, exactly?”

His pocket chimed again. “Yeah, no time to mess with horses.”

He turned his back on the paddock. LJ strode up the hill, and Andra had to break into a jog for a second to catch up with his long legs. The grass rattled beneath their feet, already starting to dry to brown under the relentless bake of the summer sun.

“What’s the deal with keeping that mare here instead of the main stables, anyway?” he asked. “You move her just for the commute? She’s pretty flashy to play glorified taxicab.” He allowed a glance over his shoulder, and he sped up again when his pocket chimed.

Gracie was her best friend, but that wasn’t the kind of thing an equine professional was supposed to say. Andra lifted her chin. “Her name is Allure’s Graceling Queen. She’s mine, but she’s also one of the ranch’s retired champions. So many of our other projects need riding time that if I didn’t ride her to work and back, I’d hardly ever get on her.”

“Pretty name.”

She let a little bit of a smile curve her mouth. “I named her after a book. It was about a girl with the gift of being able to win any fight.”

“She can’t be more than eight.” He turned off instead of taking the worn furrow in the grass that headed toward the barn. “Little young to be out to pasture, huh?”

“She won Hi-Point All-Around Champion at Congress last year.” Andra lifted her chin a touch. “Not too many mountains to climb after that.”

He stopped on the long covered porch of the staff housing building. Each apartment opened onto the porch, and he stood one door up from Stacia’s. Andra glanced over at that door and then behind her, uncertain what was down here that he wanted to show her.

LJ stared at her. “You own the Hi-Point All-Around Champion? As in, you didn’t only train her—she belongs to you. No co-owners or anything.”