Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
She sucked in a breath. Maybe she should apologize for giving him the wrong idea. But she wasn’t sure if he was actually interested in her or if her father was reading too much into it. She had thought Dad didn’t want to hire a man because she was still skittish around young—and especially muscular—members of the opposite sex. Instead, it turned out Dad thought she was too stupid to realize the effect she had on guys, and too traumatized to do anything about it. Her skin burned all over again as she thought about it.
Slowly, she turned to face the man she had thought was becoming her friend.
His jaw tightened as his eyes flicked between hers. “Look, I, ah . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “If I stepped over the line with you today or embarrassed you in front of your dad, I didn’t mean to. You know that, right?”
She sucked in a quick breath. “You didn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong, LJ. I shouldn’t have . . . I mean—” She couldn’t finish. Not only because it was humiliating to say she hadn’t meant to lead him on, but because her stomach felt all mixed up, like maybe it wasn’t the truth. If he’d wanted to spend time with her as more than a friend . . . it felt wrong to like that thought so much. She wasn’t ready for more, so it was hypocritical of her to long for it.
Maybe her father was right and she had been hinting toward that with LJ, however subconsciously. But he was her employee, and she’d gotten him in trouble. She should be more professional, not burden him with all her mixed-up feelings and problems.
“Thanks . . . for all your hard work today.”
His eyes narrowed at her almost imperceptible pause, but then he nodded. “Okay. Congratulations on breaking that record, by the way.” He barely waited for her weak smile before he headed for his own apartment, his strides long and stiff. He was still upset, and she had no idea how to fix it.
Andra went back to the barn and gathered up Gracie, blinking back tears. Her mood was too heavy for her to climb up onto the tall palomino, so she clung to the mare’s lead rope and started the long walk back to her own house.
Earlier, she’d watched LJ in the calf-roping event, peeking around the far corner of the grandstands so neither he nor her father would see her do it. She’d embarrassed him enough already, her dad blowing up at him just because he was friends with her.