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?
“Sure, sure,” he said quickly. “I was wondering if you were playing hooky or if you were gone for, uh, something else.” He cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter. Tell me what’s complicated, and I’ll do my best.”
“The day of the rodeo was the first time I’d put on makeup since I got kidnapped.”
Wow, it sounded even crazier when she said it out loud. She covered her eyes with her hand and blurted it all out.
“I thought I was living my life, and suddenly I realized I let him change me, everything about me. Five years after it happened, and he’s controlling the way I look every day. How screwed up is that? I actually felt good at the rodeo, you know?” She took a breath. “So I went shopping. Except now everything that looks good shows off my body, and it’s like, why do I want to feel beautiful? Isn’t that an excuse for wanting to appeal to men? And I don’t want them to look at me, so why am I going to all this effort? But should I have to look and feel crappy just because I don’t want to date? So now I’m stuck because I have no idea what the right answer is.”
Her eyes popped open. Of course she had just word-vomited all of that on the one guy she might kind of want to flirt with. Except she wasn’t sure of that, either. She wanted to touch him, yeah. She just wasn’t sure she could handle it if he touched her, and she was well aware of how unfair and insane that was.
“Is that all?” he asked after a pause.
“All?” she squeaked. “Are you kidding me right now? I’ve been locked in a dressing room for over an hour. The employees are probably going to call the cops on me.”
“Hell, girl . . .” He chuckled. “It ain’t no crime to look beautiful. Doesn’t have to mean anything.”
A laugh jumped out of her. She pressed a hand to her chest as the tension started to ease.
“Buy yourself something nice,” he said. “Anything I need to do for you at the ranch so you don’t have to hurry back?”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll see you at dinner. I had an idea for tonight, so don’t bring anything over.” She let her head fall back against the wall. “LJ?”
“Mm-hmm?” A horse whinnied in the background, and she could picture LJ so clearly, an arm propped on a stall door, looking as perfectly at home in her barn as he always did in her kitchen.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Ain’t no thing at all. Have a good time.”