“A few weeks?! Weeks? Are you kidding me? Weeks isn’t going to erase the hell you put me through, the hell I’ve lived in for five years, actually for the entire time I’ve known you.”
Court’s gaze narrowed at her. “Come on, now,” he said, pouring on the charm. “The whole time? We had some pretty good years there, Rowan.”
“In high school,” she spat. “And they were good years for you.”
“Hey,” Court argued, dropping the charming cowpoke act almost as quickly as he’d put it on. “I treated you right. I—”
Rowan snorted. “You felt up Emily Crowder at the homecoming dance when I couldn’t go because I had the flu!”
Court gaped at her. “I…that…that was high school.”
Seth rolled his eyes and shook his head. Outside of his element, a bar or a rodeo with a few drinks in hand and a buckle bunny half in the bag, Court didn’t seem to be able to carry on an actual conversation with a woman who didn’t already want to jump his bones. “All right,” he said, pulling Rowan to him. “Come on now.” He shot a hard gaze at Court while tugging on Rowan’s sleeve. “Let’s go,” he told her. “Let’s take a walk. Cool off. Let’s not get into a knock down drag out in front of Willow.”
Seth steered her away and down one of the stall aisles.
Rowan’s clipped boot heels on the poured concrete told him she was a long way from cooling down.
“Marriage,” she bit out, looking back over her shoulder.
Seth continued pushing her forward.
“It’s like…It’s like he doesn’t even get that other people exist, or have thoughts or feelings of their own.”
Seth sighed as he took her by the hand and led her closer to the second exit. “Yeah, well, I think at this point he might be a lost cause, sorry to say. But just let it go. Anyway, here’s your surprise, to take your mind off it.”
He slid open the heavy steel bolt to one of the stalls and ushered Rowan inside. There, a saddled quarter horse mare stood, eyeing them expectantly. Seth took the bridle down from the hook on the door frame and passed it to Rowan.
She stared at the bridle for a moment. “What’s her name?”
Seth shrugged. “She doesn’t have one.”
“How does she not a have name?”
He merely shrugged again, dismissing the question. “Go on,” he encouraged. “You know how to do it. Finish tacking up so we can go.”
“Go.”
“On our ride.” He nodded to the stall across the aisle. “Choctaw’s just about to tear down the walls. See, that’s his very favorite mare right there, and the idea that he gets to be alone with her on a long ride is about all he can think about today. He’s getting pretty impatient.”
Rowan laughed, despite herself, and it made Seth grin from ear to ear. “I haven’t been for a ride in a long time,” she mused.
Seth crossed the short space between them, swept her into his arms, and dragged her mouth across her ear. “I know that, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I was inside you last night.”
Rowan giggled again and pushed him away.
Reluctantly, he let her go, only so she could finish up and they could get the hell away from here for a while. He left the stall and crossed to Choctaw’s, who nickered impatiently as he opened the gate. “You and me both, buddy,” Seth murmured to his horse.
He led Choctaw out to the driveway, swung up into the saddle, and settled himself into the stirrups. Rowan came out, leading the strawberry roan Seth had chosen for her. He watched her mount, adjust her reins, and find her seat again after so many years. She looked happy, though, almost deliriously so, and that made him happy to see it.
“You ready?” he asked her, nudging his horse forward.
She looked back over her shoulder, though, and bit her lower lip.
“She’s with Dakota,” Seth assured her. “She couldn’t be in better hands.”
Rowan sighed and turned back to him. “Okay,” she finally relented. “I guess you’re right. So,” she said, falling in line next to him, “where are we going?”
Seth grinned at her. “Anywhere you want, sweetheart. As far as the eye can see and then some.”
Rowan looked around, toward the plains to the east then the mountains and the river to the north. “Let’s get closer,” she said, nodding toward the Tetons.
Seth tipped his hat to her and gave Choctaw another nudge. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
‡
Rowan and Seth crossed the sun-drenched valley toward the towering purple mountains beyond. Her mare was spirited but not by any means uncontrollable and reminded her of Maizie, her barrel-racing horse from her teenage years.
“You okay?” Seth asked her, but he didn’t look concerned. He was smiling.
Rowan grinned at him. “She’s amazing.”
Seth nodded. “She’s not as docile as some of Dakota’s other mares. She reminds me of you in that way.”
For some reason, he was giving her a look so heated that it made Rowan’s breath catch. She supposed she’d been looking at him the same way all afternoon. Seth had been impossible to ignore from the minute she’d met him, and keeping her eyes (and hands) off him was a real challenge right now.
Farther along the trail, they passed an old cabin, weather worn yet still standing firm. “That’s where it all started,” Seth told her while indicating the ancient structure.
Rowan inspected the rough-hewn logs of the walls as they rode by. “He kidnapped her, right?” she asked. “Your great-great grandfather? He roped your great-great grandmother and tied her to his saddle. He brought her here and held her prisoner. And then he—”
Seth laughed loudly, cutting her off. “The people in town say that, if they even talk about it at all these days, which I doubt. But that’s not exactly right. Kit and Rafaela were in love,” he told her. “But her family didn’t approve of the match. And Rafaela was feisty and brave, but she’d never go against her family’s wishes. She was an honorable woman.”
Seth nodded to the cabin. “So, Kit built her a home, with his own two hands, to prove to them he could take care of her, that he was a worthy husband. But they still said no. So one night he rode out to their property, threw a reata around her, and brought her here anyway. Her sister sounded the alarm, and Rafaela’s father chased them as far as the Snake until he lost their trail.”
He gave her a chastened look. “And…yes, Kit kept her here, until she was pregnant, and her father was forced to allow them to get married. But she loved him, Rowan. She begged and pleaded with her father to let them get married. Plus, my grandmother always said that Rafaela knew. She knew when she went outside that night that Kit might take her away and make her his wife. He roped her only to spare her reputation in the town.”
He grinned. “To them, Rafaela was a long-suffering woman who endured living out in the wilderness with a mountain-mad Barlow only by the grace of God and with the patience of a saint. But she loved it out here. And she loved him. Their days were full of hard, brutal work, and their nights were filled with passion—that’s how my grandmother always told it, anyway. But then again, she’d married a mountain-mad Barlow, and so her opinions might have been biased. Rafaela didn’t exactly write the word passion down in the family Bible.”
Rowan blushed and looked away. She knew exactly how it felt to be roped by a Barlow and taken to bed.
“They made love in the fields,” Seth told her.
Rowan’s head snapped back to him. “No!”
He nodded, chuckling. “They did. In the tall grass, among the wildflowers. My grandmother made it sound romantic enough, I guess, though I suppose it was more practical than all that. They were always with the herd, either down in the Gulch or up on the Ridge. They couldn’t afford to lose a single head in those days and so it took both of them to keep the ranch going. They say the sounds of their coupling kept the coyotes away.”
“Oh, stop it!” Rowan laughed, waving him away.
“It’s probably true!” he insisted with a grin. “I don’t know how you keep so quiet.”
Rowan’s cheeks flared all the way up to her ears. How indeed, with a man like this.
Seth lost all signs of humor as he looked at her. “I bet I can make you scream, Rowan. Loud and long. For hours.”
“It’s too cold,” she replied in a clipped tone even though her pulse was racing. She turned her mare away and continued on the trail.
“True,” he said, actually sounding disappointed.
They rode to what he called Riley’s Ridge. When they got to the top, Choctaw nickered, swung wide of the trail, and pranced just a few feet away.
Rowan glanced over her shoulder, checking the landscape around them. “Is there a wolf?” she asked Seth. “Or a cat?” She’d had more than her share of wolves at this point and squinted hard but didn’t see the languid form of a mountain lion anywhere on the horizon, either.
God forbid there’d be a bear, but she was confident their horses could outrun one.
“Nah,” said Seth, gathering the reins and getting his horse back under control. “He’s showing off for the two of you. He’s not a horse. He’s a ham.”