Another day, another way for Peyton to put up walls. “Why not?” He wanted to ask why not this time? But he decided to keep that part to himself.
“If this ever got out? I would be the laughingstock of the community. Nobody would take me seriously. I’ve already got one strike against me because I’m female, and I can’t change that. But this, I can change.”
“Peyton . . .”
“I will not be my mother,” she hissed, then deflated like a balloon. “I can’t be…I just don’t want . . .”
He gathered her gently in his arms, waiting for the smallest sign of resistance. But she came willingly, eagerly into the embrace. “You’re not your mother. Finding one man you respect and want to spend time with is not the same thing as landing on your back whenever you want to manipulate someone.”
She rubbed her cheek against his jacket. “I know that. What everyone else would see though, that’s another story.”
“Screw everyone else.”
She laughed, then slapped a hand over her mouth, swallowing a few more giggles. “Easy for you to say. A man takes a lover and no matter who she is, he’s slapped on the back and winked at. A woman choses to have someone in her bed, and the whole thing is analyzed. Plus, it’s not your name on the sign. You pick up and go wherever you want when you’re ready to move on.” She fell silent then, and he could almost see her mind taking that new direction.
The one where he would eventually pick up and leave. Just another wall in a maze full of walls on his way to convincing Peyton this wasn’t a simple fling for him. Or her.
“Tell you what.” He took one of her hands in his, chafed it to warm the tips. “Why don’t we take things one day at a time? There’s been no mention of this in the stables, right?”
“No,” she said slowly.
He brought her hand to his mouth, blew warm air over her fingers. “So how about we worry about tonight, tonight. And when tomorrow gets here, we’ll deal with that then.”
She watched him for a bit, as if trying to read whether he was bullshitting her or not. Then she shrugged. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”
When he slipped his hand around hers and pulled gently, she followed like a docile mare being led in circles for a kiddie ride. He wasn’t a stupid man, though. Docile didn’t exist in Peyton’s DNA. She was biding her time, thinking things through. And when she wanted to break away, he couldn’t hold her back with steel bars if he wanted to.
So he’d take it one day at a time, like he’d suggested for her, and see how that played out.
Chapter Eighteen
Red polished up his last order form for the day and set it in the Outbox for Billy to call in tomorrow morning. Damn, paperwork sucked. But it was just a part of the job. Or, rather, part of this job. Drifting from one stable to another, he hadn’t been responsible for most of the paperwork. His focus was the animals and the riders.
His cell phone rang, and he jumped at the chance to clear his mind from numbers and order sheets. “Callahan.”
“Red—” Arby’s voice was tense. “Get to the stables. Now.”
“What?” Red’s boots hit the floor and he slammed the office door behind him, glad he’d changed the lock to the office for one that automatically locked every time the door closed. “Is it one of the mares? Peyton? What?”
“Your father,” was all Arby said, then hung up.
Shit. Red shoved the cell in his pocket and kicked up his speed from a fast walk to a jog. It’d been twelve days since Red had seen Mac at the feed store. With forty-eight hours left on his deadline to get the hell out of town, his father should have been too busy packing and gassing up his truck to come over and cause trouble.
His father’s laughter met him before he set foot in the stable. Mac laughed like a man with nothing to hold back. Usually because Mac didn’t believe in holding back. Red’s boots clicked over the concrete as he worked his way back to the tack room where Mac and a few hands were polishing hardware.
“So anyway, there Red was, scared spitless over this bucking bronc, and I had to pull his ass out of the way before he got himself trampled to death. You’da thought the boy was slow the way he just watched, begging to get kicked in the head.”
The hands shook their heads, as if unable to believe it.
“I took that scared kid and turned him into a horseman, I did.” Mac’s pride—however false—resonated in his voice.
“Great story, Dad.” Red crossed his arms over his chest and stared. “You came to see me?”
Mac grinned and dropped his rag. “Sure did. These boys here were just keeping me company. Say, remember the time you—”