“Arlington, please don’t turn your back on your family.”
“I don’t feel like I’m the one doing that.”
As she turned to go, he halted her with a request.
“I want you to come to my birthday celebration. It’s in two weeks. It wouldn’t be the same without you,” he insisted.
She swallowed a wave of frustration. It was the last thing she wanted to do but how could she say no?
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
She went back to him and they hugged stiffly.
“I love you,” he said to her. “Please remember that.”
“It’s hard sometimes. I feel like you don’t understand me.”
“But I will always try. You know that, don’t you?”
A.J. looked deeply into his eyes. “Yes. Yes, I think I do.”
With an awkward wave, she walked over to Chester.
“Where is he?”
The man shrugged. “Just disappeared into the crowd.”
Unsettled, A.J. changed back into her barn clothes and helped Chester pack up. The two worked in silence until there was nothing left to hang, fold or tie down. When everything was arranged, she was stuck with nothing to occupy her while they waited for Devlin’s return. She filled the free time composing an explanation and apology for the family dynamic he’d witnessed but it was far from a relaxing distraction. She’d have much preferred cleaning something but had the feeling Chester was going to scream if she reorganized the brushes in the grooming kit one more time.
A while later, Chester’s stomach began to growl and she volunteered to stay behind while he went in search of food. After he wandered off, she sat down on the back lip of the trailer bumper, the metal cold through the seat of her jeans. Sabbath, still moored at the side of the ramp, came over to her, his muzzle soft against her skin as he breathed on her neck.
“You’re an unreliable ally but I appreciate the concern.” Slipping her arm under his neck, she gave him a stout pat. “And you’re surprisingly sympathetic.”
They huddled together, the sunlight of fall battling an early gust of winter wind and winning. Above, a wide, clear sky went on forever, the seamless expanse of space tinted a safe, reassuring blue.
She was worried what Devlin was thinking. About her family. About herself. Most of all, about the two of them.
And then there was that nonsense about a reporter. She groaned as she tried to imagine the kinds of lies the story might contain. The last thing she wanted was more attention on her work with the stallion and she knew Devlin hated publicity, particularly of the personal variety. And, being confronted with it for the first time herself, she couldn’t say she cared for it, either.
Why was everything hitting at once? It seemed like events were conspiring to pull Devlin and her apart when all she wanted was for them to be closer. In fact, she realized with clarity, what she really wanted was for them to be lovers. And to hell with everything and everyone else.
When there was a shuffle of leaves created by footsteps instead of wind, she looked up to find Devlin standing in front of her.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello.” He ran a hand down Sabbath’s neck.
“So how was the paint?”
His look was confused.
“You know, the whole paint drying thing.” She was shooting for levity and missed.
“Sorry about that crack.”
“Well, considering how far out of line Peter was, I don’t blame you.”
He made a noncommittal reply.
“Devlin, I don’t know anything about a picture. Do you?”
He shook his head. “Maybe the reporter was just fishing.”
“Maybe.”
There was a pause.
“We need to talk.” His voice was low, serious.
Fear, cold and damp, settled between her shoulder blades at his tone. “About what?”
“Us. Our relationship.”
“What about us?”
“I don’t know if you should stay at the farmhouse.”
“But why?”
“Your stepbrother’s right. It’s not professional.”
“Don’t tell me you take him seriously?”
“You can be a jackass and still have a good point.”
Chester rounded the corner, munching on a chili dog the size of his head.
“Hey, ya guys need food? They got good dogs over there.”
“That so?” Devlin replied easily while he started fishing around in his pockets.
For all the tension he showed, she thought, they could have just been talking about the weather. The look he gave her, however, said they’d finish the conversation later.
“Sure ’nuff.” With a stretch of his jaws, Chester polished off the rest of his lunch. “But ya need two of ’em to really curb the hunger.”
“I’d be careful,” Devlin said, taking his keys out. “We’re going to have to airlift you to a trauma center if you keep eating like this. One day you’re going to explode from the extremes. Too regimented during the morning, a wild man after noon.”
“Stomach a’ steel an’ the will to match,” the man said, patting himself. “Could live on nails an’ rubber bands if I had to.”
“You may be already,” Devlin muttered. “God only knows what they make those things out of.”
After an awful ride home during which A.J. and Devlin sat in silence and Chester snored, the three worked together to unload the stallion and return the tack and supplies to their proper places. It was still midafternoon by the time Chester left the stables, and A.J. regarded the remaining daylight with dismay. She was anxious to talk to Devlin and get the conversation over with but scared he was going to make her leave.
Devlin had already returned to the farmhouse when A.J. started to clean her tack, and after she was done, she went in search of him. She was dreading the thought of having to stay somewhere else. The idea that she wouldn’t have a ready excuse to sit down and have dinner across the table from him every night or see him in the morning over coffee made her ache. Even if she couldn’t be with him, she needed to be around him.
As soon as A.J. put her hand on the front doorknob, he opened the door. His hair was still wet from the shower and he’d changed into a pair of black slacks and a black shirt. He looked dangerously handsome as he shrugged into a leather jacket.
“I’m going out,” he told her.
“Will you be back for dinner?”
“I don’t think so.”