“Let’s go inside,” she pants, taking my hand. We hurry through the yard and into the house, picking up right where we left off. She peels off my shirt, throwing it on the kitchen floor. A trail of clothing leads to the living room, and soon we are making love on the couch again.

I hold her when we’re done, not intending on letting her go anytime soon. She closes her eyes and puts her hand over my heart, feeling it beating. She might not be ready to say she loves me yet, but I’m not giving up. Not now, not ever.

Chapter 21

My heart is racing and I’m lying still. It’s just after three a.m., and Aiden and I just had sex. Again. We both fell asleep quickly, but Aiden’s insomnia struck, and he woke up after just an hour of rest. After tossing and turning until he couldn’t take it anymore, he woke me up by softly stroking his fingers against my clit. I have to be up in three hours, but I’m not complaining. He can wake me up that way anytime he wants.

His lips press against the back of my neck, and his arms slip around me. I relax against him and close my eyes. His breathing slows as he drifts back to sleep. Everything is perfect. I should be happy, elated.

Aiden is, well, Aiden Shepherd, the famous, insanely good-looking actor. The fact is salient to me, but I don’t feel starstruck around him anymore at all. He’s just Aiden to me. Just himself, and he is fucking wonderful.

And he told me he loved me.

My heart skips a beat when I think about it. I do love him, don’t I? I want to, and I want to believe him. But I can’t shake the feeling that this is all a phase for him. Being away from the crowded, materialistic city he’s used to, away from constant social media feeds, paparazzi…it can feel like a different world, and it’s easy to lose yourself to something exotic.

Would his feelings be the same when he goes back to the life he lives? I’m just Haley, a small-town girl barely getting by and dealing with a loss. What makes me so special?

Carefully, I turn in his arms and look at him. He is special. He is more than some famous actor. There is so much more to him than he lets on, and it’s beautiful. I want things to work between us so badly it hurts. I wish I could ask Mom for advice, and for a split second my brain tells me to ask her in the morning as she frantically moves about the kitchen, getting ready for a long day of work in the barn.

I close my eyes, my heart sinking. Mom is gone. There is no one else who will talk to me as honestly as she would have, and no one who would be able to see Aiden for who he is and not what his job is.

Mom, I miss you so much. I’m so lost, so clueless. I have an amazing man lying naked next to me—a man who tells me he loves me—yet I can’t let him in because I’m scared.

Exhaustion pulls me into sleep again, and I dream about Aiden and fire.

I grab my phone, silencing the alarm before it wakes up Aiden. It’s Sunday morning, the last day of my weekend. I go back to work tomorrow, go away from Aiden. I flop back down, my eyes closing. I’m not ready to get up yet, not at all. But the horses need to be fed, stalls need to be cleaned…along with a slew of other barn chores.

I kiss Aiden and get out of bed. A cool breeze blows through the open window. Aiden is lying on his stomach, blankets tangled around his legs. The top of his bare ass is showing. I admire it for a few seconds then cover him up, making sure he’s warm. Actually, he feels hot. Too hot. Shit, I hope his fever didn’t come back. I can’t remember if he took his antibiotic last night either. I’m not going to wake him up yet, so I silently grab my clothes, go to the bathroom, and then head out to the barn.

Chrissy follows me, her nose down in the grass, sniffing her way to the barn. I slide the heavy door open and am greeted by a chorus of whinnies. I smile, my heart warming at the sight and sounds of my horses.

“Hey, guys,” I say. I do a quick head count, going down the aisle. When I get to Phoenix’s stall, my heart stops beating. She’s always standing in the back. Always. But I don’t see her. I run to her stall, fingers shaking as I desperately lift the latch. She lying down, legs outstretched and head on a pile of uneaten hay, not moving.

“Phoenix!” I say as I throw the door open. She rolls an eye up to look at me. She’s alive, thank God! I run into her stall, dropping to my knees. “Are you okay?”

She lets out a deep breath and raises her head, giving me a pissed off glare, and gets to her feet. My heart settles down. She was just sleeping.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I say, my voice trembling. “I didn’t mean to get you up, but you freaking scared me!” I put my hand over my chest and blow out my air. Holy shit. It’s normal for horses to sleep lying down, but I’ve never before seen Phoenix lying in her stall like that. I blink back tears, and it hits me how much I don’t want this horse to give up.

Of course, I don’t want any horse to give up, but Phoenix is different. Mom died for her. Phoenix has to live. She has to.

“You can go back to sleep,” I say, knowing she won’t. She would have gotten up anyway when I started divvying out hay. I’m still freaked out as I change the bandages on the new guy, and I have to keep looking at Phoenix to make sure I didn’t just imagine her getting up. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen something that’s not really there.

“You need a name,” I say to the gray gelding. “Hmmm. I think you look like a Gandolf. Gandolf the Gray,” I say and smile at myself. He’s standing this morning, which is wonderful. Putting horses in slings to keep them up and keep the weight off their injured legs is stressful to them. Plus, it’d be expensive to equip the barn with it, though it would cost less in the end than sending him out.

He nibbles his hay and looks down at me. There is hope in his eyes, and it’s brightened since Friday night. Sometimes it still amazes me how much a little love and faith can do for someone, equine or human. He still has a long recovery, and I’d be shocked if he could ever be ridden. Finding him a forever home is going to be a challenge.

I sigh, reminding myself it’s too early to worry about that just yet. He has a long way to go, and good progress can halt and even go backwards.

“You won’t, will you, big guy?” I ask him as I gently run my hand along his neck. Once his wounds are healed, he’ll need a bath. Dirt, sweat, and feces have built up on his rough coat for months, years maybe. I shake my head and pet him again. I make a mental note to call Judy later and see how the legal part of this rescue is going. I’m so glad she’s handling that part. I’ve seen Mom go through it many times. It’s never fun.

I treat Phoenix next and then give everyone grain and fill another bucket with formula for Aurelia. I stay with her while the other guys eat, then I move into Shakespeare’s stall.

I let out a breath and look at my horse. Then it hits me how much I miss him. Yeah, I’ve seen him every day. I’ve cleaned his stall, fed him, and brushed him. But it isn’t the same. I used to spend hours grooming him, riding him, just sitting on his back as he lazily moved along the pasture grazing.

I long for those days again, for days when I have time to relax, and mostly, for days when I don’t feel like barn chores are tedious. I’d clean a stall over a room in the house any day, of course, but right now I’d choose lying in bed doing nothing over anything else.

Well, almost anything. There is Aiden, and doing nothing with him by my side is healing. I smile at the thought of him. Things have been a whirlwind of suckage since Mom passed. I’ve never thought about ending my own life, but there are nights when I lay in bed, wishing it had been me who died in the fire, or that we’d perished together. Things were just too painful. More than once I’d wished for something horrible to happen to me—a crash on the way to work, my burns getting infected and me going septic and dying from it—and end it all in a way that felt natural.