“Hunter you are ignoring me. You’re acting like—like nothing happened.”
Now that the words were out there, bare in the open, they just sat there. Vulnerable and horrible and she wanted to take them back, but she couldn’t.
She was so used to just saying whatever she thought, especially with him, but now it was just a tangle.
“Elsie,” he said, his voice firm and even. “Nothing did happen.”
It was like a punch to the gut, and it made her eyes sting with unshed, shameful tears.
“Hunter...”
But it was true. So she had nothing to say. Nothing had happened. Nothing had happened, and she was acting like a scorned lover.
And she suddenly felt horrified. Horrible. She hadn’t fully realized that what she was doing was acting the part of someone who’d had...a romantic interaction with another person. And they had not. They had not had a romantic interaction. They hadn’t...anything. But she felt different. She felt different about him. And he should feel different. It should feel like something. How could he dance with her like that, go shopping for clothes with her and see her, and say those nice things to her. And hold her in his arms and...
She was mortified. And nothing inside of her would let him see that. Nothing would allow her to show it. She would rather die. She would rather kill them both. Wrap her arms around them and fling them into the bonfire. Because she was not going to ever let anyone know about any of this.
“You’re acting like you barely know me,” she choked out. “And you do know me. You taught me how to ride a horse, and you—”
“You listen to me,” he said, moving closer to her. “Nothing happened. And I cannot treat you any different than I treated you before we went on that trip.” His voice was rough now. Hard and almost desperate and it made that sharp thing in her chest sink even more deeply into her.
“Why?” The question came out choked. Broken.
And she just felt small and sad then, and was close to admitting that she was as hurt as she was willing to get.
“So you do know something changed,” she pushed.
“No,” he said.
But he was hostile with it.
“You do,” she said. “That’s why you’re acting like this.”
“What do you want to hear from me? Huh? You want to hear that you looked hot in a dress and I noticed? You want me to show people that I felt that? What good would it do, Elsie? What good in heaven or hell could it possibly do?”
“I—I don’t know, but I’d—”
“You wanted me to help you pick up Travis. And that’s what you should do. You should pick up fucking Travis. Because that makes sense. This doesn’t make sense. You flipping a fit and trying to stab me between the ribs with your insults doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
She couldn’t speak. All she could do was stare at him with stupid, ridiculous moisture starting to cloud her vision.
“You need to get yourself together, little girl,” he said, his tone furious now, “because I can’t do it for you. I won’t.”
“Hunter...”
“Pull it together. Pull yourself together.”
And he turned around and left her there. And she burned. Bright and hot with so many things she didn’t have names for. Things she didn’t even want names for.
And she pledged, then and there, that she was going to seduce Travis. And she was going to do it soon. And she was going to do it in front of Hunter. So he could see all that good work that he’d done. So he could see just what had changed.
Because she had.
He had thought she was beautiful in the dress.
But he wasn’t choosing her.
What the hell kind of thought is that? Hunter McCloud? It’s impossible, and if you were thinking clearly at all before you flipped this little tantrum you would know that.
She did. She was being... She just knew that she felt things, but she wasn’t ready to assign meaning to them.
She wasn’t. It made her want to weep.
To acknowledge that it mattered that he thought she looked pretty in that dress. To acknowledge that it made her feel good. That when he was standing there, and she could see that he was affected by what had passed between them, she had wanted to move closer.
It made her feel hopeless. Impossibly so.
Because Hunter McCloud drove her crazy. And there was no way that she could be attracted to him.
No way at all. There were too many reasons. Too many things.
Travis. This was all supposed to be about Travis.
Travis, who she had barely looked at once the entire time she was here.
Get back on the plan.
She would. She would get back on this. She would do what needed doing.
To restore sanity. Because she couldn’t go having things like this happening ever again. For her pride and for the sake of Four Corners.
Because he was right. What did that mean? That she wanted him to acknowledge what happened? All the little undercurrents, because that was all they were. Just undercurrents. And there was nothing that anyone could do about them. Nothing anyone should do about them.
So what was the point? He had done exactly the right thing, and she had been wrong.
So she was going to forget this. She wasn’t going to sit in it, she wasn’t going to unspool it. She wasn’t going to look any deeper into it. She was going to forget that it happened.
Because there was no alternative.
He had accused her of acting like a child. And maybe she was. Because only a child would want their feelings acknowledged when those feelings were impossible.
So she would prove to him that she wasn’t a child. That she was a woman.
She would prove it.
After she finished her chores.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE TOOK A great deal of joy in outlining the chores that he was going to have Elsie do the next day at the ranch. It was a big, long list of bullshit that he knew she didn’t want to do. Because nobody wanted to do it. Because every horrible task that had been put off was going to be dropped on her shoulders. Because she had lost big-time and spectacularly, and she had been fairly unforgivable in her treatment of him.
He didn’t really care about the way she treated him, not generally. It was the way she’d intentionally compared him to his father. After he’d...
He’d talked about his parents on that trip.
They’d shared with each other.
Nothing happened.