“What are you doing here, Emma?” he asked, not taking one single step toward her. With him looking at her with those hooded, displeased eyes, her voice stuttered in her throat, and she couldn’t say anything.
Chapter Fifteen
Ted didn’t want to make Emma’s life more difficult. But he didn’t want to be lied to either. He didn’t want a woman who kept secrets from him day after day, even when he knew she had them.
He’d been telling himself all day that he’d only known her for two weeks. He didn’t have to know everything about her in two weeks. She didn’t have to completely trust him in only fourteen days. She was allowed more time.
All of that was true.
He still hadn’t gone to the stables tonight, because he liked his heart in one piece. He felt like she was holding a carving knife, and there was no reason for him to open his chest and give her free access to cut his most vital organ into a thousand pieces.
When she didn’t answer his question, Ted took a tiny step toward her but stopped. “It’s getting late.”
“Why didn’t you come to the stables?”
Ted looked away, because words could be sharp, he knew. “Busy weekend, and a long, tiring day,” he said. Both of those things were true.
“Okay,” Emma said, opening the door behind her. She had to edge forward to let it swing past her, and Ted watched her do that. She was nervous, and he honestly wasn’t sure why he wanted to be with someone who didn’t want to share their life with him.
“Where’d you go this weekend?” he asked.
She froze, her eyes locking onto his. “San Antonio,” she said.
“Why?”
“I go every couple of weeks,” she said. “Get away. See friends.”
Ted couldn’t tell if she was lying, and all the other times he’d been able to. “Okay,” he said. “Did you have fun?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“We mostly stayed in,” she said. “Watched movies and made homemade bread.” She flashed a timid smile. “My friend always wants me to teach her how to make bread.”
“I’d like that too,” Ted said, putting a smile on his face he hoped was gentle. He felt like he was trying to coax a scared squirrel to come get a treat from him. He wasn’t sure why he wanted Emma to stay if she wanted to go. If she didn’t want to confide in him, he shouldn’t make her.
“You also said you’d teach me how to ride a horse,” he added.
“When you have time to do that,” she said. “All the horses are taken.”
“So maybe you’ll have to teach me to bake in the afternoons.”
“And heat up the house during the hottest part of the day?” She shook her head, clearly flirting with him now. Ted did like that, and he told himself he still had three months here at the ranch. He didn’t need to know everything right now.
The lawyer inside him just wanted to have all the facts up front. The protective side of him wanted to know what situation Emma found herself in, so he could plan best how to help her.
“So horseback riding is out,” he said, stepping all the way to the island in the kitchen. “And so is baking. Hmm, what else could we do?”
“I actually work while you nap in the chair in my office,” she teased.
Ted ducked his head, though he wasn’t wearing his cowboy hat and couldn’t actually conceal his face. He sobered and looked up at her. “The weekend trips are part of the secret, aren’t they?”
The flirtatiousness slid off her face. “Yes.”
He nodded and looked away again. “Okay, well, I said you could tell me when you’re ready, so I guess I can’t be mad if you’re not ready.”
She swallowed hard enough for him to see the movement in her throat, and he said, “Good night, Emma. See you in the stables in the morning.” He fell back a step, and then another, and she moved out of the way of the door so she could leave the Annex.
“’Night, Teddy.” With that, she was gone, swallowed by the night beyond the door. Ted waited a couple of seconds, and then he crossed the kitchen to the door to lock it. Emma wasn’t on the deck, and Ted took a deep breath of the air where she’d been standing. He caught just a hint of her perfume, the soft, floral scent of it calling to everything male inside him.
“I want to trust her,” he whispered to the glass, still trying to see her though she wasn’t there. “I want to get to know her, but that’s a two-way road.” And it felt like he was trying to get to Emma. He was in a very fast truck, with his foot pressing the accelerator all the way to the floor. He was desperate to get to where she was.
And she was running just as fast in the opposite direction.
Ted fell back into the routine on the ranch. He didn’t mind doing the same thing day after day, especially because here, no one was telling him where he had to be, and when. Jess had taught him what to do, and Ted did it. He worked steadily, and he took a break when he wanted to.
He took his lunch and all the dogs to the shade under the trees, only a stone’s throw from the river, every afternoon, and he’d gone back to helping Emma with her foals and relaxing in her office in the afternoons. When he left the West Wing, his dogs were always waiting for him, panting in the shade of the backyard.
His conversations with Emma had gone back to normal things, like siblings and favorite pets, birthday meals, and their past careers. Ted learned something new about Emma every day, and he shared things about himself as well.
But they were just dancing, waiting for the end of this song to see what the next one would be. He didn’t like the dance. He wanted to sit down to dinner and have it out. Get the truth. See all the pieces and try to figure out how they fit together.
She left the ranch again that weekend, and Ted didn’t ask where she was going. She wasn’t going to tell him anyway.
San Antonio.
Visiting friends.
Making homemade bread.
The words ran through his mind on a constant loop, and he knew he was missing something.
“You’ve got to focus when you’re in the saddle,” Nate said, and Ted blinked his way out of his own mind. Because Emma couldn’t teach him to ride, Ted had asked Nate to do it. The ranch did horseback riding lessons on weekends too, but not after noon. So Ted and Nate had taken care of the horses from the lessons that morning, and then Nate had taught Ted how to saddle a horse and how to get on.
“Sorry,” Ted said. He squinted into the bright sunlight, grateful for his cowboy hat. “I’m paying attention.”
Nate went through how to balance, and how to get the horse to move and how to command him to stop. Nate had given Ted a pretty gray horse named Enterprise, and he’d learned that Ginger named all of the horses on the ranch, and apparently, she liked Star Trek.
“Now you try,” Nate said, and Ted nodded.
He held the reins loosely in his hand, and he moved his heels back. “Go,” he said, and to his great surprise, Enterprise started walking. A smile spread across Ted’s face, and he looked at Nate like he’d just done something great.
“Let’s go,” Nate said, and he brought his horse around to walk side-by-side with Ted and the four blue heelers. Nate rode a brown horse with a black mane and tail. It was a special type of horse that Ted had forgotten the name of. But he was beautiful, and his name was Painted Desert.