I slow the horse to a walk and look over my shoulder. “You hungry?” I ask. She nods, but she doesn’t move away from me. The sound of the creek starts to get a touch louder as we get closer. Once we pull up next to the rock and the open area, I get off the horse and then hold my hand out for her. She grabs me and gets down, then she shocks me when she rubs the horse’s neck. “Hold the reins,” I say. She holds them in her hand while I get the blanket out.
“What are you doing?” she asks when I walk over to the open area under the tree and unfold the blanket, putting it down.
“We’re having a picnic.” Her eyes go big, her smile lights up, and I swear I see a tear in her eye. “I figured since we were out.” I walk over and grab the cooler that my mother packed and then look over at her. “You can leave the reins. He won’t go anywhere.” She drops them and then follows me over to the blanket.
“I can’t believe you did all this,” she says, kicking off her shoes and getting on the blanket.
“I wish I could take all the credit.” I laugh, sitting down in front of her. “But Mom made the food.”
The smile never leaves her face as she ties her hair up on her head. I have the sudden urge to lean down and kiss her face, forgetting all about the food. “I’m suddenly starving,” she says.
I open the cooler, taking out the sandwiches Mom made along with a container of fruit and another of veggies, and at the bottom is the bottle of wine. “See, she knows you,” I say, and she just laughs. She grabs a piece of sandwich and sits down. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” she says, chewing. “Remind me never to drink tequila again.”
I laugh, grabbing my own piece. “I’ll remind you only if you tell me more about you being a model.” I watch as the smile fades from her face, and she just shrugs.
“Nothing much to say. I used to model, and now I don’t,” she says. When she looks down at her hands, I’m almost ready to kick myself for asking her. “It’s not a secret or anything. I started when I was young, then finally, a couple of years ago, I just walked away from it.” She looks at me. “Almost like you up and leaving the rodeo circuit. That was how I felt about modeling. I was doing it because my mother made me, and then I finally stood up and said no more.”
“It must have been hard to just walk away,” I say, knowing full well how it felt losing that little piece of me. “A piece of me was gone. It was just weird.”
“But you loved doing the rodeo, right?” she asks, and I nod. “I hated fucking modeling. I hated everything about it. Getting on jets and living out of your suitcase and the cattiness about it. One girl I know ate only an apple for the whole week.” She throws her hands in the air. “Seven days with one apple. Luckily, I had a great metabolism, but that didn’t keep my mother from trying to pinch fat on my body. Well, when she did that, it was always a bad month.”
“Do you still talk to your mother?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
“No.” She grabs a grape and tosses it into her mouth. “When I finished my last runway, I expected her to be there. Expected her to be somewhat proud of the fact that I had the career I did, but instead, she tried to punish me by staying away. In the end, she punished herself because I’ve never been happier.” She shrugs and eats more grapes. “I mean, I guess you can say my mother is the reason that I settled with Dominic.”
“How is that?” I listen to her telling her story about how miserable her life was, and I want to make sure she never feels that way again.
“I don’t know what love is,” she says, and my heart and stomach hurt for her. “If you’ve never had love in your life, how do you know what it feels like?” She shrugs. “It’s like I know I’ll never be a mother.”
“I get that feeling,” I say. “I’ll never get married,” I finally admit to her, and she looks at me. “It’s just not for me.”
She laughs. “Cowboy Casey on the loose.” I shake my head. “Adding notches to your bedpost.”
I look down and then look up. “Hardly.”
“You’re not lying,” she says softly. I grab a water bottle and take a drink, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Whatever this thing is.” I point at her and then at me. “The one thing I can tell you is that I will never lie to you.”
“Thank you,” she says softly. “I think that is one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me.” She looks down and then she looks up again, and I see the tears in her eyes. “This can’t go anywhere,” she says. “I’m here until it’s safe, and then I’m leaving.” I want to ignore the crushing in my chest. I want to ignore the fact that my stomach now burns, knowing she’ll eventually leave. I don’t answer her. Instead, I look off into the trees and pretend my heart didn’t just break.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia
I hear an alarm in the distance, and my eyes finally open. I feel him leave my side and turn to look over my shoulder at him. It’s still dark outside. “What time is it?”
“Five thirty,” he mumbles. “Go back to sleep.”
“It’s five thirty?” I ask him and lean up on the couch, not believing him as he gets up and goes to the bathroom. It’s the second night that I’ve slept on the couch with him. Yesterday, I spent the day on the couch bored out of my mind. I tried to work, but when I finally got my computer out and the emails started coming in, my head started spinning. Kallie looked over at me, and she took my computer from me. She then went as far as telling Casey about it, and all he did was glare at me and fold his arms over his chest. Needless to say, that night we sat in the almost dark, and we made out. God, the man could kiss like no one’s business. He kissed me breathless, yet I didn’t want to stop. Even when my eyes got heavy, and I knew I would be falling asleep, I went back in for one more kiss. It was always one more kiss until I fell asleep without a care in the world.
I turn over and throw the covers off when he walks out of the bedroom dressed in his Levi’s. “What are you doing?” he asks when I stand and stretch. “It’s early.”
“I slept for ten hours,” I say. “Ten straight hours.” I shake my head. “I don’t even think I dreamed.”
“Well, if you go back to sleep, you can sleep twelve hours,” he says, putting on his shirt. This time, it’s a black one. I look over at him, watching as he pushes his hair back, and I have to take a minute before I move again. I’m used to my heart speeding up when I look over at him, but what I’m not used to is the flutters in my stomach. The itch that my hands get to walk over to him and hold his face in my hand and kiss him.
“I’ll meet you in five minutes,” I say. Walking back to the bedroom, I get a pair of pink yoga pants and matching sports bra with a gray off-the-shoulder shirt. I grab my sneakers, and I sit on the stairs while I wait for him. “I’m ready!” I shout back when I tie my hair up on the top of my head. He comes from the kitchen and looks at me. “Let’s get the day moving, cowboy.” I wink at him, and he shakes his head. We walk out of the house just as the sun is rising and the sky looks pink. “It’s so pretty,” I say, listening to the sound of our footsteps since it’s the only sound in the air. “It’s so peaceful.” Our fingers graze each other, and just like every other time, his fingers entwine with mine.