“What was that about? The last time I saw Jesse angry was when I took a black Sharpie to his cowboy hat when I was in preschool.”
So his surge of anger was as out-of-character as I suspected. Whatever bad blood flowed between him and Garth ran deep.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Testosterone overload? Those tight jeans were cutting the blood off to their brains? Men as a whole are reverting back to their monkey origins?” I could go on, but right then, I wanted to forget the whole thing and get through the rest of breakfast. “I don’t know, but I do know one thing—it’s a waste of time trying to figure out the male brain since most of them are lacking one.”
Lily laughed softly. “I’ve had my suspicions the whole time.”
“That’s because you’re a smart girl.” I retrieved the empty coffee pot and headed to refill it. Almost all of the cups I’d filled less than five minutes ago were empty. Cowboys drank more coffee than beings of a mortal quality should be able to handle.
A couple minutes later, everyone had settled back into their breakfasts, and I made sure to stay busy. I was like a squirrel in fall, bustling about the kitchen, moving from one task to the next seamlessly. Against all odds, I managed not to spill, break, or drop anything else. I started to wonder if my body had been invaded by some alien being, and then my gaze landed on Garth. He sat at the table, ignoring his meal, ignoring everyone else . . . except me. His eyes followed me with the kind of intensity that made it hard to determine if I was the predator or the prey.
As soon as my eyes met his, that dark smile of his moved into place. I tripped over my own feet. Thankfully I wasn’t carrying anything or it would have been a goner.
After that, I didn’t look at Garth again, but I still felt his eyes on me. Every move I made, I was aware of him watching me.
By the end of breakfast, I was certain of what I was to him: the prey.
It excited me as much as it alarmed me.
For all the prep and work that went into it, the actual consumption of breakfast was a quick deal. In addition to be champion coffee chuggers, cowboys could pound down some serious grub. We’re talking a half dozen pancakes, a slab of ham, and a plate-sized portion of scrambled eggs each. What would have taken me a year to get through had just been consumed there that morning.
Once we’d all eaten, the table was cleared, the dishes washed, and everything laid out for lunch, Rose set us free. Well, kind of free. The girls had school work to get to. I gave them a sympathetic smile as they headed into the living room with their pencils and calculators.
Since I had yet to explore any more of Willow Springs than the house, I decided to head outside for a little fresh air. I grabbed my sketchbook and favorite pencil just in case I found anything I just had to draw, tucked them inside of my oversized purse, and headed outside. The weather had taken a turn and the early morning air had enough of a chill I wished I had my trusty black hoodie.
The giant red barn loomed in front of me like it could swallow me whole. When the reminder of the big reveal at breakfast raced to the forefront of my mind again, I kind of wished it would. A bunch of guys had lied to me about their relationship status. More guys than I could count. That wasn’t what I was upset about. The lies I’d come to expect. What I was upset about was that I hadn’t expected it from Jesse. I’d lowered my guard around him because my subconscious had been fooled into believing he was different. Jesse Walker, golden cowboy whose dimples alone could unnerve a girl, couldn’t possibly be hiding a girlfriend like the rest of them.
But he had been. The whole time. In all our conversations, our flirty banter, our asinine question game, and when he’d asked me out . . . never once had a certain Josie come up. Even though I’d only known Jesse a few days, his betrayal cut deeply.
I wandered into the barn and tried to push all thoughts of betrayal, girlfriends, and Jesse Walker out of my mind. I was done pretending there might or ever could be something special between us.
The barn was as huge from the inside as it was from the outside. It had a grassy, tangy smell right between pleasant and offensive. I couldn’t decide. As I passed a stack of bags taller and wider than I was, I saw what Jesse had been heaving out of his truck: feed grain.
The barn had a never ending number of stalls, an unbelievably tall tower of hay bales, and only about a million different tools, buckets, hoses, and thingamajigs hanging on the walls. The only tool I was familiar with was the row of shovels. Everything else I would have been at a loss with.
I was almost to the end of the barn when a wheel barrow bounced out of the last stall on the right. Followed by a certain cowboy I really wasn’t in the mood to see. His trademark dark smile and predatory eyes went into position as soon as he noticed me.
“Well, if this isn’t the damn pleasantest surprise I’ve had all week,” Garth said, parking the wheelbarrow outside the stall before walking my way. Actually, it was more of a saunter. Garth Black had a serious saunter as unapologetic as the way he stared at me.
Damn, the guy was so my type everything inside me tightened in anticipation. At the same time, I also knew “my type” had gotten me a whole lotta nowhere in the past.
“It is a surprise,” I said, crossing my arms.
The skin between his brows came together. He was thrown by my lack of warm welcome. Cocky bastard. I wanted to ignore him that much more.
“You don’t like me,” he guessed, stopping a few feet in front of me. His black hat was tilted low on his forehead, making his eyes dark as onyx.