“Today’s a perfect example of it. You and I both know there’s no way in hell you could have ripped your top like that on a door and gotten to where you were inside the stables by the time I turned around. Then there’s also the lies to the ranch hands who were on duty with me when we buddied up that sent them to a different part of the ranch and left us alone yesterday. I’m tired of you pressing up against me when you walk past me when there’s a fuck ton of space available for that not to happen.”
“Are you—” she whispered, “are you saying I’m hitting on you?”
Tilting my head back to glare up at the clouds, I counted to ten before I lowered it back down to look at her. “Marni, stop. Please don’t make it look like I’m seeing shit when I’m not. You know and I know that’s not the case. I’m asking you, as the guy doing your brother a favor while he’s fighting for our country, don’t do this.”
She looked to the side for a moment, then slid her eyes back to me. “So, you’re saying you’re not even a little bit interested?”
“Not even slightly.”
Her lips pinched together, and for a moment, I saw something in her eyes that made my hackles rise before it was gone. “Okay, I’m sorry if I made things uncomfortable for you.”
Before I could say anything back, she was walking past me, and I had to figure it was probably best if I didn’t say anything else. My hope now was that she’d take on board what I was saying to her, and she’d cut her shit out. I also hoped she’d contact her brother and let him know she was thinking of him while he was deployed.
Sadly, I just wasn’t sure either of those would actually happen.
I was rinsing off and stacking the dishes from dinner in the dishwasher after eating the meal Addy had prepared for us all. When I’d caught up with her in the stable, she’d been talking to Remy and Santana about a dish she loved that her mom had taught her. It’d sounded amazing, so I’d invited the two of them to join us, putting her on the line to make dinner and stay with me a while longer.
Not that Addy had minded. She’d made sure I had the ingredients and had run down to her place with Santana to get what I didn’t have, and then she’d cooked while I’d had a beer with Remy at her insistence.
It was one of the times I’d concede that Jackson’s description of how a relationship worked was accurate. We slotted together perfectly, and even though it’d only been a matter of weeks, it felt like we’d been doing this thing together for years. Well, I’d have hoped we’d be having sex after being together for years, especially as it was getting harder not to touch her like that.
With the last of the dishes loaded, I shut the door and stopped to get two more beers out of the fridge before making my way back to where they were sitting around the fire talking.
“I need to get fit if I’m going to spend any time around here,” Addy groaned, stretching her leg out in front of her. “I swear, just walking around with Marcus kicked my ass today. Every time I come to visit, and I get to see more of the place, I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck.”
“Why don’t you take one of the horses or an ATV?” Santana asked, finishing off the wine in her glass. “That way, you can see more, and you won’t hurt as much. Well,” she muttered, looking to the side, “you’d feel it if you rode a horse around, but you get used to that…ish.”
Addy’s head turned slowly toward me, and I almost laughed at the dirty look she was giving me. “There are ATVs?”
“Four of them,” I shrugged. “I just didn’t know if you’d be able to ride one.”
“It’s an ATV, not a helicopter,” she huffed. Turning to Remy, she asked, “Would you trust me on one?”
“I don’t even trust Santana on one, so you’re barking up the wrong tree,” he replied quietly.
I caught the way the woman’s eyes narrowed on him, but then her eyes slid back to Addy. “I’ll get fit with you. I’m not talking about that gym bullshit because I’m not that serious about my fitness levels, but if you want to run or do a workout here, sure.”
“I used to run,” Addy said, sounding almost hesitant. “I ran all the time and even did it for a team when I lived with my parents.”
Catching Remy’s look and knowing he had the same questions I did about the sudden change in her, I reached out and grabbed her hand.