Off to the Races: A Small Town Enemies to Lovers Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 1)
Off to the Races: Chapter 9

The next week passes easily, and I fall into a comfortable rhythm. I’m kept busy working with the exercise riders who breeze the established horses first thing in the morning. Violet and I are becoming fast friends, having lunch together most days. Hank gives me the best hugs and working on the day-to-day aspects of the farm with him has things running like a well-oiled machine. Even the most stand-offish staff members are coming around. Sometimes, rather than speaking to me in grunts, they use words. Which I’m counting as a win. Boss Man is still sex in a suit but also a typical crabby rich bitch who hides out in his office all day.

Now I’m doing what all the cool girls do on a Friday night: kicking back with my main man.

A horse.

We’ve come a long way in the last week. I walk over the crest of the hill every morning to replace him waiting for me at the back corner of his paddock. I coo at him in a mushy baby voice as I approach, and he doesn’t even startle or pin his ears. He just looks at me expectantly because he knows I have the goods.

Apples, carrots, the odd peppermint. Yeah, he knows the drill.

He now allows me to sit on the top rail of the fence beside him, where I can pat his neck and scratch his ears. I sit by him and have one cup of coffee every morning, letting the early morning damp air wrap around me while watching the sun come up over the mountains. We sit in companionable silence as the farm bubbles to life. When I finish my coffee, I give him a kiss on his soft nose, and he stands there happily watching me walk up to the stables. It’s honestly the best way to start my day.

The evenings at the farm are quieter. Everyone heads home. Either to the bunkhouses on site or into the small town of Agassiz nearby. I volunteered to do night check because, well, I have nothing else to do. So, nobody knows it yet, but DD and I are making even more progress in the evenings when no one’s watching. I can now walk right into his paddock and get up close with him. Consistency and cookies were key.

Tonight, my plan is to enjoy a few beers and groom DD to a perfect shine. After months of being untouched, the poor guy is looking worse for wear. Dusty black rather than shiny black. Tangled mane and dreadlocked tail. No wonder he hid at the back corner of the property. He looks like a lot of things and an expensive racehorse is not one of them.

This time he willingly dropped his head into a halter and let me tie him to the fence post. I grabbed a box of brushes from the stables and plan to groom him to a perfect shine. Plastic combs, rubber combs, soft bristled brushes, moisturizing spray, special oil to paint on his hooves. Yes, DD is heading to the spa tonight. I take a swig of my cold beer and then get to work.

I zone out, departing into a happy place where I’ve always been able to lose myself, even as a child. I savor the sounds of his contented sighs and make sure I tell him what a charming boy he is. Standing by his shoulder, I peek at him out of the corner of my eye, watching his topline relax and his eyelids go heavy. I marvel at how far he’s come in such a short amount of time—the ultimate validation that what I’m doing is working.

“Who is the prettiest boy?” I coo at the horse.

DD’s head shoots up abruptly, knocking me out of my trance. I look over my shoulder to see Vaughn standing at the fence, arms resting across the top, looking pretty comfortable. And smug. Yup, he has that obnoxious, smug look on his face.

“Should I be concerned about how much you talk to this horse?”

I glare at him. No, I drink him in. He’s been a hermit in his office and I almost forgot how blindingly beautiful he is. I hate the way my body instantly responds to his presence. The uptick of my heartbeat, the hairs standing on my arms. “No, but you should probably be concerned about ruining your fancy suit leaning on that dirty fence.”

He waves me off. “I can afford a new one.”

Yup. Obnoxious. Comments like that are why I’ve vowed to stay away from trust fund babies. “Charming.” I turn back to DD, starting with a soft bristle brush to dust off all the loose hair I rustled up. “Can I help you with something, Vaughn?”

“I can see you down here from my office window and wanted to come check how this week has gone for you.”

Great. So, he’s been watching me out here every night. It should creep me out, but my chest warms at the thought. Don’t act like an airhead, Billie.

I continue brushing, moving around DD, who isn’t helping me at all by ignoring Vaughn’s presence. If he throws a fit, maybe Mr. Money Bags will feel uncomfortable and leave. Then I wouldn’t have to continue staring so hard at the short black hair in front of me to keep myself from gaping at the handsome face beside me.

Admitting that I’m attracted to Vaughn Harding is annoying. Unsettling. But a fact all the same. A fact I am acutely aware of after barely seeing him all week. It almost seems like he wanted to avoid me after our last conversation. I’ve gazed up at his office now and then, wondering if he was going to bring me a cup of coffee again one of these mornings.

He’d been out of sight, and mostly out of mind. But now my brain isn’t connecting to my lips because it obviously forgot he is insufferable. I realize I’ve been silent for an awkward amount of time and chance a peek up at him.

His cheekbones are still high and sharp, shoulders still broad and powerful, and those eyes are still dark and stormy—and trained on me. Boring into me with such intensity that I inadvertently lick my lips under the pressure of his attention.

His gaze narrows and drops almost instantly to my mouth. I swear the air around us crackles with unspoken tension. Yup, Boss Man and I have some crazy volatile chemistry. Dangerous chemistry.

“Good,” I reply, in a much more strangled voice than I intend, dropping my chin and brushing DD more forcefully. It’s safer to keep my focus on the task at hand. Obviously, my ovaries don’t know what my brain does. Men like Vaughn are bad news.

Knock, knock, ovaries! It’s brain here. Let me in.

“That’s it? Good? Care to elaborate on how my horses are doing?” His voice is like velvet on my skin, like a soft caress in the low early evening light.

I stop brushing abruptly, shaking my head at myself, and sigh dramatically. “Can’t this wait until Monday? I’m off the clock right now,” I say, pointing at my beer. Wanting him to leave now and stop interrupting what has been a splendid night so far.

His eyes follow my finger, and he looks back at me with a wicked glint in his eye. “No, you’re not. You’re doing night check,” he responds while picking up my can of beer and taking a big, long swig.

His gaze stays trained on mine, challenging me. And against my better judgement, I let mine slip and admire the way his Adam’s apple dips with every gulp. His tan throat and dark stubble move against the crisp white collar of his dress shirt, sending a strike of electricity through my core.

I swallow in response. Billie, what are you doing? This guy is a nightmare. Tossing the brush back into the bucket and dusting my hands against each other, a little more forcefully than necessary, I turn to face him.

“Hope you can afford to treat the cold sores you’ll be getting for the rest of your life now too.”

“Nice try,” he replies with a stupid smirk on his face.

“Guess you won’t ever really know. From here on out, you’ll wake up in the morning wondering if today will be the day you look in the mirror and see one marring your pretty face. You’ll just be in a constant state of not knowing, and you’ll forever regret stealing my beer.”

One side of his smug mouth hitches up. “You think my face is pretty?”

I roll my eyes and grab the spray bottle and a rag and resume grooming DD, who is dozing happily with one back hoof cocked and resting on the ground. Somehow oblivious to the surrounding tension.

“Everything has been good this week.” I launch into my explanation of what I’ve been working on and mention specific horses and staff. I tell him how impressed I am with Violet, and his only response is, “Who?” because the asshole is making me describe a bunch of strategies and people that he doesn’t even understand or know, all while standing there looking breathtaking and enjoying his stolen beer.

The upside is that I’m ticked off enough to throw some good elbow grease into polishing DD, and when I finish my monologue, I stand back to admire my handy work. The sunset gleams on his shiny flanks.

He’ll probably go roll in the dirt as soon as I leave, but grooming him has been satisfying and therapeutic, nonetheless.

“Sounds like it’s been good then,” is the very intelligent response Vaughn comes up with while also looking at DD. I’m so glad I gave him a ten-minute run down of the week all for him to repeat back to me that everything was “good.”

Removing DD’s halter, I give him a kiss on his cheek, a good rub behind his ears, and then set him free before turning to climb the fence. I sit on the top railing like I do every morning, except tonight I’m right beside Vaughn. I like the height advantage this position gives me. From here I can be the one to look down on him.

I feel DD popping his lips gently around my pockets, shaking me down for more treats, no doubt, as I take my beer from Vaughn’s hand. Thinking I must look cool stealing it back, I take a long swig before I realize that what’s left is basically just a warm mixture of our backwash and flat beer.

“Blech,” I gag, shaking my head as if to dispel the taste and tossing the can towards my backpack laying discarded on the grass.

I grip the fence and look down at Vaughn, whose eyes twinkle like he’s at some sort of live comedy show. He intrudes on my peaceful evening, drains my beer, and now he’s laughing at me for drinking his warm saliva? Cool.

That hot familiar fire licks up my throat and I feel my head buzz with agitation. My will to play nice flies away into the pink twilight sky. “Has anyone ever told you what a smug dick you are?” is what I get out just before DD loses patience with his treat-thieving attempts and takes a more forceful shove at my waistband, sending me sailing headfirst towards the ground.

Except, I don’t hit the ground. Strong hands break my trajectory. Long fingers splay firmly around my ribcage, and before I know what’s happening, I’m pushed up against a fencepost with one of Vaughn’s knees pressed between my legs to keep me from dropping like a stone.

Pinned.

Looking down at where his hands are resting on my thin shirt, I see his thumbs just crossing the boundary of my soft sports bra, grazing the side of each breast. I see the veins popping in his hands, somehow so masculine and alluring.

In his grip I feel like my shirt could burn into ash, curl up and float away on the evening breeze. Being surprised by my tumble has left my chest rising and falling more heavily than usual, and I’m completely entranced by his hands moving up and down with my ribs as my lungs heave.

His amaretto scent wraps around me like the softest silk. I feel like I’ve been dropped into a glass of him. All honeyed and manly. I drag my eyes away, chin tipping up slowly to meet his face. Bad choice. Very bad choice.

Under the thick dark fringe of his lashes his eyes are hot molten chocolate, utterly focused on my body. He’s staring exactly where I had been, taking in the way his hands possess me, so big that they almost wrap right around my ribcage. His head snaps up to meet my gaze, his expression downright dangerous as he breaks our tense silence.

“No, Billie,” his voice is dangerously low as he angles his head so close to my ear that I can feel his breath fan across my throat, “women usually go out of their way to endear themselves to me. Not piss me off.”

Time to teach this prick a lesson.

His words set me off and without thinking I reach out towards him and hook my index finger into his crisp white dress shirt, right between the buttons. I can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench under my touch as I gently trace the tip of my finger across his hot skin, feeling the firm ridges I knew would be there.

To anyone loitering at the stables, our silhouettes would almost look like he was a vampire going in for a quick taste with the way he towers over me. I send up a silent prayer that no one can see us and close my finger around the fabric that’s brushing against my hand, pulling his torso closer to mine so that I straddle his thigh.

I hear his sharp intake of air and feel a familiar ache just below my hip bones. This is such a bad idea.

I look up, taking in the dark shadows falling across his brow and his almost pained facial expression. We hold each other in this limbo, facing off for a few seconds before I move so close I can feel the scruff on his jaw lightly scratch my cheek. His hands squeeze my ribs, trying to hold me in place.

At the increase in pressure, my nipples harden and goosebumps bloom across my arms unbidden. This is fine. A totally typical reaction to absolutely anyone touching me like this.

Disturbed by the way my body responds to his, I opt to up the stakes, fingering the collar of his shirt with my opposite hand and gently running my teeth along the lobe of his ear. I’m pressed so close to him I can feel more than hear the grunt that breaks loose from his chest.

For a moment I let myself imagine us together under different circumstances, all the delicious noises he would make as he moved above me, pressing into me so hard that our bodies would sink right into the mattress beneath us. Coming completely undone, just for me.

It’s with that image in my mind that I slide my fingers up his neck and through his hair before grabbing a handful firmly. He stands stock still. Frozen.

“Well then, let me be the one to deflower you on this one, Boss Man,” I whisper against his ear. “You are absolutely insufferable.” I bite down onto his earlobe again, a little harder this time, which causes the air to leave his lungs in a loud hiss. “Now get your hands off of me. I’m not one of your playthings,” I finish, essentially dousing us both with a bucket of cold water and firmly pushing him away.

I lick my lips as I watch him jerk his hands off of me, like I burned him. His absence leaves an arctic chill over places that had just been so hot, and I can feel my heart crashing around in my ribcage uncontrollably as we stand there staring at each other.

Shocked eyes bore into my wild ones. He looks stunned, and I can’t help but notice how painfully beautiful he is standing here in the dim light with his hair all mussed. I did that to him. My chest pinches, and that ache snaps me out of my trance.

My god. I took this too far. Way too fucking far.

I think about all the goals I haven’t yet achieved, all the shit men exactly like him have put me through. I remind myself of all the sacrifices I’ve made to get to where I am and feelings of shame wash over me. Why even give him the power to make me feel like this?

The sensation of my embarrassment is so intense, it spills down my backbone like molten lava and hardens into rigid, but brittle, rock, lending strength to my frayed nerves. Strength enough to shove past a completely immobilized Vaughn, our arms brushing against each other one last time, as I scoop up my backpack and sling it over one shoulder.

“Recycle your beer can,” I bite out, nudging it in his direction with the toe of my boot, but not daring to look up.

He still hasn’t said a thing or moved an inch.

I take off into the night, willing my feet to walk gently, my hips to sway confidently, and my shoulders to drop serenely, all to portray a level of confidence that’s not at all a reflection of the conflict raging inside of me.