Seventeen-year-old Chloe Matthews is done with guys, done with her ex, and done with the cowboys of the Grand Teton Mountains. She refuses to get hurt again.
All that matters now are the horses. Every horse Chloe helps is another piece of herself pu...
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"You can't do this to me anymore, Billy." I tightened my grip on the broom. "Leave. Me. Alone."
The softness on his face darkened in an instant. "Because of him?"
"Who?" My throat tried to close on the word.
His eyes narrowed. "I should've bashed his damn head in for touching you."
My face went numb. How long had Billy been watching me, leaving sunflowers, moving coffee bags? Just as I knew, he wasn't there to help me. He was there to confuse me and take what he wanted, as usual. He paced back and forth in the doorway of the barn. My only exit. "I'll take care of him before we leave."
In that moment I would've given anything to be trapped alone in a barn with Jack, where there was no manipulation, no warped sense of the truth, no demands for me to be anyone other than who I was. Why hadn't I noticed that about Jack before?
"That guy?" I threw my hand toward the other barn. "He's just an arrogant cowboy. I don't care about him."
"Liar!" Billy closed the distance between us and grabbed my arm. He moved so fast the broom fell out of my hand and clattered to the ground. "But I'll make you forget him."
I jerked out of his grip, backpedaled deeper into the barn. "Don't touch me."
"Damn it, Chloe. I love you."
"This is not love."
"You love me." He gripped my shoulders and pushed my back against the rough wooden wall. "You love me. You're the only one who ever did."
My skin crawled at his touch. Shudders took over my body, but I needed to stay grounded. It wasn't my fault he'd had absentee parents who traveled all the time, or that he'd been shuffled from one nanny to another. I'd once been all too happy to fill that void for him, but I couldn't save him. He had to do that himself.
"I would've loved you forever, but you blew it."
"See? That kind of love doesn't just disappear." His voice was getting higher, desperate.
"It does when somebody hurts you, cheats on you, cuts you."
"I don't know what to do." He let go of my shoulders and dropped his head in his hands. "I don't know how to do this right."
"Leave." I started to inch around him. "If you really love me, leave."
"You're everything to me." He reached out and cupped my chin in his hand. "I can't live without you."
I twisted my face out of his grasp. "Yes, you can. My home is here. I'm not leaving." I felt stronger again, confident. He was weakening.
He glanced around the barn. "You were always too soft on the horses. They always came before me."
