Wild Horses: Cold Cold Winter Read online

  Still, Adam stifled another sigh and tried to raise his spirits, tried to will away the churning in his stomach. “So this is for your blog?”

  “Um...” Her voice pitched lower and while he didn’t look at her, he could all but picture her bracing. “Sort of.”

  He shook his head, looked away from the moose, and rounded the perimeter of the room to where she’d stowed his small kitchenette table. He slipped off his coat and went to work on his boots. “Sort of?”

  “Well...” She hung back by the, er, sculpture, her hands fidgeting in front of her. “It’s for I Gave My Boyfriend a Giant Moose for Christmas.”

  Adam slid his boots beside the chair as he had no idea where she put the mat that used to be near the door. “Is that the name of your new Rolling Stones cover band?”

  “No...” Her head tipped down and she gazed up at him, chewing at her bottom lip. “It’s the name of my new book.”

  Silence passed, a full minute of it. “Your book?”

  “I was kinda sorta offered a publishing deal by which I mean I accepted it and put the signed contract in the mail yesterday.”

  For a moment he felt like his mind had completely left his body as he stared at her, dumbfounded. After a few moments of processing, he let out a huge, relieved breath. Why had she looked so worried? His girlfriend was going to be a freaking author. “Dani, that’s fantastic.”

  A slow smile crept over her face, lighting her whole expression. “It’s going to have some current blog posts with a bunch of new, exclusive content.” She stopped fidgeting and dropped her hands to her sides, beaming up at him as he drew nearer. “I got the offer and a friend who posts on my site all the time has a literary agent, so she took care of the deal, and they gave me a third of the advance for signing, then I get the next third for turning the manuscript in, and—”

  He reached her and his arms wrapped around her, drawing her into him. Adam pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”

  He kissed her cheek next, though she didn’t melt into him like usual.

  “My editor’s really excited about the book. And so’s the publicist...”

  His hand gently tilted her face up so he could give her a congratulatory kiss.

  “...Since they’re sending me around the country for four months to write about my random adventures.”

  Adam froze, his lips hovering over hers.

  Dani’s eyes were cast downward, long dark lashes hiding her gaze from him. She held her breath and didn’t speak.

  He wasn’t sure he could either but at last he forced out a word. “What?”

  “They thought it would be a good draw and I could tease on Twitter. We already basically have ‘Dani-Girl Does the Ranch.’ They thought maybe a chapter set in like a fishing place, and one up north, and—”

  But his brain was stuck back a few sentences. Four months? “When?”

  She glanced up at him. “In the new year. Probably spring—we need to make arrangements with the locations first.”

  Very slowly Adam released her and turned to face the window. There wasn’t really anywhere he could pace with the giant moose taking up the room so he stopped and raked his hands back through his snow-damp hair.

  “But the thing is,” her steps were light on the floor behind him, “you can come too. It’ll be fun. It’ll be—”

  Adam glanced back at her, trying to wrap his head around what she was thinking and failing completely. “You think I can just pick up and leave for four months?”

  “Well—”

  He turned to face her completely. “I work around here, Dani. I put in twelve hour days, six days a week. Gus hasn’t been able to work the farm in years.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Dewey and Carlee are getting married in April—they won’t be around leading up to it then they’re taking off for three weeks to Italy.”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “But you think I can just pick up everything and leave?” He studied her, gaze darting back and forth while he stared in her eyes, trying to decipher what she wasn’t telling him. Dani remained silent but as the minutes ticked by, he started to put the pieces together. “But you didn’t really mean for me to go. It was just a pity gesture.”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “Then what was it?”

  “I just...” She pressed her lips together tight and crossed her arms in front of her, hugging her midsection. “Just because I didn’t think you would go doesn’t mean I don’t want you to go, you know?”

  He took a steadying breath that didn’t seem to help a whole lot.

  “You’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Oh God, you’re disappointed, and that’s worse—”

  “I’m not disappointed.”

  She went silent, which was good as it gave him a few minutes to attempt to find words.

  “I’m happy for you,” he said carefully. “I am.”

  “But...?”

  Adam stared at the moose again and completely lost it—he gestured at the thing wildly. “But you’ve been keeping this to yourself for how long, and you decide to spring it on me with a giant moose in my apartment?”

  “Um, two and a half months, and—”

  He felt the color drain from his face and he was, despite what he said, mostly definitely mad. “Two months, Dani?”

  “I didn’t know if—”

  “If it was going to come to fruition or what the funniest way to tell me would be?”

  She clamped her mouth shut again and he had his answer.

  But she didn’t keep silent for long, her face and eyes darkening with fury. “Just because I’m not hauling things around a farm twelve hours a day doesn’t mean I don’t work too. Writing for the web—and now writing for a book—is my job. And part of that job is telling funny true stories. Always has been. And now part of it is going on a tour and writing about more funny stuff, and since I’m being paid a substantial amount of money to do it, maybe it’s goddamn time that you take it seriously!”

  “Why should I do that when you don’t take us seriously?” he snapped.

  She stared at him, her lips parted as if to speak though nothing came out.

  For a moment he regretted it—regretted anything barked in anger, as their arguments usually got heated and loud pretty quickly, and always led to him apologizing for losing his temper. But a weight lifted from his shoulders this time, speaking words that had been haunting him for too long.

  Because the truth was, he wanted more from her. More than he suspected she’d ever want to give, or even receive in return.

  “You don’t think I take ‘us’ seriously?”

  His heart sped, pulse pounding in his ears, against his vision, until he couldn’t think straight. “You haven’t since day one. Everything we do, you blog about it. Everywhere you go, it becomes another story. Even this couldn’t just be about us—couldn’t be us celebrating—because it had to be the goddamn title of your book. Nothing is personal, nothing is just you and me. Nothing is ever going to be just you and me. And I knew eventually you’d run out of farm adventures and get bored, I just didn’t expect it already.”

  “Jesus Christ, I moved here. For you!”

  “For six months and now you’re leaving.”

  “Just for a few—”

  “For almost as long as you’ve lived here. You’re restless, I get it, but pardon me if I don’t think you’re coming back.”

  Dani shook her head and spun away from him, stomping toward the door. “You’ve got a great way of convincing me to hang around, Adam!” The old wood floors creaked and groaned under her angry steps as she stomped around the moose and thumped down the stairs.

  He held back, staring at the open doorway, listening to her fumble around for her boots and coat she must’ve left downstairs, but he couldn’t bring himself to go to her. A giant moose stood between him and Dani, both figuratively and
literally, and at the moment it seemed far too big to go around. Instead he stood there as the front door below slammed, his anger deflating as she left the building—and him—behind.

  Chapter Three

  Dani rubbed furiously at her eyes. “And then I left.”

  Natasha Whitaker, her best friend in town, handed her a cup of tea and took a seat on the couch next to her. “The giant moose probably wasn’t your best idea.”

  Dani clutched her tea with both hands around the mug and drew it to her lips to blow the steam away. The surface rippled under her breath and she decided to hold off taking a sip as burning her tongue would make the day suck even harder. “I thought it would be funny.”

  “Were you high when you came up with this?”

  “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

  Tash brushed curls of dark brown hair from her eyes and tucked them behind her ear. “And as your friend, I’m telling you that you don’t necessarily need to combine Christmas, telling your boyfriend you’re leaving for four months, and your support of local artists all in the same event.”

  Dani wanted to argue but didn’t, instead glaring at her tea as if it had offended her. “The Santa hat on it was pretty funny, though. Especially with the old timey filter I added in Instagram when I posted it.”

  They fell into silence and Tash drew her legs onto the couch under her, drumming her fingers on the back of the sofa. It was nice to have someone not involved with the farm to talk to, Dani had found—someone her age who was fun to hang out with, even if Tash worked a hell of a lot and wasn’t around much. She hadn’t been apprised ahead of time about what Dani was planning; Tash wouldn’t have talked her out of it, Dani didn’t think, but she’d certainly point out a different approach might’ve been better.

  But Dani had tried for a month now, since she was pretty sure the book thing would work out, to tell him about it all. The words were never there, however—there just never seemed a particularly good time to bring up the going away for a few months thing.

  “Maybe there’s some way he could come,” Tash offered. “Not the full time, but for a few days? Something that could involve him? So he’s not feeling left out?”

  “I don’t think it’s being left out that’s the issue.” Dani took a sip of her chai tea at last and immediately drew in a breath to cool her mouth after swallowing. “I think it’s being left in. I can’t even convince him to get a Twitter account.”

  “You weren’t here when his sister was murdered,” Tash reminded her. “Everyone poked into everything. Not just the police, the newspaper too. People from the city came for the story. All Chelsea’s private stuff was plastered everywhere, if not in the paper at least spreading as rumors around town. Trolls defaced her Facebook memorial page. His family had no privacy.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “Done anything like that, I know. But...you’re kind of his polar opposite in that regard, Dani—” Tash’s cell phone buzzed and she cursed, glared at it, but let it rattle on the coffee table.

  “It’s okay,” Dani said. “I can sulk in silence for a few. Might be work.”

  Tash, workaholic that she was, didn’t argue but grasped the phone and glanced it over. “Just a petty crime thing—kids getting into trouble.”

  Dani raised a brow and said nothing, non-verbally encouraging her friend to elaborate.

  “Okay, so we’ve had a rather sharp uptake in crime—”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “I mean beyond stealing Baby Jesus from all the church nativity scenes.”

  Dani chewed at the inside of her mouth and drank some more tea. “You have no proof that was me and if you bring up my tweets, I’m going to block you on Twitter.”

  “Anyway. My contact at the police department thinks we’ve become a bit of a hub for drug deals in the area. We’re not talking local pot growers—this is possibly organized crime.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Cops are all over that, meanwhile I have been hired privately a few times to look into crimes that are a byproduct of that. Usually theft. A couple local businesses have me and the boss man looking into it.”

  “Do you need to go?”

  “No.” Tash set the phone down again. “It’s just an update. You and your woes are more important at the moment. So. You, Adam, and a moose. Let’s talk about this.”

  Dani drank her tea and stared at the coffee table in front her. Her stomach had been in knots since fleeing Adam’s place but she’d held it together right until Tash opened her front door, then Dani burst into tears.

  Maybe the moose thing was stupid but she’d pitched the joke to her editor and she loved it. And maybe Adam was right—maybe that wasn’t the best way to drop important life-changing news. But that was her. She tweeted while standing in line at the grocery store, blogged about losing her underwear in an alley, vlogged while singing country songs badly for charity. He used to like that about her, or so she thought. He’d confessed that once he found out who she was, he’d been reading her blog obsessively. Was she only that interesting from a distance or was there something else?

  “I guess I stupidly thought it would remind him why he fell madly in love with me in the first place,” she mumbled. She felt Tash’s gaze on her but couldn’t bear to look.

  “You thought he needed a reminder about that? Really?”

  “He’s been...a little off. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was seeing someone else, but there’s not enough time in his day for that.”

  “Adam’s the mate-for-life-rugged-cowboy type,” Tash said. “He’s not a cheater.”

  But he was increasingly withdrawn and her Spidey-sense was tingling. “Maybe.”

  “Definitely. The half of my job that isn’t following up on insurance claims is following up on potential cheaters. These people—usually women—come in and tell me they think their significant other is straying, and every time I know it’s true. They know it’s true. But they pay me a chunk of money anyway to confirm it.”

  “And you know he’s not?”

  Tash leaned back on the dark red couch and lifted her chin, her expression taking on that cool, business-like look. “Has he recently purchased new clothes?”

  It was a production to get him to pick up a new button down for the Christmas party at Gus’s. “No.”

  “New cologne? Shaving more than usual or better grooming habits?”

  “No, he still usually smells like horses.”

  “Does he take showers right before he sees you?” Tash pressed.

  “Well, yeah, because of the aforementioned horse smell thing. I’m often present, though. Wait!” Dani straightened and widened her eyes to the point of exaggeration. “You don’t think he’s having an affair with a horse, is he?”

  Tash’s expression didn’t change—clearly she didn’t see the humor so Dani slumped back down as her friend continued. “The signs of cheating are the very same signs you see when you’re first dating someone: it’s not just being distant, it’s that they go out of their way to be making a good impression on someone.”

  And none of those signs were there. He was his usual self, basically. Just...distracted. “So what if he’s not leaving me for a girl—or horse. What if he’s just...leaving me?”

  Natasha studied her for a moment and Dani hoped she’d take her seriously, not just accuse her of blowing it out of proportion. Every girl had her insecurities and since her relationship with Adam started amid personality clashes and misunderstandings, those insecurities were plenty.

  Never had she been so scared of anything—including when she was running from a stalker who insisted they had a secret love affair—as she was of losing Adam. She ached for him, loving in a way that left her feeling both deliriously happy and cut raw, open. Like an exposed nerve. Being poked. With salt and rubbing alcohol.

  Love sucks.

  “Maybe this is a conversation you should be having with him?” Tash offered.

  Ugh. Logic. Dani finished her
tea and set the empty mug on the teak coffee table. “Because our heart to hearts always go so well. Maybe later. Let’s get pizza and watch Magic Mike again and forget boy problems right now.” She wrapped her arms around her midsection, terribly aware of her stomach.

  She was glad that at least she hadn’t also dropped on him that she was pregnant.

  ****

  Adam sat in Gus’s office across from his employer’s desk, his elbows propped on the arms of the chair and fingers steepled in front of him.

  Gus leaned back, the high-backed chair squeaking with the movement, and regarded him in silence for a moment. “Do you not want to buy the land then?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Adam said. He ran a hand back through his hair, avoiding Gus’s eyes and staring past him instead, out the window beyond the desk. Night was falling, as was more snow, and the forecast called for even more the next few days. A blanket of white covered the back field behind the house, peaceful and undisturbed, and the horses were set for the night.

  “So what are you saying?” Gus asked.

  He didn’t know. Didn’t have a damn clue. For over a year now he’d been talking to Gus about buying some of his land that wasn’t in use to build his own house and have a few of his own horses while continuing to work at Thompson Hills Quarter Horse Farm. The plans sped up some with Dani living in town, as he was more and more certain what he wanted was her: to live with her, grow old with her, argue probably daily with her. Gus had the contract in front of him, ready to sign, and everything was squared away. For Christmas, Adam had been hoping to ask her to live with him, maybe see if she’d want to look at designs for the house and stables. Among her gifts was a box with a handful of brochures from a local architect and Christmas Eve, when they were alone, he’d planned to give them to her. But already he could see their potential future spinning out of control. If he asked her to live with him, her Twitter followers would know before he had a chance to call his mom and tell her; if they got married, she’d tell funny stories about their honeymoon; if they had kids, she’d probably have a webcam in the delivery room. He had no desire to stop her from being herself, but at the same time he knew the things that were small irritations now would eventually become unbearable later.