Jack motioned me down with his chubby finger and whispered, “Cam doesn’t know how to saddle a horse.”
I glanced over at the boys. They were talking about the party, but Jase was watching us. Our gazes collided, and like he’d been doing ever since I started at Shepherd, he broke eye contact with a distressing level of quickness.
A pang of frustration lit up my chest as I returned my attention to Jack. “Want to know a secret?”
“Yeah!” His smile grew big and broad.
“I don’t know how to saddle a horse either. And I’ve never even ridden one before.”
His eyes grew as wide as the moon. “Jase!” he bellowed, spinning toward his brother. “She’s never ridden a horse before!”
Well, there went my secret.
Jase glanced at me, and I shrugged. “It’s true. They scare the crap out of me.”
“They shouldn’t. They’re pretty chill animals. You’d probably like it.”
“You should show her!” Jack rushed up to Jase, practically latching himself onto his pants legs. “You could teach her like you teached me!”
My heart lurched in my chest, partially at the proposition of Jase teaching me anything and due to my fear of those dinosaurs. Some people feared snakes or spiders. Or ghosts or zombies. I feared horses. Seemed like a legit fear considering a horse could stomp you to death.
“It’s ‘taught’ not ‘teached,’ and I’m sure Tess has got better things to do than ride around on a horse.”
Tess. I sucked in a breath. It was his nickname for me—the only person who ever called me that, but I didn’t mind it. Not at all. While Jack demanded to know why I had told him my name was Teresa and Jase explained that Tess was a nickname, I was sucked back into the memory of the last time he’d called me that.
“You have no idea what you make me want,” he said, his lips brushing my cheek, sending shivers down my spine. “You have no fucking clue, Tess.”
“Mind if I use the john before we get out of here? I’ve got to get back,” Cam said. “I promised Avery dinner before the party.”
“I’ll show you,” announced Jack, grabbing Cam’s hand.
Jase arched a dark brow. “I’m sure he knows where the bathroom is.”
“It’s okay.” Cam waved him off. “Come on, little bud, lead the way.”
The two of them headed off toward the farmhouse, and we were officially alone. A hummingbird took flight in my chest, bouncing around like it was going to peck its way out of me as a warm breeze picked up, stirring the hairs that had escaped my ponytail.
Jase watched Cam and Jack jog over the patchy green grass like a man watching the last life preserver being taken as the Titanic started to sink. Well, that was sort of offensive, as if being alone with me was equivalent to drowning while being nom nom’d on by cookie cutter sharks.
I folded my arms across my chest, pursing my lips. Irritation pricked at my skin, but his obvious discomfort smarted like a bitch. It hadn’t always been like this. And it definitely had been better between us, at least up until the night he’d kissed me.
“How’s the leg?”
The fact that he’d spoken startled me, and I stuttered, “Uh, it’s not too bad. Barely hurts anymore.”
“Cam told me about it when it happened. Sorry to hear that. Seriously.” He paused, squinting as the line of his jaw tightened. “When can you get back to dancing?”
I shifted my weight. “I don’t know. I hope soon, as long as my doctor clears me. So fingers crossed.”
Jase’s brows knitted. “Fingers are crossed for you. Still, it sucks. I know how much dancing means to you.”
All I could do was nod, affected more than I should’ve been by the genuine sympathy in his voice.
His gray eyes finally made their way back to mine, and I sucked in a breath. His eyes . . . they never failed to stun me into stupidity or make me want to do crazy-insane things. Right now his eyes were a deep gray, like thunderclouds.
Jase wasn’t happy.
Thrusting a hand through his damp hair, he exhaled deeply. A muscle in his jaw began to tick. The irritation inside me turned into something messy, causing the burn in the back of my throat to move up to my eyes. I had to keep telling myself that he didn’t know—that there was no way he could’ve known and that the way I was feeling, the hurt and the brutal wound of rejection, wasn’t his fault. I was just Cam’s little sister; the reason why Cam had gotten into so much trouble almost four years ago and why Jase had started making the trip to our home every weekend. I was just a stolen kiss. That was all.
I started to turn, to go wait in the truck for Cam before I did something embarrassing, like crying all over myself. My emotions had been all over the place since I injured my leg, and seeing Jase wasn’t helping.
“Tess. Wait.” Jase crossed the distance between us in one step with his long legs. Stopping close enough that his worn sneakers almost brushed my toes, he reached out toward me, his hand lingering by my cheek. He didn’t touch me, but the heat from his hand branded my skin. “We need to talk.”
Two
The piece of hair that Jase had reached for blew across my cheek untouched as those words hung between us. My stomach dipped like it did those seconds before I stepped out onto the stage. Fear had always formed an icy ball in the center of my chest when I stopped before the judges and poised, waiting for the music to begin. No matter how many competitions I had entered or how many recitals I performed in, there had always been a second when I wanted nothing more than to run off the stage.
But I hadn’t run away all those times and it was the same with Jase. I wasn’t going to run from this conversation. Long ago, I had been a coward. Too scared to tell the truth about what Jeremy—the ex-boyfriend from hell—had been doing. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t a coward anymore.
I took a deep breath. “You’re right. We do need to talk.”
Jase lowered his hand as he glanced over his shoulder, toward the house. Without saying a word, he placed a hand between my shoulder blades. Unprepared for the contact, I jumped and then flushed.
“Walk with me?”
“Sure.” The hummingbird was back with a vengeance, pecking a hole through my chest.
We didn’t end up walking that far as we were still in plain view of the house. With all this land, I figured there were places that offered more privacy, but he steered me to the nearby split-rail fence surrounding the pasture opposite the field where the horses grazed.
“Sit?” he asked, and before I could say standing was fine, his large hands settled around my hips. I gasped as he lifted me up like I weighed no more than his little brother and sat me on the top rail. “This has to be better for your knee.”
“My knee—”
“You shouldn’t be standing around.” He folded his arms.
I gripped the rough wood, only relenting because the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my knee. He didn’t say anything as he stared at me and I wanted to sit there mute, forcing him to broach the subject.
My silence lasted all of five seconds before I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “It’s stupid.”
“What?” He frowned.
“The name of the town.”
He knocked the longer strands of brown hair out of his face. “You’re mad over the name of the town?”
“Is Spring Mills even a town? You kind of live in Spring Mills, right?” At Jase’s confused stare, I shrugged. “I mean, isn’t it really just Hedgesville or Falling Waters? Just because you build a super Walmart, that doesn’t make it a town.”
Jase stared at me a moment longer and then he laughed deeply—the sound rich and yummy. God help me, but I loved it when he laughed like that. No matter how irritated I was with him or how badly I wanted to karate kick him between the legs, when he laughed, it was like the sun was shining in my eyes.