Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(25)

She hugged me.

“I haven’t kissed a girl since I was seventeen.” I closed my eyes when I said it. I was ashamed that this somehow made me less of a twenty-five-year-old man.

What kind of woman would want a man so tortured and na?ve?

Aurora rested her chin on my chest, looking up at me with bright blue eyes. “Good.” She smiled. “I like that no other girl will have memories of kissing you, Rhys White.”

My heart soared and the taut way I carried tension in my bones eased.

I looked over her truck at the crowded town around us. “What do you say we get out of here?” I asked her.

She unwound her arms and stood up on her tiptoes, kissing me softly on the lips.

“Let me take you away.”

Her smile could stop a thousand wars and just as well start a few, too.

“Okay.” I took her hand and helped her behind the wheel of her pickup.

I rounded the hood, tapping on it twice just to watch her smile and folded into the passenger seat.

We drove through town, her singing along with the radio and me listening.

“What does your file say?” I asked, full well knowing she didn’t have one but hoping she’d tell me all her secrets anyway.

She looked over at me, smiling as she pulled out onto the highway. “Are you sure you want to know?”

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

She accelerated onto the open road. “There’s nothing much to tell, really.” She sighed. “My momma died when I was a teenager.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, wishing suddenly that I’d driven so she didn’t have to.

Her features wore sadness gracefully. “It was cancer.”

It killed me to know she’d seen loss, but I understood why she had become who she was.

“I have an older brother, Owen.” She seemed fond of him by the tone of her voice. “He was a rodeo king, the best of the best, and London, my sister, was an Olympian.” Something about the way she listed their accomplishments seemed sad.

“And I’m, well, I’m just me.” She shrugged.

I reached an arm over, brushing some of the hair from her shoulder. “What do you mean you’re just you?” I asked.

“I have no overwhelming accomplishments.” She began to chew on her bottom lip. “I’m just a girl.”

She really had no idea how special she was.

“You have a big heart, Aurora,” I told her.

Scoffing, she rolled her eyes.

“That’s what people keep telling me.” She laughed, but it didn’t reach the rest of her face. “Do you know what people actually mean when they say I have a big heart?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“They mean it in the way you tell a child their drawing is good when in reality, it’s not.” She shook her head. “It’s not a good thing when someone tells me I have a big heart.”

How could she possibly think that?

“It means they think I’m weak,” she whispered.

“Pull over.” My voice came out with more growl and bite than I wanted it to.

“Wh-y-y?” she stammered.

I didn’t answer.

The pickup rolled off the pavement and onto the shoulder.

“Put it in park,” I demanded, and she obliged. “Now come here.”

She paused, just watching me from across the cab. Like she was unsure if it was somehow a trick.

Reaching over, I unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her across the bench seat onto my lap.

“Look at me.” I cupped either side of her face.

Her blue eyes conceded, finding their way to me.

“I watch you accomplish more with your heart in a day than most people accomplish in years.” I wiped my thumb under her eyes. “You’re not afraid of anything, Aurora.” I shook my head. “Not even when you should be. Not even with me.”

Her bottom lip started to tremble.

“It takes a brave person to have a big heart.” I smiled, a feeling still as foreign to me as the places I never traveled to. “If anyone ever makes you feel weak or ashamed of that heart of yours, I’ll bury them.”

She stared at me, eyes wide and I laughed. “I’m kidding.”

Her body relaxed and she slapped my chest. “That’s not funny,” she scolded.

“I wouldn’t kill them, but I would see to it they found a better way of thinking,” I promised her.

She leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips. “Thank you.”

I nodded, kissing her back.

“Would you read to me?” she asked.

My eyebrows pulled together. “Here?”

She nodded.

Climbing off my lap, she dug around in her purse on the floor before sitting back up with a book in her hands.

“Is that…?” She never ceased to surprise me.

“The Black Stallion,” she finished for me. “You were reading it that night in the barn when I saw you.”

I’d been so afraid of her light that night, I could barely touch her long enough to pull her out of that water.

“When you ran away…” I winced. I had run away from her so many times, and she’d still kept chasing me. “…I picked it up.”