Bad Boy Brody(53)

That wasn’t my mom calling. I scrambled to my feet. “Brody?”

“Mo-Morgan! Where are you? MORGAN!”

I went to the edge and saw him by the river below us, all the way in the middle of the valley. “Brody!” I yelled, feeling Shiloh coming up behind me. I was close to the edge, too close. I felt her unease and reached back, touching her face. If she jerked it away, the movement could’ve had enough momentum to push me over. She was completely still.

“Brody!”

His head was whipping back and forth. “Morgan!” He lifted himself in his saddle, almost standing as he called out, “Where are you?”

“Look up!”

He did, and then he dropped abruptly back to his saddle’s seat. He gulped. “Wha—what the fuck are you doing up there?”

Good question. I tried for a small smile, but figured he couldn’t see it. I called back down, “I’m coming to you. Don’t leave that spot.”

I heard his wry laugh as I took a step back from the edge. “Yeah. That isn’t a problem.”

Shiloh eased back with me, and once we were far enough away, I swung up to her back again. She turned for the trail that’d take us down to where he was, but it was close to the edge of the mountain. I hated these trails, but I trusted Shiloh. She wouldn’t go somewhere she couldn’t get us out of. Brody, on the other hand, wasn’t prepared for the sight when he lifted his head to see us picking our way down the side of the mountain to him.

“Holy shit,” he said. His eyes were wide. “I’m not religious, but I’m going to start praying. I’m praying to God. Your horse is nuts.”

I was thinking the same. The trail was as wide as her body. There was no leeway there.

Once we set down on level ground with the river, Brody was off his horse and running to me. Shiloh reared back, jumpy from his fast arrival, but I hurried off her and went to meet him. He grabbed me as I splashed my way to his side of the bank and had me up in the air in a second. He folded himself around me completely, burying his head into my shoulder. “I was worried about you.”

I ran a hand over the back of his head, burying my own into the crook of his head and shoulder. “I’m fine. I’m safe.”

He pulled back, concern dilating his eyes. “Matthew crashed one of the movie scenes, he was that worried about you. Said you took off and you couldn’t breathe. Are you okay?” He was feeling all over me. My forehead. My mouth. My chest. He was looking at my back, making sure I was still in one piece. “I don’t get it.” His eyebrows dipped together. “You look fine.” His gaze lingered on the bags under my eyes. “Tired, though.”

I caught his hand, squeezing it. It felt good to be touching him, even if it had only been a few hours since I’d seen him. “I’m fine. I had a panic attack when I was talking to Matthew.”

“Panic attack?” His eyes darkened with anger. His head straightened back. “I didn’t give myself time to think about why you were talking to Kellerman. What the fuck did he want?”

“To talk about the hard drive.”

“Oh.”

I grinned, ruefully. “Yeah. Oh.”

Shiloh was slowly making her way through the river to us. It was a small enough creek that the currents weren’t dangerous. She was moving at a lazy pace, drinking as she did.

I glanced at her as she came onto the bank, smelled my shoulder as if to reassure herself I was fine, and then moved around us. I watched as she and the other mare began grazing together.

“You rode a horse here.”

Brody groaned. “Yeah.” He raked a hand through his hair, letting the ends stick up into a deliciously rebel look. “Don’t know what the fuck I was thinking about. I grabbed the first thing that’d get me to you.” His eyes narrowed, studying his horse. “I think I bonded with that thing.”

He said it as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

I hit his shoulder. “That thing is a mare. Her name is Taffy.”

“Taffy? What the fuck kind of name is that?”

“A good name.” I nodded to the mare. “It’s her name.”

“Hey.” A playful grin tugged at his lips. His arms went back around me. “I should warn you. Cat’s out of the bag. Between Matthew, Finn, and me—everyone’s aware there’s someone named Morgan that we all care about.”

He grimaced.

I ran a soothing hand over his cheek before letting my thumb linger on his lips. “Why are you worried about that?”

A somber look settled over him. “Because things are going to change for you. People know about you now.”

I didn’t say much after that except, “We should go back.”

Brody rode Taffy, and I rode Shiloh next to him.

I was impressed by how he did with her, only cursing a few times when she balked at his orders, but it was his mistake. He wasn’t reading her correctly. When we got closer and the buildings started to take shape through the trees, I thought back to his words.

Were things really going to change for me?

If they were, wouldn’t I have felt a sense of gravity weighing me down? I thought for a minute, searching for the knot I would expect to be twisting in my stomach, but there was nothing. I had a hard time imagining the world actually finding me. They might at the estate. That was different. No one could take that away from me and no one could keep me from coming back to the mountains.