Calmly, Carefully, Completely(66)

I dust off my hands and look around. Edward, who I can no longer call Tic Tac since I heard his story, is leading one of the other horses. He snorts at me. “Dude, I think you just got bitch slapped. Again.” He chuckles, so I flip him the bird. Edward looks over my shoulder and whistles low, and I turn around to find Reagan walking toward us. She must have gone and taken a shower because her hair’s still damp and she’s plaited it into two braids that hang over her shoulders. She’s wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans, and some brown leather boots that come up mid-calf. Damn, she’s pretty.

She pats the horse I’m leading as she comes closer. “Is Juliette giving you a hard time?” she asks. She leans close to the horse’s ear and whispers to her. The hair on my arms stands up, and it’s not even my ear she’s whispering into. Juliette shakes her head, and Reagan laughs. Damn, that’s a pretty sound.

She walks by me carrying a bucket. “Where are you going?” I yell to her.

She turns back, smiling over her shoulder. “Gotta go get Romeo for Juliette,” she says. “That’s why she’s being so ornery. Her boyfriend is hanging out with the cows.” She nods toward the pasture. “Want to help me?” she asks.

She has Link with her, and he’s following her almost as closely as Maggie, her dog. I doubt that dog ever leaves her side. Hell, I want to be a puppy and follow her, too. I toss the lead rope of the horse I’m holding to one of the boys from the prison program. He grins and shakes his head. He’s the one who called me * whipped last night. Yep. I suppose I am. And it doesn’t bother me in the least.

I run after Reagan, who laughs as I catch up with her. “You look really pretty today,” I say. I want to kiss her so badly I can taste it.

She blushes. “Thank you,” she says, looking down toward her feet.

“I missed you,” I say.

She grins. “You just saw me an hour ago,” she reminds me. Like I need it. All I can think about is the way she felt in my arms. She fit perfectly against my chest.

“Was your dad mad?” I ask. It matters. It really does. I want her parents to like me, but I’m afraid I’m going about it all wrong. I’ve never met a girl’s parents before. Never had any need to. But with Reagan… Everything is different.

She shrugs. “A little.” She laughs. “We had a talk about how to knee you in the nuts, the fact that men only want one thing, and then he gave me way TMI about birth control.”

I stop walking. Wow. That’s a lot to take in. “You talk with your dad about that stuff?”

She shrugs. “Some of it. He sent me to my mom for the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

Her cheeks get even rosier. “The talk about birth control and all that stuff.”

“Oh,” I say. I sound like an idiot. But she just threw me for a loop. She walks toward a fence and bends to duck between the rails. I follow her, and Link does, too. He’s in his own world, and I think he’s singing a song. But it’s so soft, I can’t tell. “So, you’re…um…thinking about that kind of stuff, huh?”

She bites her lower lip and nods. “Yep.”

“I…ah…don’t know what to say about that.” I take my cap off and scratch the back of my head.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she says with a shrug. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about it.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. My heart trips in my chest like crazy. Shit just got real.

She narrows her eyes at me, but that may be the sun in her eyes. “You can tell me if you don’t have any romantic interest in me, Pete.” She heaves a sigh. “I’ll be all right with it.”