Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(53)

So on Friday she skipped her morning classes, called in sick to work, and headed down to the barn at six o’clock in the morning, determined to sit on the goddamned bench across from the tack room and wait until Cain showed his face. Which, unfortunately for her, didn’t happen until almost nine.

When the tack room door finally opened, her eyes widened in pleasure as Cain stepped out into the barn in a pair of jeans and nothing else, rubbing a hand through his black stubbly hair, his eyes still half closed. He stumbled to the open barn doors and faced the sunshine, stretching his arms over his head and giving Ginger an excellent opportunity to check out his bare torso.

A soft mewling sound escaped her throat, and Cain whirled around, opening one eye wide, then the other, surprised to see her.

She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Are you avoidin’ me?”

“Maybe,” he said with a sweet, sleepy smile, his voice scratchy like it had always been in high school after a night of hard drinking.

“Out partyin’ last night?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Wasn’t much of a party, princess.”

“Distillery?”

He took a deep breath and sighed, cocking his head to the side. “What do you know about the distillery? Nice girl like you shouldn’t hang out down there.”

“Maybe I’m not as nice as you think,” she said, feeling sassy. “Besides, I’m eighteen, Cain. Everyone in Apple Valley has hung out at the distillery at some point or other.”

He shook his head, grinning at her. “As long as you ain’t a regular.”

“I ain’t a regular,” she conceded, grinning back.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Shift got canceled,” she lied.

He took a step closer to her, and she could smell the stale booze and cigarette smoke on his skin. “What you want, Miss Virginia Laire McHuid?”

She wrinkled her nose. “First? I need you to take a shower, Mr. Cain Holden Wolfram.”

His smile just about set her panties on fire. “Yes, ma’am. And then?”

“Why, I need a friend to go ridin’ with me,” she said, putting on a thick Old South accent.

“And I ’spose you’re thinkin’ that friend should be me.”

“Why not?” She shrugged playfully. “You shower. I’ll saddle up Heath and Thunder. Deal?”

“I can’t turn down a proper Southern lady wantin’ to go for a ride,” he said, turning back toward the tack room and giving her a glorious view of his denim-clad ass in retreat. “Gimme ten minutes.”

“I’ll give you nine,” she said, marching toward the stalls with a lift in her step.

***

An hour later, they stopped by the Glenn River, eight miles downriver from her house and two from the distillery where Cain had partied last night.

“We should water them,” he said, reining in Thunder and dismounting with the ease of a lifelong horseman.

She reined in Heath, who nickered in protest, and grinned down at Cain who reached up for her. His hands lingered for an extra moment on her hips as she slid down the front of his body. Leaning her head back, she stared up at him, daring him to pull her closer, to kiss her, to admit that this whole friends thing was bullshit on fire. But he clenched his jaw, cleared his throat, and dropped his hands.

“Thanks,” she murmured, her voice husky in her ears as he stared down at her, his eyes flinty and dark.

Taking Heath’s reins with a grunt, he turned away from her, leading the horses to the river’s edge and leaving her to follow. She leaned down to pick up a flat stone and skipped it across the slow-moving water.

“Not bad,” said Cain.

“You were always the best.”

“Nah,” he said. “Woodman was better.”

“Nope,” she countered, picking up another stone. “Woodman was good, but you were better. Remember that Fourth of July when you skipped eleven times? Eleven times. It was a record.”

Satisfied that the horses were calm and drinking their fill, Cain leaned down and grabbed a rock of his own, skipping it over the dark water.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . .

“Wow!” she said, clapping lightly. “You’ve still got the touch!”

He turned to her, grinning. “You always get excited about the littlest things. What’s it like gettin’ a kick out of everythin’, Gin?”

“What’s it like gettin’ a kick out of nothin’, Cain?” she asked, her voice full of sass.

“I’m gettin’ a kick out of you right now, princess.”

A charge zapped between them as the words left his mouth, and her breath hitched and held for just a moment, but she looked down and picked up another rock. She was enjoying today too much to go back to Awkwardland.

She skipped her rock, which sank after three measly hops.

“Remember when you saved my American Girl doll from certain doom in this river?” she asked him.

He screwed up his face. “Wasn’t me. Must have been Woodman.”

“It was you!” she insisted. “Not Woodman!”

“Savin’ a dolly? Please. That has Woodman written all over it. I couldn’t have cared less if it drowned.”