Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(9)

He turned finally away and focused on wiping Toby down. “Hey.”

“Shannon wanted to know if everything was set for the wedding.”

“Yeah.” He might have f*cked up this morning, but he was still on top of things otherwise. The fancy sidesaddle and matching tack were polished and ready to go. He thought it was really lame to go through all this trouble for a chick to ride about fifty feet to the damn porch for her wedding inside the B&B. But whatever. Not his f*cking wedding.

“Um…okay. Good. I’ll tell her.” She took a couple of steps backward and started to turn toward the doors.

He couldn’t be a dick. Not anymore. Not after last night. “Wait.”

She turned back. “What?”

There were no other words queued up in his head. He knew only that he couldn’t be a dick to her. It hurt too much, and he kept flashing on the look on her face last night. And that was the only thing he could think of to say.

“I’m…sorry about last night. It’s just…you surprised me.”

“Yeah. It’s…whatever. No big. I just wanted to say hi. I’ll see you.” She turned again and walked with purposeful strides toward the doors.

Without thinking about it, he went after her and grabbed her arm. “Adrienne.”

Spinning so quickly she shocked him, she jerked her arm out of his grasp. “What? What? What is wrong with you? What did I do to make you mad? You won’t talk, you’re mean half the time when you do, and I don’t understand it. I thought we were friends.”

It wasn’t hurt on her face now, not like last night. It was sorrow, and it did weird things to his head. He put his hands around her arms again, gently this time. “We are friends.”

The sound she made was almost a sigh, almost a laugh, almost a sob. “Then what’s going on? What happened to you?”

There was something in the tone or in the wording itself of her question that set Badger on the defensive. “Nothing.” He dropped her arms and turned back to Toby.

Now she went after him, reaching out and grabbing his arm, yelling, “No! Talk to me! Quit messing with me!”

Upset by all the sudden drama, Toby reared his head back as far as the leads would allow and stomped his hoof, upsetting the bucket of sudsy water Badger had used to wash him. It made a small mess— negligible, really, considering that there was a hose right there on the floor with which he could rinse away the suds. But Badger was high, and though his surface response was to get level, underneath was a bubbling mess. He had a hair trigger, easily agitated and pushed to his limits. Especially after the first hour or so.

He turned on her. “Goddammit! What do you f*cking want?”

Her eyes got big, but she stood her ground. “I just want you to talk to me. I want to be close again. I miss you.”

The crazy was in charge of his head. He could feel it, and he could lament it, but he couldn’t stop it. He grabbed her arms again—without any kind of gentleness now—and pushed her backwards until she hit the door of the stall behind her. “You want to be close? Fine.”

He kissed her.

He brought his mouth down hard on hers, his hands clenching around her slender arms, just below her shoulders. At first she was stiff and unyielding, her mouth shut tight, but it still made him hard to have her so close. She smelled so good. She tasted better. And she felt—God, so good. They hadn’t kissed in—shit, years. He shouldn’t be kissing her now, especially not like this. He was hurting her. He should stop. But her smell, her taste, her touch.

And then she relaxed. Her body became supple, and, with a small whimper, she opened her mouth.

“Fuck.” He pulled away and let go of her arms, brushing gently at the wrinkles his hands had pressed into her sleeves.

“Badger, no.” Adrienne caught him before he could step away. Looping her arms around his neck, holding the back of his head in her hands, she tried to bring him close again. He could have pushed her off.

He should have. But the crazy was in charge, and shit, she wasn’t mad at the way he’d been treating her. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t mad. Why she was still here. So he didn’t fight the downward pressure of her touch. Instead, he bent down and kissed her again. Their tongues twisted around each other, and they both groaned. He closed her up in his arms, holding her tightly, forgetting everything else—forgetting that this was wrong, that it couldn’t go anywhere, that Show would kill him, that he couldn’t let her know what he had to hide.

It was wrong. It was wrong. He didn’t care.

And then her hands, no longer needing to hold him to her, relaxed and slid slowly down, her fingers combing through his ponytail, dancing over his neck, his shoulders.

His chest.

As if her touch had electrified him—a touch he hadn’t even felt—he jumped away from her, pushing her arms and hands from his body. “God. You need to get out of here.”

She was breathless and bleary-eyed. “What? Wait—what? What did I do? Badge—”

When she reached for him again, coming close again, all he could think of was that she couldn’t touch him. She couldn’t. He backed up but got caught up in Toby’s lead. Adrienne took another step, and he lashed out, pushing her away, pushing her so hard he knocked her off her feet, and she landed hard on her ass.