River's End (River's End Series, #1)(32)

He continued to look at her and she dropped her gaze to her knees, now tucked up to her chest.

“Are you only afraid of heights and snakes?”

“I didn’t know that I was. I’ve never experienced something like this.”

“Why didn’t you tell Joey to stop?”

“I did as soon as I realized where we were.”

“As soon as you realized?” He repeated her words, but his tone conveyed he had no clue what she was talking about.

“Yes. My eyes were closed. When I reopened them, we were here.”

His gaze settled on her face. She turned completely away. She didn’t want to see the smirking, or his anger directed at her. But… suddenly, Jack was laughing. He was laughing out loud at her. She looked up with a frown. Why would he laugh at her? He was shaking his head as he pushed off his elbow and sat up.

“So you were holding onto the horse with your eyes closed?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus! My brother’s such an idiot. He didn’t notice that?”

She shrugged with surprise. He thought Joey was the idiot? She thought for sure he’d say she was the idiot. She dared to peek up at him.

“He should have noticed and stopped. He should have never brought you off the trail and certainly not across here.”

“Oh. He said he’d ridden with lots of novice riders.”

Jack laughed. “There’re novice riders, and than there’s you. You didn’t even know how to touch a horse through a stall door.”

“I didn’t want to look like a jerk. I thought I could do it. But the horse seemed much taller once I was on it, and all I could think of was how easily it could bolt. Then I thought if I closed my eyes, maybe I could make the ride, and then… we were up here. And I all I could picture was one of the horses losing its footing and hurling both of us to our deaths. The trail is skinnier than one I’d ever walk on. How can a horse with four legs stay on it if I can’t with two legs?”

Jack was fully grinning at her and she blinked in surprise. Jack never grinned at anything she said. But now he was, and she couldn’t figure out why. Or why he didn't seem all that mad at her. She felt sure that once Joey told him where she was, Jack would have been furious at her and ordered her down without even getting off his horse.

“Horses are more sure-footed than any human. They won’t fall off the trail. They’ve all been across here dozens of times. But you couldn’t have known that. You should have started off by riding the horse in the fenced arena. Maybe someday, I can show you properly; that is, if this experience doesn’t scare you forever from riding horses.”

“More like, if I make it off here alive.”

He shook his head, still smiling. His smile made his eyes sparkle, and his face appeared almost boyish. Almost fun. She didn’t expect this out of the stern-faced Jack. She liked it. She like seeing him for once not looking at her with total disdain and disgust.

“I’ll get you down.” The confidence in his words was almost reassuring. And she almost felt like she could trust him.

His gaze settled on the valley and he nodded towards it. “Sure is a pretty spot, huh?”

Pretty spot? It might be the last place she ever saw, and Jack thought it was a pretty spot? If she were actually interested in the view, she couldn’t have called it pretty. It was a breathtaking, soul-stirring, coming-to-God kind of beautiful. They were on top of the world, which spread out before them and even the largest trees appeared small from where they sat atop the mountain. The ranch below them had an aerial view usually only made possible from airplanes. The river meandered in a twisting ribbon near spotted squares of farmland, orchards, and cleared housing sites that looked minuscule below them.

“It would be the most beautiful spot I’ve ever seen, if I were looking at it from a flat, scenic, turnout on a highway.”

“Probably why Joey brought you up here.”

“Why would he bring me on this impossible trail?”

He shook his head. “Because we’ve been riding it since we were kids. All of us have, my boys too. He probably didn’t think a thing about it.”

She jerked her head back in reproach. “You don’t let Charlie up here.”

Jack laughed again. “Yeah, I let Charlie up here.”

She shuddered. Were they crazy? She thought Jack was a better, more reliable and vigilant father than that.

Jack pushed his hat back and scratched his hair before sliding the hat off and flipping it next to him. He shook his head and his red hair fell into place. She looked away, wondering why she suddenly found his movements so compelling to watch, so interesting, so… almost sexy.

The thought riled her. Jack was sexy? No. Jack was scary, intimidating, and kind of mean even. But not sexy. He was too stern, too old, too critical of her for him to be sexy.

But then, he had a body of a lean, muscled cowboy. He had hair that caught sun and light like it was on fire around him. He had a smile, though rare, that set her pulse skittering in a weird sensation. And he was the only man she had ever been around with whom she couldn’t get the upper hand. He never got nervous around her. He never wanted to have sex with her. He didn’t notice her as woman, or flirt with her, or let her control him. In fact, he was completely immune to her, which was something she didn’t know what to do with.