“And most importantly, remember Mallory was out of his life while Makena and Lenoxx were separated and it never affected him. You disappear on horseback for an afternoon and Hendrixx comes close to losing his mind. Think on that baby and work it out for yourself.” Combing my hair through her fingers, Lillian gave my cheek a loving peck, released me from her embrace then went back to gathering and measuring ingredients.
Mallory and I never really got along back when she and Makena used to hang out on the Triple H. Makena I liked, she knew how to ride, loved being around the horses, and, most importantly, didn’t see Hendrixx as anything more than a brother figure. Mallory, on the other hand, spent a lot of time laughing with Drixx, getting piggybacks from him, and asking for foot massages. What kind of flirting was that anyway? Even at the age I had been then, I knew about flirting, and Mallory flirted with Hendrixx. I admit that I didn’t see anything other than that, but then they did take off to his room to watch TV, or so they said.
Somehow, I knew Lillian was giving me a message, but with everything that had happened out in the valley, then in the yard and after in the stables, I was far too frazzled to decipher it out of her bombshell comments.
It was somewhere in there.
Where and what I still had to work out.
HENDRIXX
“Drixx, can you believe what Kelly is wearing? She looks like a first-class git,” Mallory laughed from her seat on my couch. The Voice was on, and god help me, I wanted to put my foot through the TV screen so I didn’t have to listen to not only the contestants singing, but Mallory also. The woman butchered every song being performed and if I had to listen to one more comment about the judge’s fashion faux pas, just once more, Mallory was going to find herself headfirst in a feed trough.
“Hottie, are you listening to me?”
Fisting the curtain in my hand, I silently counted to ten.
“Does it look like I am fucking listening to you, Rogers?” I gritted out, not taking my eyes off the cottage across from my place. Blake had yet to turn on any lights, the small dwelling was pitch black with no sign of movement going on inside.
What the fuck was she doing? She went up to the main house over an hour ago, she loved spending time with my mum, but Blake was always at her place at this time of night. She got up just as early as I did every morning, not one to sleep in, Blake made sure she got a decent night’s sleep before she began her workday.
“No, it looks like you are a peeping Tom waiting to catch the poor unsuspecting lady take her clothes off,” Mallory answered, and if I were to turn around, I was positive I would see a ridiculous smirk on her face. Mallory had one main goal in life, other than to marry Tim, and that was to piss me off. Since the first day we’d met, our friendship was one of oil and water, and neither of us would have it any other way.
There had been a big expectation that we got together like Noxx and Mack, but both Mal and I knew from the very start that not a single spark existed between us. Yeah, she was beautiful, and yeah, she had a banging bod, but she didn’t do anything for me other than make me laugh and annoy me.
Like she was now.
“Why the fuck isn’t she home yet? She has a full day of work tomorrow, finishing breaking in the new horse.” Blake was our main horse-breaker, her dad taught her, and for the last three years, I gave her the responsibility of being in charge of the stables under Fenixx.
Nixx was concentrating more on the breeding side of the farm, and now that he had taken on the breeding program over at Waterford with Makena, Blake’s workload had tripled. My cowgirl wasn’t one to run from her job or ask for favours, she simply took whatever was thrown at her, no complaints.
“If she doesn’t get her required amount of sleep, she’ll lose focus. She needs her wits about her around a half-wild horse,” I muttered, suddenly worrying what might happen if her lack of sleep was to make her complacent at the wrong time.
The volume on the TV turned down to a dull roar followed by a sigh from Mallory.
“Okay Hott, let me ask you some questions, and you have to answer them and just them.” Coming up to me, Mallory joined me at the window, her hand lifting the other side of the curtain to peer out.
Great, another Mallory Rogers inquisition.
“Fine, shoot,” I grumbled, resigned to the fact that it was better just to do as I was told, rather than fight her, especially if I wanted to leave any time soon.
“What is Blake’s favourite colour?”
“Green.”
“TV show?”
“She doesn’t watch much TV, but when she does, she likes reruns of older shows; MacGyver, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and Seinfeld.”
“Food?”
“Donuts when she is upset or unsettled, but only ones she makes herself, she can eat pizza five days a week for tea if she let herself, and she loves any dessert that contains lemon.”
“When she is sad what—”
“She has this thing she does I am not even sure Blake knows she does it, but she gets this far away look in her eyes, and she worries her bottom lip with her teeth and plays with her hair, you know twirls it around her finger over and over.”
“But when she is happy? Fuck, her smile lights up her face, her hazel eyes shine, and her little nose gets these cute and shit, little wrinkles
