Dillon nodded, game. “You’ve got a deal,” he told her.
And he kept his word. When they reached the stable, he dismounted first and was right there beside her horse as Hailey prepared to get off Delilah.
Swinging her leg over the mare’s flanks, Hailey dismounted the horse in a single fluid motion.
With her feet firmly on the ground, she let go of the breath she was holding.
“See, my legs are perfectly steady,” she told Dillon, turning toward him. However, as she began to take a step, she suddenly felt herself all but sink to the ground.
Or she would have if a pair of very strong arms hadn’t instantly closed around her and managed to keep her upright.
“Maybe not so perfectly,” Dillon judged, his breath ruffling her hair and grazing her cheek as he spoke. “Your legs seem to be a little wobbly,” he observed.
Hailey could feel her heart racing again, but definitely in a good way, she thought, grinning up at the man holding her up.
“I guess I stand corrected,” she admitted. “My legs don’t exactly feel weak so much as they feel...bowlegged,” she finally said, describing what she felt to the best of her ability.
“That’s because you had them wrapped around the flanks of a horse for a lot longer than you were probably accustomed to.” He realized that he could go on holding her like this indefinitely as he smiled down into her face. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” he added.
“I’m not ashamed,” Hailey protested, then qualified her initial response. “Well, maybe I am a little embarrassed.”
His smile widened. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,” he promised.
Then, because he was still holding her far too close than he reasoned was safe for either one of them, Dillon told himself he needed to release her.
And he had every intention of doing just that.
But for some reason, his arms remained exactly where they were. The only thing that did move was his head. He inclined it, causing his lips to be just close enough to Hailey’s so that he could do exactly what he had promised himself he wasn’t going to do today—or at all in the foreseeable future.
He kissed Hailey.
Dillon told himself that he only meant to brush his lips against hers. But he quickly learned that the best-laid plans often didn’t go the way they were meant to. Because once his lips made contact with hers, he really had no choice but to deepen the kiss.
Deepen it to the point that he felt himself getting lost in it.
Getting lost in her.
It took everything Dillon had not to allow himself to sink so far into this kiss that there would be no coming back. No course to take but the inevitable one.
He wasn’t that kind of a man, Dillon told himself. He never had been. That meant that he didn’t believe in just availing himself of carelessly going the “love ’em and leave ’em” route. He was far too decent a man to take what in his heart he knew could so easily be his. Especially since he intended to ultimately walk away from Hailey. Things being the way they were, he had no choice but to do that.
So, with effort, Dillon forced himself to draw back. To take a breath and tell himself that what he was doing was for the best.
“So,” he finally said when he was able to speak coherently without running the risk of swallowing his own tongue. “Want to test those legs again?” he suggested.
What had just happened here, Hailey couldn’t help wondering. One second she was certain that he was going to take her right here in the horse’s stall—was she crazy or was there something incredibly sexy about that?—the next he was making noises as if he’d turned into a prim Sunday school teacher.
Had she done something wrong? Was there something in her body language that had put him off at the last moment, or was there some other reason he had backed off the way he had?
She felt so confused that her head began to ache.
Don’t overthink it, just go with it and play it cool. She’d figure all this out eventually.
So Hailey pretended to look down at her legs, as if she was passing judgment on their condition. And then she proceeded to take a guarded step forward.
And then another, a little less hesitant this time. The third step was a normal one.
“Well, whatever was wrong with them before seems to have cleared up,” she informed him. Her smile was warm as she looked at him. “Thanks for catching me before I fell on my face.”
“My pleasure,” he told her. And then Dillon roused himself. Time for things to get back to normal, he silently insisted. “Once I get the saddles off these horses and rub them down, I’ll drive you home.”
Hailey was determined to make the best of the time they had left on this date and not ask any questions. “Okay, as long as you let me help.” When he didn’t reply, she added, “I take it that unsaddling the horses and giving them a rub down afterward is all part of riding them.”
“Well yes, it is, but I can’t ask you to do that.” He couldn’t picture her doing anything other than standing there, looking beautiful.
“You’re not asking me,” she pointed out with a smile that went straight to his gut, even though he was trying his best to block it. “I’m volunteering to do my part,” she pointed out. “Now do you want to stand here arguing about it—an argument that you’re not going to win, by the way,” she pointed out, “while the horses stand around, getting even more overheated? Or do you want to accept my offer to help and get to it? The faster you
