Dark Horse: Bad Boy Cowboy Romance (11 page)

"Looks like you've got a new admirer!" I teased him as we left the banquet hall location.

Lance pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket, read it, and grimaced. "No, thank you," he commented, crumpling the piece of paper up and shoving it back down into the bottom of his pocket.

"Aww, what's the matter?" I kept going, grinning at him. "Do you have a girl back home, maybe? Or is she not your type? Breasts aren't big enough?"

"No girl back home, wherever that might be," Lance answered, still shaking his head. "And she's about twenty years too old to be my type, if I even had one."

Now feeling genuinely curious, I glanced over at my passenger in the truck as we idled at a red light. "So what is your type, then?"

Lance closed his eyes and leaned back for a moment, and I could tell that he was considering the question. "I want someone genuine, someone honest, someone not afraid to speak their mind," he finally said, his eyes still closed. "Someone independent, who likes knowing that they're free, who doesn't rush to tie themselves down."

He tilted his head back down, opening his eyes to look over at me. "I guess I want a strong woman, one with fire and spirit," he finished, shrugging his shoulders. "Does that sound like a type to you?"

I looked back at him, my mouth hanging slightly open. After a beat, I nodded, pulling my lips closed, but I knew that he'd caught my brief little pause.

"I, uh, I guess that's a type, yeah," I managed, nodding. "Although I was kind of expecting you to say that you wanted an Asian woman, or maybe just a blonde with massive jugs."

Lance chuckled at that comment, and I felt some of the heaviness and tension of the moment recede. "Let's find someplace to get lunch," he suggested, changing the topic of conversation. "I'm starving! If you take me to a florist now, I'll probably end up trying to eat the flowers."

I nodded, pulling away as the light turned green and heading into the restaurant area of downtown. But in my head, I was still replaying Lance's last comment about the kind of woman he was looking for.

Was it just my imagination, or was he describing me as he spoke? From the way he'd gazed at me, it kind of seemed to be the case. Oh my god, I thought to myself with a little shock, does this man have a crush on me?

I knew that the idea ought to offend me. At the very least, it should fill me with at least some concern. If Lance did have any sort of feelings towards me, I should shut them down, before they became a problem.

After all, I reminded myself as my ring flashed in the light shining through the windshield as I turned the steering wheel, I was engaged.

But somehow, I didn't mind the idea. If anything, I felt a little bit proud! It was nice to at least know that someone felt that I was worthy of attention, that I was still attractive and hadn't managed to totally let myself go.

And besides, there were worse men who could be attracted to me, I pointed out in my head. Judging from all the times I'd seen him shirtless, Lance could easily land any number of hot, attractive women.

Even more than that, however, the man had such an easygoing personality, I couldn't imagine any woman truly failing to get along with him. Unlike Marsden, whose forceful personality could be grating and tough to handle at times, Lance always seemed calm, willing to let others speak their turn before interjecting with his own comments. He'd never snorted at any suggestion of mine, or told me that an idea sounded thoroughly ridiculous.

I suddenly shook myself. What was I doing? Was I seriously comparing Lance to Marsden as a romantic partner?

"Here, we can stop in at Zia's," I spoke up as I pulled the truck over into an open parking spot, glad for the distraction. "They've got the best deli sandwiches in town. Their roast beef is killer."

"Yeah, that sounds great," Lance quickly replied, jumping almost on top of my words. As soon as I turned off the truck's engine, he hopped quickly out of the cab, as if the very atmosphere inside the truck had grown uncomfortable.

Still, as I climbed out and headed over to the deli behind him, I couldn't help eyeing his body's lines, the strong shape of his broad shoulders and narrow waist. No, he wasn't bad looking at all, I repeated to myself.

And for just a moment, I wished that I'd met this man earlier, before Marsden sank down to one knee at that Fourth of July party and pulled out his ring.

The thought was pure treachery, and I quickly pushed it away. Ridiculous. Focus on the future, Gilly, I ordered myself.

Chapter seventeen

The rest of the afternoon followed in largely the same vein as the morning, although this time we were visiting flower shops instead of wedding venue locations.

"It's so tough," I complained to Lance as we both stared down at a large book filled with pictures of various different flower displays. "I mean, I don't even have a location yet, so how can I know what flowers will look good there?"

The man groaned, dropping the little daisy he'd been picking apart, petal by petal, down on the table amid the little bits of leaf and flower. "Then why are we here?" he asked me. "We looked at locations - decide on one of those, and then come to the florist afterwards."

"Yeah, but none of those felt right!" I was especially grumpy because I knew that Lance was right. I waved my hands in the air, trying to express a sentiment that I didn't know how to put in words.

After a moment, however, he glanced over at me and nodded. "I think I know," he replied. "You think that when you find the right person, the right place to get married, the right things, it will just feel natural. And these locations don't feel natural - you can't just look around and see it all in your imagination."

"That's it exactly," I agreed. "It just doesn't feel automatic, like I think that it should."

Twirling the stem of the mostly picked clean flower in between a couple large fingers, Lance nodded. "Well, we can keep looking on another day," he comforted me. "But for now, we're just wasting time. We can head back home."

I stood up, catching the eye of the head florist, who hurried over in hopes of making a big commission. "Thank you for your time," I said to him politely. "But I think we need to work out a couple other wedding details before we're ready to commit to a flower package."

"Whatever you decide on, miss." The man disguised his dismay well, nodding to us. "And it's always good to see the groom getting involved in the details, as well. You two seem to agree well."

I opened my mouth to correct the man, but Lance reached out and looped an arm around my shoulders. "Let's not keep the man any longer, honey," he commented, smirking a little as he physically turned me away, leading me towards the exit from the shop. "Thank you, sir - I'm sure we'll be back!"

Outside the shop, I swatted at the man's hand. "Oh my god, stop it!" I giggled.

Glancing up at his face, I could see him still smiling as well. "With all these people claiming that we'd be perfect together, I figured that I should give it a try, see how it felt," he replied, giving me one last squeeze with his arm before letting me go.

"And? What did you think?"

He shrugged, pulling a frown. "Eh, you're a little bony for me. And besides, I really go for the blondes with huge tits, as you pointed out before."

Even as I smacked at him some more, I couldn't hold in my peals of laughter.

It wasn't until we'd made it back to my house, and Lance had headed into the kitchen to get started on the night's meal, that I thought back on his words in the flower shop. One thing he'd said in particular stuck with me, words that kept on repeating themselves inside my head.

"It should all feel natural," he had remarked, back in the shop. Those words kept on creeping up, speaking themselves aloud, over and over to me.

Of course, I knew that he'd meant the location of the wedding. I agreed with him there, and he'd managed to pinpoint exactly what didn't feel quite right about the locations we'd examined this morning.

But shouldn't everything feel natural and easy, not just picking the location?

I thought back to when Marsden had proposed to me, when I'd first agreed to marry him. Was that natural? Had that truly been what I wanted, how I saw our relationship playing out in the end?

To be honest, I reluctantly pointed out to myself as I flopped back onto my bed, I never really gave much thought to my future at all. I spent most of my time focused on my present, on getting various things fixed around the farmhouse and my property, on training Merlot and getting him ready for the Derby. Whenever I cast my attention forward into the future, I just felt depressed, and so I instead preferred to just ignore it. Whatever happened, would happen, I told myself whenever I laid awake at night.

For as long as I could remember, this strategy seemed to work, and so I hadn't seen any reason to change it.

Now, however, those words from Lance kept on bouncing around in my head, making me suddenly call my entire past into question. Was my current future, my wedding and future life with Marsden, all feeling natural? Was this truly what I wanted?

I really didn't know, no matter how much I buried my face in my pillow, not caring about smudging my makeup, and groaned.

I flipped over and stared up at the ceiling. "Why am I questioning everything, just because of a few damn words?" I called out aloud, pressing both of my palms against my closed eyelids.

"Did you say something?"

I shot up, my hands flying away from my eyes. Lance leaned against the partly open door to my bedroom, glancing in with his eyebrows slightly raised.

"No! Nothing!" I yelped, crossing my fingers as I buried them in the pillows behind me as I lifted myself up, praying that the man hadn't heard my words distinctly. "I, um, I was just talking to myself. Going over wedding plans." It wasn't completely false, after all.

For a second, Lance just looked at me with his eyebrows still slightly high on his forehead, but then he shrugged, and I felt myself start breathing again. "Well, okay," he said, dismissing the question. "In any case, I've got dinner ready, if you're hungry. It's still a little early, but the steak's been marinating for hours, and it's hot and fresh off the grill."

The mention of freshly grilled steak made my mouth water and my stomach gurgle, broadcasting its desire to the rest of me. "Er, thanks," I said. "I'll head down in just a minute. Thanks, Lance."

"No problem, Gilly," he replied, and I saw him give me a little private smile before he turned away.

Even though he didn't say anything, I guessed from the look of that little smile that he might have heard more of my out-loud complaints than he had let on.

I let myself sink into my pillows and blankets for one more minute before hauling myself up out of the bed to go downstairs and get some dinner. I stepped into my bathroom and examined myself in the mirror, brushing back some of the strands of hair that had slipped loose as I rolled around and felt sorry for myself. My makeup ended up looking a little smeared, but it wasn't utterly terrible.

Finally, unable to delay myself any longer, I left my bedroom and headed downstairs. Before I'd descended more than halfway down the stairs, however, I could smell tantalizing whiffs of something absolutely delicious coming up from the kitchen. I quickened my pace, taking the last few steps two at a time.

"Wow, that smells great!" I exclaimed, stepping into the kitchen. "Is that the smell of the steak?"

Lance glanced up and smiled as I appeared. "And a great little spinach and mint sauce to go on top of it," he added.

The steak called me in - but I could also see the sun setting outside, and I knew that I needed to head out and feed the horses before it grew too dark. I jerked my head towards the back door leading to the barn, and Lance nodded, understanding implicitly. We traded off; he checked on the horses each morning, as I half-slumbered over my first cup of coffee and tried to wake up, and I'd take care of the animals in the evening, while he busied himself with cooking.

It wasn't until I was halfway down the path to the barn when a sudden thought occurred to me.

I split up the chores and workload with Lance, my new lodger. We'd each settled into our roles, each one playing a part in the other's life - and this somehow felt far more natural than any attempt to co-habitate with Marsden.

I immediately knew that this thought would prove toxic if I pursued it any further. Tugging at it would be like pulling at a loose thread that unraveled the whole garment. I had to ignore it.

But even as I shoveled down hay for Shadow and Merlot, it kept on hovering at the back of my mind, refusing to fully go away.

Chapter eighteen

Maybe it was that moment of realization that something wasn't quite perfect with Marsden's and my relationship, but for the next couple of weeks, I threw myself into the wedding planning with single-minded, furious determination.

Previously, I'd been concerned with getting everything perfect. This would hopefully be a once-in-a-lifetime event, after all, never to be repeated! Shouldn't I make sure that I didn't regret a single decision or leave out a single detail that might detract from my perfect wedding day?