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He laid out a blanket while Paige followed suit with Ares. She wasn’t the strongest rider, but she picked up enough after using a horse to get to work for the better part of a year during her residency in Southeast Asia. One thing she’d learned the hard way was not to tie the animals too close together or they’d get feisty.

“You’re good with them,” he remarked as he dug in his backpack, pulling out bags and boxes and laying them on the blanket.

“Thanks. I’ve had some experience.”

“It shows on the trail, too. That wasn’t one for beginners.”

“No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was the toughest trail I’ve ridden. How’d you know I wasn’t a beginner?”

“I watched you with them before we left. For a girl who doesn’t like farm life, you ride like a cowgirl. You’re damn good, Paige.”

Paige’s cheeks flushed with heat. They were like a barometer for how much he affected her, and right now, they were on fire.

“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself. How long have you had Ares and Justice?”

Owen looked at them both, a paternal glow to his smile.

“Only a few months. I found them in piss poor shape at a chop shop and used a pretty hefty bit of my retirement severance on them. They’re part of the reason farming was more or less ordained for me. I needed land, for them and for me, and like working with my hands. Plus, I wanted to do something where I didn’t have to be away from them, where they could be a part of my life, not just a rescue project I shoved to the background while I did my own thing.”

Paige was stunned silent for a moment. Her body flushed the heat from her cheeks throughout her limbs, down into her belly and lower.

Shit.He was more than just a pretty face and body, then.

“That’s amazing. You’re their hero.”

He looked back at her, his cheeks pinking up a little as well.

“It’s working out so far. They’re pretty good for me, too. Help keep me grounded and not give it all up.”

Paige furrowed her brow, reached for his hand before she even realized she did it.

“You don’t mean that.”

It came out as more of a command.

He shook his head.

“No, not like that, sorry.”

Paige exhaled, but the hand sitting atop his trembled.

“At one point after this,” he continued, pointing to his shoulder with the hand not touching Paige’s, “I thought about it. But that was a long time ago, and the civilian world, here specifically, has made me realize that’ll never be an option. I meant more that I would disappear, head off into the great wide open and get lost for a while.”

Paige glanced at her hand on his, delighted he hadn’t moved his yet, that he had actually wrapped his thumb around the top of hers.

She belonged there, holding his hand.

“Now you’re speaking my language,” she said, laughing lightly. “Seriously, though, I can’t imagine what you must have been through to ever feel that way.”

He sighed and looked back at the horses as if they might overhear what he was about to tell her.

“It was dark, Paige, I won’t lie to you. In one shitty moment, I lost everything I ever had going for me, or at least that’s what I thought at the time,” he added when he saw her mouth open, ready to refute him.

“You have so much here,” she said, surprised to realize she’d included herself in that support, even if he didn’t know that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him yet. There was too much on the line and too much she was still unsure of.

“I do,” he replied, using his thumb to squeeze hers.

Well, there was another plan of hers shot to hell. Apparently, she was as transparent as Saran Wrap.