Page 15 of Break the Barrier

I lift a brow. “None?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Darts is just a fun thing for me to do to unwind. I don’t take it too seriously, and I sure as hell am not going to dart league looking for a hookup.”

I bite my lip and ask, “Is that all you ever do? Hookup? You don’t date anyone?”

“Aside from you?” he quips back, and I feel heat rise into my cheeks. He grins and says, “No. I don’t date. I haven’t dated in a long, long time.”

“What about…” I trail off, wondering if it was even my place to ask, but he finishes my question for me.

“Lue’s mom?” He shakes his head. “Nah, we didn’t date. We got together once or twice, right after high school was over. Then Lue showed up on my doorstep.”

“I’m so sorry. That must have been scary.”

His thoughts seem to trail off, but he looks at me and smiles. “Best thing that ever happened to me.”

I grin back at him. “She’s great. Really.”

“Thank you.”

Our food arrives, and I see he’s ordered us a meal that feeds two, the whole thing feeling more and more date-like.

I settle in to eat and decide that I can pretend this is normal for me. I can pretend that we do this all the time and try to enjoy myself. “So, how was your day?”

6

logan

It’s beentwo weeks since our meeting with the lawyer, and everything is going relatively smoothly. Thea was nervous about it all, rightly so, but I’d reassured her that everything was going to be fine.

As far as her ex went, I half wanted him to show up and try to make a scene. I’ll be glad to take care of that problem once and for all if he did.

From what it sounds like, he preyed on her during a vulnerable time. Which was all the proof I needed to know he was a real-life piece of shit.

“Hey, when are you gonna get that bay ready for the show?”

I sigh and hang up the halter outside of said bay’s door. I didn’t have a name for him just yet, so we just call him Bay because that is his coloring. It wasn’t really original.

“I don’t know.” I glance up at CT, who’s got a cocky grin on his face. “When are you going to actually compete instead of lollygagging around?”

He screws up his face. “‘Lollygagging?’”

“What? Like you haven’t been setting yourself on simmer since you started showing again.”

He knew it was true.

When Dani and CT were broken up, CT threw himself into the cattle ranching side of the business, not the showing he did back when his mom was around, before she tragically passed away from cancer nearly seven years ago.

When my cousin, Dani, needed him again to help get her horse ready for her own showing, he’d stepped back into the arena and showed again.

But not at the same caliber he used to, and we all knew it, too.

“I’m showing this year, dipshit.”

“Yeah, but are you going for it, or are you just passing time while Dani actually competes?”

He had returned mostly just so he could be close with her again, and while she was taking it seriously, putting her all into it, he was merely existing around the sport.

“Things are good,” CT said, rubbing a rag over a rein. He was meticulous about keeping his equipment clean, and in between clients and other work, he could be found right here, cleaning tack. “I’m feeling good about this season.”