Page 15 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

“But it’s dark out,” I protested. And cold, being mid-September in the mountains .

Her head tilted. “Are you scared of the dark, Steven? Don’t worry. I’ll bring a flashlight.”

There was a gleam of challenge in her meadow-green irises. It was hypnotic. I couldn’t think of a single reasonable argument with those eyes pinned on me.

“All right,” I muttered, shrugging into my coat. “Let’s go.”

Terry barely glanced up from the cards he was dealing. “Tires are in the shed out back. Tools, too.”

Chloe grabbed her coat and a flashlight from the hall closet. The second the front door closed behind us, she whirled on me, shining the light right in my fucking eyes.

“What the hell is going on here, Steven?” she demanded.

“Chloe—shit—” I squeezed my eyes shut and batted her arm down, but I could still see the afterimage of her face on my eyelids.

“This isn’t some nefarious plot to weasel my way into your life.

It’s a coincidence, like you finding me when my battery died.

I started working with your dad six months ago.

He’s well respected in the community and has taken on interns before.

It’s not my fault he didn’t tell you about it. ”

“Well,” Chloe hedged. “He did tell me about it. He just never mentioned your name.”

“You have different last names,” I went on.

“I don’t really know anything about you.

Why would it even occur to me that you were related?

But about two months ago, I saw a photo of you on his fridge.

” I rubbed my eyes and cleared away the floating Chloe.

Unfortunately, the real one was still right here, and she was not happy.

She rolled her lips together. “Two months ago? Is that why you’ve been so nice to me?”

“Nice?” That caught me off guard. What did she know? “When was I nice?” I asked cautiously.

“That day at Jo’s when you bought me coffee. That was nice. Or how about all those funny animal videos you send me at three a.m.?” She jabbed the flashlight at me like a pointer, the light down this time. “You were trying to butter me up!”

I wasn’t really into social media, but I followed a handful of farriers I respected to bounce ideas off of.

It wasn’t a huge stretch for the algorithm to guide me from diseased hoofs to cute animals, but until Chloe told me it helped with her anxiety, I had scrolled right past without watching.

Now my whole feed was full of those fucking videos.

“No, Chloe, I was not trying to butter you up. It never occurred to me that you could be…buttered.” Goddammit, my mind was in the gutter again. I rubbed the back of my neck. “I saw those videos and thought of you, that’s all.”

She reeled back half a step, her bottom lip falling open. “You saw those videos and thought of me?” Her eyes searched my face. “And you don’t think that’s nice?”

“I was up. You were up. That’s not nice, Chloe. That’s…what did you call it? Basic human decency. ” I leaned in, and my voice deepened when I murmured, “When I’m being nice, you’ll know it.”

Her eyes dilated until they looked almost black in the dim light as she stared back at me.

Her cheeks were flushed pink, which might have been from the cold, but I knew it wasn’t.

When her gaze dipped to my lips, it took all my self-control not to do something very un-nice, like kiss her.

If it were anyone else looking at me like that, I would have done it.

But this was Chloe. She hated me. Her body might want me, but her brain sure as fuck didn’t.

“It’s fucking cold out here,” I muttered. “Let’s get your tires done.”

“Right.” She swallowed hard. “Right.”

We didn’t say a word as we rolled the tires from the shed to the driveway. Fortunately, Terry had an electric car jack kit, so doing all four tires would probably only take thirty minutes, tops.

“Thanks for doing this,” Chloe said. She leaned against the car, aiming the flashlight at the first tire. “I’d do it myself, but I promised my mom.”

I grunted as I shoved the jack in place. “You promised your mom you’d trick her dinner guest into freezing his ass off doing manual labor in the dark?”

She laughed and it was all worth it. I would have changed a thousand tires in sub-thirty temperatures to hear that sound.

“No. I promised her I would never change my own tires. She’s weird about it, but I understand.

That’s how my dad died,” she added quietly.

“He was helping a friend repair his tractor wheel, and his friend didn’t secure that tractor properly.

It rolled over on him and crushed him. He died instantly. ”

I froze. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Terry had told me her dad died in an accident, but he hadn’t shared the details. “Christ, Chloe. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” She nodded. “And, just so you know, my mom doesn’t want you to get crushed by a tractor, or Terry or my brothers, either.

She knows it’s dumb, but she’s worried I’ll die like that because my dad did.

She knows tractor accidents aren’t hereditary, but anxiety isn’t rational. We both struggle with it.”

I turned back to the lug nuts. “That’s what wakes you up at three a.m.? Worrying you’re going to die by tractor?”

For a moment I worried that I sounded like an asshole, being flippant about something that was entirely serious, but she laughed under her breath.

“No. Evil tractors are my mom’s thing, not mine.

I’m more concerned that I’m going to forget something vital or screw up something small that has huge consequences.

” Her face shadowed for a moment, but then she laughed again.

“Like, I hardly ever use my oven, but I’m always paranoid that I forgot to turn it off.

So I’d check the knob every morning before I left the house and say out loud I am checking the knob.

The oven is off . Because that makes it real to my brain.

And then one day I was in the middle of an English exam and it occurred to me that maybe I was gaslighting myself, and I hadn’t really looked at the oven knob, I had just sort of faked it. So now I take pictures of the knob.”

I blinked up at her. “Jesus, Chloe. Maybe you should see someone about that.”

She nudged my knee with her boot, not hard enough to knock me off balance. “I do see someone about that. It was one of the requirements for my master’s degree in social work. We can’t be good therapists without knowing what therapy feels like from a patient’s point of view.”

“That makes sense.” One tire down, three to go. I maneuvered the tools to the rear tire and Chloe pivoted to follow me with the light.

“My dad likes you, you know,” she said. “But he likes everyone, even the people he shouldn’t. Quite frankly, he’s a shitty judge of character.”

Something in her voice made my gut tighten. I peeked at her over my shoulder. Pinched brows, squinty eyes, flat lips. That was not the face of a trusting woman. Goddamn it. She was going to ruin my life.

“What is it you want, Chloe? To protect your dad because you think I’m going to hurt him? Or do you just want to keep punishing me for James?”

She considered that. “Both,” she decided.

I snorted. “Of course you do,” I muttered.

I rolled the old tire out of the way and lifted the new one into place.

“If you really think I’m going to somehow hurt your dad, then go ahead and do what you have to do.

Hell, I’ll do it for you. But here’s the thing, princess.

” I pushed to my feet. “If you just want to punish me, this isn’t the way.

Because it punishes your dad, too. He needs a partner, and I’m good at this and getting better.

We work well together. Do you really want to take that from him? ”

Her eyes spit green fire at me. “How do I know you’ve really changed?”

“Changed? I haven’t changed, Chloe. I’m still the same guy I was two years ago.

” I cocked my head, considering. “Maybe I’m less angry.

I wasted a lot of time feeling like the world had done me wrong in one way or another.

It took me a while to realize I was paying attention to the wrong things.

The world is unfair to everyone in some way or another, and fuck, I got sick of hearing myself whine about it. It sounded like—” Him .

Chloe looked at me. “Like what?”

“It sounded like someone I don’t want to be.

Now, I just want to do my job. I want to keep horses sound and pain-free.

I want to put some good in the world instead of worrying about what I can take out of it.

But spooking James’s horse? It wasn’t some other guy who doesn’t exist anymore.

That was me making a huge, thoughtless mistake that I can’t take back. ”

For a long moment, she stared down at the flashlight, rolling it between her palms, frowning. Then she heaved a sigh. “Goddammit. Why do you have to make it so hard for me to hate you? Fine . I won’t say anything to my dad.”

“And Amy?” I asked gruffly.

Something flashed across her face, there and gone again before I could decipher it. “No. But I think you should.”

I grunted noncommittedly. “I’ll think about it.”

But I already knew I never would. I could live with Chloe hating me. But Amy? Not a fucking chance.