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HUNTER

“ H unter?”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I blinked again. My heart hammered in my chest.

Was that really her? Or had I dreamed of her for so long I was imagining her here?

Chloe stood there frozen, mirroring me. What was she doing here?

And did she just finish hugging Caleb… like they knew each other?

What. The. Fuck?

The woman I’d been searching for these past few months was standing thirty yards from me.

Her blonde curls caught the breeze, blowing around her shoulders. I fought against rushing to her side and tucking them behind her ear. She fit in so well with her simple pair of jeans and teal blouse paired with cowgirl boots.

I was torn between kissing her senseless or trying to play it off like I hadn’t been heartbroken when she left me alone in my hotel room.

Matt bent and whispered something in her ear before lightly brushing his lips against her temple. Red tinged my vision around the edges. How dare he touch my girl! I clenched my hands into fists.

Matt turned toward me and his eyes narrowed. He hesitated a moment more before heading to the cars when someone called his name.

Wanting to punch Matt in the jaw for touching Chloe had now settled at the top of my list of things I couldn’t decide on.

Finally, my body made the decision for me. One foot landed in front of the other, and I made my way to Chloe at an excruciatingly slow pace. I had no clue why she was here, but from the interaction she’d had with multiple people, this wasn’t the first time.

“Um, hi.” Chloe gave a small wave when I stopped in front of her. Her head tilted so she could look at me, and I could see a tiny hint of sun coloring her nose.

“What are you doing here?” we both whispered at the same time.

“I’m on the Kingston Equestrian team.” I spun my finger around, indicating the ranch. “You?”

Chloe’s forehead scrunched. “This is my hometown.” She glanced at her boots before turning her face up to me again. “I’m home for my final project for school.”

“Right. Your graduating project. You mentioned that.” I couldn’t drag my eyes away from hers.

Chloe was just as beautiful and captivating as when I first met her at the New York show in September. Her blonde hair was shining in the light like a halo, making her skin appear just as soft as I remembered. Her plump lips were asking to be kissed. Having Chloe standing here with me now felt like nothing else mattered. Everything was right again in the world. I’d finally found the woman who had stolen my heart overnight.

“Yo, Hunter. Atlas isn’t going to unload himself,” someone yelled, drawing me from my trance.

Right, we were supposed to be unloading from the last show.

“I have to help, but please tell me you’ll be sticking around for a while?” I squeezed her upper arm. I had so many questions.

“I’m not going anywhere. Go do what you have to do.” She smiled, but the warmth of it didn’t quite reach her eyes like I’d remembered.

“Okay. I’ll find you later.” I slowly backed away from her. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded.

My chest tightened when I turned away. I couldn’t fight the need to glance over my shoulder to make sure she was still there. The thought of her disappearing again was a constant fear humming below the surface of my skin.

I immediately unloaded Atlas from the nearby trailer and walked him to the barn. Kyle was already in his stall with Sapphire when I passed. Atlas nickered his greeting to Sapphire before heading straight for the fresh pile of hay in the corner. No doubt Matt and Gavin had made sure to have all the stalls fresh and ready for their return.

The muscles in my jaw ticked. As much as I liked the guy, I wanted to know what the hell Matt was doing with my girl.

“Who was that out there?” Liam, one of the other riders on the team, asked as he put his horse, Zeus, in the stall beside me. His French accent would have felt out of place to anyone else, but he wasn’t the only one with a European accent on the ranch. Four of the founders of King’s Ranch were from a small European country, Cosland.

“Chloe,” I said.

“That’s Chloe? The Chloe? The one from the show?” Liam peeked through the bars between our stalls.

“That’s her,” I sighed, making myself busy by topping off Atlas’s water bucket.

“Then why do you seem so miserable? Isn’t it fate that she is here after all those months of you pining over her?” Liam wasn’t wrong. It should feel like fate, except it didn’t. Not when the first time I see her another man is kissing her. It hadn’t seemed platonic.

“Eeeee!”

I glanced over to see Abbey jogging through the barn door. Liam met her in the aisle, picking her up and spinning her around. We hadn’t been gone more than a few days, but by the way everyone who had relationships greeted each other, you’d think they had been off to war for a year.

My chest tightened. I may make fun of them to their faces, but in my heart, it was what I wanted too. I’d felt like a nomad for so long until the Kingstons took me in. I wanted someplace to call my own and settle down.

“ Dulcinee , you’ll never guess who’s here.” Liam wrapped his arms around Abbey. Of course he would bring it up immediately to her. I’d talked to Abbey about the situation not long after she’d come to the ranch. She’d had hope for me finding Chloe, so I had to wonder what she would think.

“Who?” Her smile was infectious. My cheeks started to ache from fighting my smile. She was so happy to have Liam home. He shared her with Duke, but she hated when either of them was away—something she’d mentioned to me many times over the last few months.

“Chloe.”

Abbey gasped and turned around. “Oh. My. Gosh. That’s so exciting.” She rushed toward Atlas’s stall door. “Well, where is she? Was she excited to see you? What did she say?”

I held up my hand. “She didn’t say anything. I think we were both too shocked to see each other again for anything more than an awkward greeting.”

I palmed the back of my neck. I needed to talk to Chloe away from everyone else.

“It doesn’t help that she apparently knows everyone on this ranch, but no one around here could put two and two together and figure out she was who I’d been searching for this whole time,” I huffed, throwing my hands up. Atlas snorted behind me, and I took that as his way of politely telling me to get out of his stall.

Abbey’s eyes grew wide. “Wait? Chloe , Chloe?” She’d been here for the past few days and was just figuring it out. “Oh wow.”

“Yeah.” I still had to unload the rest of my things from the trailer.

“What are you going to do?” Abbey asked, snuggling into Liam’s side, her worried gaze never leaving mine. There was no way she didn’t know something was going on between Chloe and Matt.

“I don’t know. I honestly didn’t expect to see her again.” My heart clenched at the truth. I hadn’t wanted to say the words out loud, but after five months, I’d given up hope of seeing Chloe again. “And it seems like we might be too late. How long has she been seeing Matt?” I glanced at Kyle. The lines on his forehead grew more profound. He knew how I felt about Chloe—how excited I was that I’d possibly found the woman I thought would be perfect for the two of us.

Kyle was much like me. He’d also been searching for a place to call his own. It was one of the things that had brought us together. But after seeing Chloe outside, I was afraid we’d lost our chance.

Seeing him now, my heart nearly broke. I’d given him hope, and it was slipping through our fingers. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I’d spent too much time searching for her, and there was no way I was going to give up that easily. Plus, I didn’t actually know what she and Matt were. They could be hooking up or old friends. My gut twisted.

“You know what? I’m gonna find her, and I’m gonna win her back.” I lightly punched Kyle on the shoulder. He narrowed his eyes.

“But you just said?—”

“I don’t give up that easily. I’m going to find her, and this time, I’m not letting her go. I still think she’s the one for us, dude. We just have to show her she belongs with us. Right, Liam?”

“Absolutely. And you won’t know if it’ll work out until you try.” Liam pushed off the wall, squeezing Abbey against him. “Right, dulcinee?” Liam planted a kiss on Abbey’s lips, and she giggled. “Just be careful. You don’t know where she and Matt stand with each other.”

Voices traveled in through the open barn door, quickly followed by the other riders with their horses or tack. It was time for us to finish unloading. The faster I completed my duties, the sooner I could find Chloe and start over.

Rounding the corner of the barn, I searched the slightly chaotic area for the petite blonde, but I couldn’t spot her.

“Good luck, Chloe,” I heard someone to my left say.

I lengthened my stride so I wouldn’t miss the chance of seeing her.

“Thanks, guys.”

I spotted her at the farthest trailer. She had a messenger bag thrown over her shoulder as she made her way to the big house. Her project. Could it be an event the Kingstons asked her to help with? I ran over some of their past events in my mind, but none of them lined up with timing. Christmas was over, and their fundraisers usually happened later in the year.

Then it hit me.

Their wedding.

Was she here to help with the wedding?

If so, that meant she wouldn’t be here for long. The wedding was a month away. I had that long to win Chloe and make her mine.

Well, mine and Kyle’s.

I finished putting away my tack and gave Atlas a full bubble bath. He deserved it. Team Kingston is ranked second in the Longines Global Championships. Our team racked up a lot of points at this last show.

It was still early in the tour, but we planned to keep our rankings. Our next show wasn’t until after the wedding, but it was in Florida. The hard times were coming in May, June, July, and August, when we would be having back-to-back international shows. It was a brutal summer lined up for all of us, but we’d signed on for it.

I was determined to win Chloe over before we left.

“I promise I’ll find the perfect location. I’m going for a ride tomorrow to see if I can spot anything,” Chloe’s voice echoed through the barn. I glance up from oiling Atlas’s hooves to see Chloe, Alex, and Declan entering from the opposite end.

“I’d start with the far-left pastures. Those are empty now that the cattle are in the summer fields.” Declan grabbed Alex’s hand and kissed the back of it before turning to Chloe. “I know everything is last minute, but we’ve all been too busy to get anything done.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. With Alex and I being locals, everyone already had their calendars marked, even though they weren’t booked yet. Even if you hired someone else from out of town, locals keep things open in case you need a backup. It’s kind of how we do things around here.” She patted Declan on the shoulder, and Alex snorted.

“She’s right. When you’re from a small town, everyone is planning your wedding from the day you’re born. Or the day they open shop. When I made my first rounds to give dates, they were already throwing ideas at me. Now we just need to finalize everything.”

“And find the location,” Chloe pointed out.

“At least we know it’s going to be here. It’s up to you to find us the perfect spot.” Declan returned Chloe’s shoulder tap.

“No pressure,” Chloe laughed. “All right. Let me get on it. I’ll touch base with you later.”

Declan led Alex out of the barn, and the silence that followed was deafening. Chloe let out a deep breath, and I could almost feel it whooshing past my ears.

“Something not going right?” I asked, breaking the quiet bubble.

Chloe squeaked and turned around. She spotted me crouched below Atlas.

“What are you doing over there?” Chloe asked, taking quick strides toward me. She smiled, and it lit up her face. God I’d missed her smile.

“Just finishing Atlas’s pedicure,” I winked. “What were you doing?” It took everything in me to act normal when I wanted to gather her in my arms.

She twisted her hands together. “Wedding planning. We have a meeting every few days since the wedding is so close. I have to do a lot of work in such a short time.”

“Must be a challenge.” I marveled at how even my tone was.

She shrugged. “It is, but I love it. The end results are worth it.”

I stood, removing my gloves and wiping my hands on my rag. She was only a few feet away, and I closed the distance until I stood right in front of her.

My voice dropped an octave. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

I gripped her chin between my finger and thumb, remembering doing the same thing five months ago. “You know what.”

“We don’t need to talk about it.” Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, and her gaze dropped to the ground, dislodging my hand.

“You want to ignore it? Pretend like it never happened?” Did she really want nothing to do with me?

“No.” Her face shot up, huge, round eyes meeting mine.

“Then what?” Because I didn’t think I’d be able to handle being around her and not having her.

“I… I…” Chloe stuttered.

“Do you ever think about our night together?” My heart clenched as I waited for her answer.

Chloe tugged her lip between her teeth and turned away. I hated that she wouldn’t look me in the eye. I lifted her chin with my fingertips, using my thumb to pull her lip free. When her eyes met mine again, I bent down, hovering my lips a few inches from hers.

My heart raced inside my chest. I wanted to kiss her so badly, but I needed to know. I had to know if she had thought about me as much as I had her over the last few months. That she still wanted me. “Answer. The. Question. Kitten.”

She leaned into my grasp, trying to close the gap, but I wouldn’t kiss her until I heard it. Her sigh sent warm breath over my face.

“Every day,” she whispered. “I think about that night all the time. I dream about it almost every night.”

“Good.” I brushed my lips over hers. “Because I do too.” The last of my control slipped away, and I pressed my lips to hers, capturing her mouth in a deep kiss. Chloe’s soft moan pierced my ears. I hadn’t heard anything as sweet in months.

“I’ve been dreaming about the day I’d see you again. Why did you leave?” I backed away a couple of inches. I didn’t want to get into it right now, but the words flew out of my mouth.

“I had to say goodbye to my aunt before she left and then get home to finish my assignment. The show was one of my volunteer projects.” Chloe’s mouth turned down in a frown.

“But you didn’t leave your number. I thought we had something special.” I cupped her jaw and ran my thumb along her cheekbone.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ruin the weekend or the memory of it. If I’d left my number and you didn’t call, it would have broken my heart.”

It broke my heart to hear her utter those words. Clearly I had not done a good enough job at making my intentions clear. “Oh, kitten. What made you think I would’ve done that?”

“I met you by saving you from another woman—one you’d already slept with. So why would I think if I left my number you’d actually call me?” Tears pricked at her eyes. “Especially when you were only in town for a show. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I get it, but it kills me that you didn’t think enough of our time together to leave it for me.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “I’ve been trying to find you since that day. I never even got your last name, kitten.” I couldn’t hide the hurt in my voice. Overwhelmed with all the emotions racing through me, I rested my forehead on hers so she couldn’t see it on my face. I hated that she didn’t trust me, but the fault was entirely mine. She was right. She didn’t know me well enough after one night. But I also didn’t know I’d fall for her so hard so fast.

“It’s Greene. My last name is Greene,” Chloe said softly.

“Chloe Greene. I like the sound of that. Now, I need your phone number.” I slipped my cell from my pocket and handed it to her. Her fingers flew across the screen as she typed in her number and handed it back, where I promptly saved it as Kitten .

“How about we get something to eat?”

“I can’t. I have dinner with the girls tonight.” Her lips turned down at the corners.

“Tomorrow, then.” I wouldn’t let her walk away before making sure I had firm plans to see her again.

“Hunter…” She paused, her face lined with worry. “I need you to know something. I’m kind of… casually seeing Matt.”

My stomach dropped, but I shook it off the best I could. This wasn’t news.

“What would happen if you were casually seeing me too?”

Her eyes flickered in surprise. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“That kiss said otherwise. How about you think on it, and I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to hurt him.” She worried her lip between her teeth.

“It’s just dinner.” It wasn’t, but I needed to ease her into this, and I respected her honesty.

“Okay. Just dinner. Tomorrow.” Chloe smiled, and my heart soared. I was going to make this work.