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.“Really?” Eliza frowned and urged Molly forward so she could get a better look.There were bits of rusted corrugated metal that must have been used for roofs at one time and she saw the broken remains of large brown glass jugs.Bleach bottles from the 1930s, if she remembered correctly, but they had also frequently been repurposed.Sometimes to hold water and sometimes to hold liquor.She couldn’t imagine being so desperate as to use a bleach bottle to drink out of, but there was a lot about those days she couldn’t fathom.Her heart began to race at the thought of this being some new discovery.“Does anybody else know about this?”He shrugged.“I don’t think so.”“I’d hate to ruin your riding trail, but I should probably let the park service know.Just in case there’s anything of historical value that needs to be preserved.”“It wouldn’t ruin anything, but if it becomes a national monument, I hope you’ll name it after me.”There was a hint of humor in his tone.Relieved, Eliza chuckled.“Unlikely.There’s another little settlement like this just over the pass on the Nevada State College campus.All they did was set it aside so people could do surveys and learn what they could.”“Then I’ll consider that my good deed for the day.Preserving valuable knowledge about desert moonshiners.”A thousand different possibilities raced through her mind as she considered that.Nevada hadn’t felt much like home during the past few days while barely seeing her brother and being too nervous to call old friends, but that feeling of belonging had sneaked back on her over the course of the night while in Chris’s arms.Eliza could picture herself transferring to the local park service unit, working by day to preserve the site and then unwinding with Chris and his horses and whatever adventure he’d just cooked up.If only he were interested.As if he could hear her thoughts, their eyes met and the hint of warm humor in his eyes melted her.The need to touch him and hold him, to figure out what it all meant between them, was suddenly overwhelming.She leaned toward him and heard the creak in his saddle from him leaning in to meet her, but before she reached him Keifer shifted and took a few steps forward and to the side.A flash of annoyance passed over Chris’s face as he straightened.“Let’s keep going.This trail I use wraps around here before meeting up with the other one again and taking us to the corrals.”She followed along at a more sedate pace than before, drinking in the hills and the sky and the brush that her horse occasionally tested for edibility.After a few minutes, she heard the chirp of a text message in the pocket of her jacket.She shifted the reins out of her right hand so she could pull it out and check.“Jackson says he managed to get a little bit of sleep.He’d like to have breakfast with us if we’re still together,” she called over to Chris.With his back to her, all she could see of his response was his head bobbing in a nod.“You’re still here, so I guess we’re still together.”“That sounds like a rousing endorsement.” She awkwardly typed out her response as Molly continued down the trail.A few feet farther down the trail Chris spoke again.“He say where he wants to have breakfast?”“No.Should I text him again?”Chris shrugged and straightened in the saddle.The urge to scream at him and demand some sort of real response was overwhelming.She had found him occasionally confusing the night before, but it was nothing compared to the constant cycling through extremes of the morning.He seemed capable of only two moods: he was either ready to ravish her then and there, or he virtually ignored her.She stayed quiet and stewed in frustration the rest of the way back.At the barn, she silently untacked Molly and checked the horse’s hooves.All the old habits of horse care were coming back to her, for which she was grateful.Something to focus on that didn’t require speaking to him was more than welcome at the moment.They got the horses their grain and Chris checked their water.Chris shut the barn door, his back to her.“Do you want to take a shower before Jackson gets here?”She braced her fists on her hips.“No, I want you to talk to me.”Chapter TenChris froze, taken aback by Eliza’s sudden directness.“I’ve been talking to you all day.” He recognized how weak that excuse sounded even as he said it.“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Undaunted, she came closer to him.“You’ve been getting weirder and weirder ever since we got back to your house.What’s going on?”For a few brief seconds he weighed the likelihood of being able to just leave entirely, then dismissed that as absurd since it was his own backyard.What would he do? Abandon her there and go drive down the street to hide until Jackson took her away? No matter how uncomfortable it made him, he had to preserve at least some dignity.“This is just a little difficult for me.I really like you, Eliza, but—”“No.” She raised a hand, warding off any further words from him.“No, you’re not giving me that ‘I like you, but’ speech.You’re the one who was on the prowl all night.Don’t go acting like you weren’t.”Damn, she really wouldn’t let up.Even as cornered as he felt, he admired her nerve.He stepped back to lean against the side of the barn and dragged a hand through his hair.“Okay, you’re right.I was.And you’re going back to Missouri in, what? A week and a half? This can’t go anywhere.”There was hurt in her eyes now that made his stomach burn with acid.He did that to her, which was exactly what he’d been so desperate to avoid.She closed her eyes, lips pressed tightly together.“You’re saying you want last night to just be some one-off thing?”No, he almost said, but bit it back.He knew exactly what he wanted, but he couldn’t possibly say that.There was no going back with a girl like Eliza, and he’d known it the first time she’d kissed him.It’s why he panicked, and why he let her push him away in the first place.All he could do now was distance himself.“That’s what I thought we agreed to last night.”She opened her eyes again.Instead of the pain he’d expected to see in them, he saw a simmering rage.“You’re such a coward.”He spread his hands wide, exasperated.“How am I coward?”“You’re being an ass and pushing me away again because you won’t risk getting attached or committed to anything but your precious freedom.”His jaw dropped.She might as well have plucked the words directly from his own mind.Had he ever been that forthright with someone? Not that he could recall.Eliza simply got him like no one else, which would have thrilled him if the power of that understanding didn’t scare the crap out of him.Rather than keep facing her, he started walking back toward his house.“That’s not it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]