Something Wilder

Rider: Bradley Daniels

Horse: Bullwinkle

Rider: Walter Gibb

Horse: Dynamite

Rider: Leo Grady

Horse: Ace

Rider: Terrence Trottel

Horse: Calypso

Lily let out a quiet “Well, shit.”

Maybe it’s a different neck, a different set of squared shoulders, a different Leo Grady. Frantically, she flipped through the folder of guest forms. On only the second page her hand froze in midair; the stapled-together photo and form for a man named Bradley fluttered to the ground as Lily stared down at the face of the man she used to know.

She closed her eyes to absorb the final blow. A deep-rooted self-preservation instinct made her scratch around to find a legitimate way out of this. Could they cancel this excursion, cite an incoming storm? Could they claim one of the horses was lame? Could she fake illness?

They could… but long ago Lily had learned it was a waste of everyone’s time to fake anything.

Staring down at the photo, Lily wondered what he was like now. And she wondered why he was here. Her company was called Wilder Adventures, for Christ’s sake. Lily wasn’t exactly hiding.

“Do you remember what you said earlier?” she asked, looking up at Nic. “About the guests? You said there was a loud one, a sweet potato, a creep, and…?”

Nicole gazed to the side, thinking. “A quiet one?”

The quiet one—and what else had Nicole said? That he was cute? Lily looked down at his photo again. Twenty-two-year-old Leo had been cute. He’d been shy and sweet and perpetually lost in thought, but this Leo—he must be thirty-two years old now—was devastating. In the photo, he appeared to be standing on a balcony somewhere, holding a beer and laughing at the photographer. His hair was still the soft, dark mess she remembered, always sticking up in the morning, falling forward on its own. Glimmering dark eyes. His face had lost the softness of youth and sharpened in the years they’d been apart, at once more delicate and more masculine. His cheekbones were sharper, his jaw more angular, his neck still as long as a summer day, his lips just as full as she remembered.

Shiiiiit.

Nicole leaned in, peeking over Lily’s shoulder at what had her so transfixed, and Lily slapped the folder shut, tossing it on the table. Aggressively, she picked up a slab of bacon and started hacking it into thick slices. Each one dropped into the hot cast-iron skillet with a satisfying sizzle.

“You okay there, Dub?”

Not even a little bit. “Yeah, I’m good.”

The group began filtering out one by one, stretching as they stepped out of their tents and pausing to take in the view they hadn’t been able to see when they’d arrived.

“Oh, man, it’s gorgeous here.”

From over near the campfire, Leo’s voice filtered to Lily, and goose bumps broke out along every inch of her body.

He would see her. He would see her, and she would have to react, and Lily Wilder was a woman who worked her hardest at everything, including remaining at least an arm’s length from any emotional entanglement. Leo would be in her space for the next week, and she had no idea how to handle any of it.

So, she kept her head down, hiding beneath the brim of her cowboy hat as she carried steaming trays of potatoes, eggs, and bacon to the wooden picnic table in the center of camp. Nicole rang the dinner bell and footsteps scratched sleepily through dry dirt. When a husky laugh echoed behind her, Lily’s stomach absolutely fell to her feet. She knew how a rattlesnake sounded in the brittlebush on the ranch and the raspy croak of a passing raven. She knew the trickling of water in a spring and the impatient huff of Bonnie when she was done for the day. And Lily knew—even after all this time—the deep, vibrating sound of Leo Grady’s voice in the morning, the way it warmed up slowly, from rocks to gravel to a smooth, polished stone.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself together before she turned to face the men lined up for breakfast. “Morning, everyone.”

Lily didn’t have to be looking straight at him to feel Leo’s wide gaze swing her way.

He sucked in a breath, eyes stunned, and it took every bit of her practiced indifference to appear oblivious. “Go ahead and fill up your plates. Once you’re settled, I’ll go over the game plan.” She smiled as naturally as she could manage, adjusting the skillet and straightening a stack of forks. “We’ve got a big few days ahead of us, and there’s more than enough food for everyone.”

Three men crowded around the table, exclaiming about the food and the view. Everyone but Leo. Lily wasn’t even sure he’d moved yet. After several seconds, he jerked to life, finding a spot at the far end of the picnic table and slowly lowering himself onto the bench. He didn’t bother to take food; he just sat there, pulling a baseball cap on and using it to shield his eyes as he stared down at the wood.