Hard as Rock (The Rock Star's Seduction 3)

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My days and nights passed like that – reading and relaxation during the day, and wine and song at night. We dined with the MacCruders at least twice a week, but the rest of the time, Ryan cooked for us. He was really good at it, fixing everything from elaborate French dishes to a scrumptious spaghetti sauce from scratch.

On the fifth day he finally convinced me to take the horses for a ride. As I stood out in the barn and watched him expertly saddle up Albert and Bessie, I was struck by something about him: his casual, non-showy masculinity. He had the whole rock star thing on tour; he had the ‘genius musician’ part in the studio and during our sessions on the front porch. But out here he was a man’s man, doing things like saddling horses and getting ready to ride into the Black Hills. Maybe somebody who’s been around horses all their life wouldn’t have been impressed, but for a chick who grew up in the suburbs of Savannah and now lived in the urban jungle of New York City, it was kind of fascinating to see a guy who could play a bass guitar in front of 20,000 people

and

put a saddle on a horse.

I pictured Derek trying to do it and laughed.

The image ended up with Derek freaking out, throwing the saddle to the ground, and going off to find a bottle of whiskey.

Ryan looked over. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just imagining Derek trying to do what you’re doing now.”

“Yeah, good luck with even getting him to try. His idea of the great outdoors is playing at Coachella.” He watched my face carefully. “You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you mention his name while you were happy.”

The pain returned, like the jab of a needle in my heart. “Yeah, well… it was a fluke.”

He nodded and didn’t say anything else.

Outside the barn, Ryan helped boost me into the saddle and gave me simple instructions. “Bessie’s used to kids, so she’ll be gentle with you. She’ll basically just go along easily unless you tell her different. If you want her to stop, say ‘Whoa’ loud and clear. That’ll usually do it. If she doesn’t stop – ”

“What do you mean, ‘

if

she doesn’t stop’?!”

“Maybe you didn’t say it loud enough,” he teased me, “so pull back on the reins gently but firmly. You won’t need to exert much pressure. And be careful not to press your legs into her sides when you do it.”

“Why?” I asked, panicking. Images of her rearing up on her hind legs filled my brain.

“Pressing your legs into her side is the same as telling her to go, so you’d be sending her mixed messages.”

“Oh.”

“If you want her to turn right, pull gently on the right rein, and if you want her to go left, pull gently on the left. If you want her to go faster – ”

“I don’t think that’s in the cards today.”

He grinned. “Well, just in case, you can press her sides with your legs, like I said before. If she doesn’t go faster, press a little harder. Or you can say ‘Giddyap,’ or you can flick the reins a little and go – ” and here he

chk chked

with his tongue clicking in his mouth.

“Noooo, I don’t think I’ll need any of those. Ever.”

He laughed, placed his foot in the stirrup, and swung up effortlessly into his saddle. “We’ll change your mind eventually.”

“Suuuure you will.”

He was right about Bessie being gentle, though. She just kind of loped along at an easy pace, never going faster or slower. Which was fine by me.

Ryan rode beside me. Fat Albert was a lot more spirited, and tended to fight him a little. But Ryan handled him expertly, and the horse settled down.

That first day we didn’t go far – just across the ranch, and along the fences that formed its borders. But we started to ride every day, at least for an hour or two, and gradually moved up into the hills among the rocks and trees. At first I was afraid of cougars – I basically saw one at every turn, until I realized it was a squirrel or a shadow – but my fear began to fade as the days went past and the big cats turned out to be just as elusive as Ryan had promised.

The beauty of the place quieted my fears, too. It was pristine, unspoiled… absolutely beautiful. We took one especially long ride and ate a picnic lunch of cold fried chicken and potato salad by an open field of wildflowers, all purple and white and yellow.

That

was a gorgeous day.

But more than the scenery, I loved talking to Ryan. We spent hours and hours just telling each other stories. His were about Mara and Casey, and how they had spent summer afternoons playing hide and seek in the barn and around the house. His first kiss at fifteen, which he’d shared with a rancher’s daughter who had lived five miles away from his grandparents. His first girlfriend back in Athens. The argument he’d had with his parents when he quit college to play fulltime with Bigger. His friendship with Riley.

At first he danced around the topic of Derek, but the more he saw that I was healing, the more he would tell me about him. The stories were always good – none of his womanizing, nothing crude. There were more stories from before Bigger got famous than after, and most of them were before Killian and Riley even joined the band. Just two friends who shared a love of music and a dream to make their own someday.

In turn, I told him stories, too. About growing up with my two brothers. All of us watching horror movies when I was babysitting them, and how we all got the crap scared out of us. How I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up: I read an article about Sebastian Junger, the journalist who wrote

The Perfect Storm

and later was embedded with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, and suddenly I knew. My years at Syracuse. My first year on my own in New York. My first boyfriend, Kevin. How Derek and I met. And how we had parted four years ago, outside the doughnut shop on Highway 78.

It was like therapy for me. In talking to him, I gradually released a burden I didn’t know I had been carrying. I cried during some of the stories… but Ryan was always quiet and supportive, listening attentively to everything I said.

I repeatedly asked him if he didn’t want to hear this stuff. I didn’t add,

Because I know how you feel about me,

but he understood the subtext.