Page 71 of Dust Storm

I let out a weighted breath, steeling myself for the impending heckling. “I want to be important.”

But Christian didn’t laugh. “What do you mean?”

The slow rock of my hips with each of Dottie’s strides was soothing and hypnotic. There were no sounds except the soft grunts of the horses.

I wasn’t religious, but this felt like church.

“I want to be the person that people go to when there’s a problem. I want to be the one who gets the calls in the middle of the night to fix something that’s going wrong. I want to be the one that holds everything together. I want to be irreplaceable.”

Christian’s brows were furrowed as he mulled on it. They softened after a while, but he still didn’t make a comment about what I had said.

His silence was starting to irritate me.

He might be calm, cool, and collected, but I wasn’t.

Vulnerability made me uneasy. Tripp didn’t honor tenderness; he saw it as weakness.

The notion struck me like lightning.

I had never admitted the desires behind my career goals to Tripp. Deep down, I knew it was because I was afraid of him cutting them down.

“You’re looking like a natural,” Christian said, snapping me out of the stunned stupor.

I blinked the haze away. “What?”

“You’re doing a lot better on Dottie. You’ve got an ease about you now. I’m proud of you.”

“Really?” I scoffed. “I drop an emotional bomb and you follow up with how well I ride a horse?”

“Was that supposed to be an emotional bomb?”

“For me it was. I don’t do feelings.”

“Seems like that’s working out pretty well for you.” The unexpected sarcasm was cutting.

I yanked on the reins and Dottie came to an immediate halt. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I shouted at his back.

Christian turned Libby around. “You wanna be irreplaceable? Let people love you.” He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. And with that emotional bomb, he tapped Libby with his boots and left me in the dust.

Fucking cowboys.

Somehow, I managed a less than graceful ride back to the barn.

“Ma’am,” CJ said, acknowledging me as Dottie loped into the stables.

Libby glared at me from where she was tied off.Because, of course, he made it back and then disappeared.

I used the entire ride to crank up my indignation and fume over the man who decided to give me emotional whiplash.

“I don’t know how to park a horse,” I snapped.

CJ wasn’t as easygoing as his brother, but he wasn’t put off by my rancor. “Just hop down. I’ll take care of her.” He paused with a pitchfork in hand and gave me a quick assessment. “Did you take her out by yourself?”

“Nope,” I said as I dropped the reins, grabbed the pommel, and wiggled my toe until it found the stirrup. “Your monk of a brother left me in the middle of a fucking field.”

CJ grinned. “He was fuming when I saw him a little while ago. You must’ve really pissed him off.”

“Right.” My feet hit the ground. “And by fuming you mean in a near-catatonic state of pure, unbothered bliss.”

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