Page 67 of Training the Heart

I have no plans to be your Not Angels science experiment. And for the record, Wade has been a perfect gentleman today.

GINGER

What about yesterday?

I suppress a giggle and put my phone back. Just as I do, my eyes find Wade two stalls away, all finished with his phone call. As I stand frozen, watching him walk toward me with his sure, steady pace, a flannel jacket and his tattered cowboy hat low over his eyes, my heart rate begins to speed up. Nothing about him seems unintentional, or nonchalant, not even his stride.

His jaw sets as his eyes meet mine and he smirks at me.

BDE? Check.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Wade

“This is the training schedule,” I say as I place my spreadsheet on the coffee table in the den at the big house. “We’ll need to train all through the spring and summer,” I tell my family at our usual Monday night dinner.

Ivy and I have just come back from Nashville, and of course they all want the dish on Angel’s Wings.

“There’s a place in Sarasota we can take her to record her workouts and obtain her gate card, so she’s qualified for racing, I want to take her there in early February if you all agree. The sooner we can make her comfortable with the noise, the other horses, the sooner she’ll be ready for her juvenile racing year. I hope to have her springing from the gate by next Christmas,” Ivy says to my family across the table from me.

It’s a big goal, but if anyone can do it, it’s her.

I let my eyes drink her in when no one is watching. She’s wearing a pair of light blue jeans that hug every curve she offers and an off-the-shoulder white sweater. Her hair is hanging loose and the wisps that trail her graceful neck have me wishing I could lift them up, wrap those strands around my hand and suck her skin right into my mouth. I’ve buried myself in her seventimes in the last forty-eight hours, but even that isn’t stopping me from wishing I could lure her into the dark hallway and bend her over the closest side table.

“… and she’s regal and confident and so goddamn beautiful. Isn’t she, Wade?” Ivy asks me as she shows photos of Angel to the family.

I nod and sip my bourbon. “The most beautiful,” I say back, watching how she swipes her hair behind her pretty little ear, not even thinking about the damn horse.

Mama moves to the kitchen so she and CeCe can mix together a spinach salad.

“I hope y’all had time to have a little fun too,” she says to us.

Ivy looks straight at me and raises one eyebrow. It’s a look that tells me she’s about to be a brat and it makes my cock twitch every fucking time.

“Y’all wanna hear something mind-blowing?” she asks, biting her bottom lip.

I give her a look of warning.

Cole instantly looks up from the other side of the sofa.

“Fuck, yeah,” he says

“Wadedancedat Luke’s 32 with me,” Ivy says, looking at me with that grin on her face that says she knows how much my family is going to bust my chops over it, but still, she adds with a little smirk, “All night long.”

Mama grins without even looking up from the dressing she’s making.

“You’re good for him then, darlin’. He used to love to dance.”

Fuck my life.

My mother’s smile grows as she looks up and points her spoon at Ivy while she talks. “Remind me to show you a home video real soon of him and Cole singing karaoke and dancing their little hearts out one fine Christmas morning.”

“Goddammit, Mama.” I run a hand through my hair.

Cole laughs as if he wasn’t just as ridiculous as I was at that age, while he takes a big swig of his drink. Fucker used to act out Justin Timberlake’s dance moves like he was entering goddamnAmerican Idol.

“I think I sort of remember that Christmas. Wade was in his Lonestar phase,” CeCe pipes up, holding a carrot to her mouth like a microphone. She sings the chorus of Lonestar’s biggest hit in the wrong fucking key.

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