Page 50 of Trust Me With Forever

Once she died, Beck had tried to get me to ride again. But I’d never been strong enough to try.

Rafe’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Why did you lose yourself in thought when I mentioned horses, Abby? Did you have a really bad accident or something that turned you off them?”

My eyes shot to his. “What?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You’re fairly easy to read sometimes.” He glanced at the stove. “One second, and we’ll talk more about this.”

Part of me wanted to scream no, it would only remind me of my dad and bring back my grief.

And yet, I’d asked Rafe about something even more painful—losing his ability to play a game that had become his entire life.

So I could be strong and give him some honesty, too. It wasn’t as if he would laugh at me or strong-arm me into riding again. I may not know everything about the grown-up version of Rafe, but enough to trust that he’d respect my wishes.

He put a plate in front of me, and I laughed. It was a stack of pancakes with link sausage as the mouth and blueberries as the eyes and nose. The hair was drawn on the plate with chocolate syrup. “It’s cute.”

He hesitated before saying, “I used to make this for Emmy when she was a little girl. It always made her smile. And I know you’re a grown woman, but I figured I’d try it, anyway.”

“I love it, truly. But you better have one for yourself, too. Because I can’t wait to see the tall, sexy man eat his happy face pancake breakfast.”

He raised his brows. “Of course I have one. But he’s a little more manly.”

After grabbing his plate, he sat it next to me and took the stool. As soon as I saw the design, I snorted.

The pancake face had a beard made of bacon, his mouth drawn with maple syrup, and his eyes were fried eggs. Thehair was made of whipped cream. Before he could cut into it, I swapped our plates.

“Hey!”

“Yours is better.”

“But you don’t even like bacon, or so you said.”

“Do you have more sausage? Because I want a sausage beard and then you can have yours back.”

“Are you blackmailing me by holding my breakfast hostage?”

“Yep.”

“And absolutely no remorse.” He sighed dramatically. “You want me to starve, I see.”

“Oh, stop it. You used to have a thing for eating peanut butter out of a jar. I’m sure you could have that for breakfast. Although giving me more sausage would be easier. A tall girl needs to eat. It’s one of the benefits, at least, to being a giant.”

He frowned. “You’re the perfect height, Abby. I wish you’d believe me.”

Not wanting to discuss this again, I moved as if to cut into his bearded pancake man, and Rafe jumped up. He came back with a plate of sausage. “Here. Just give me my pancakes back.”

Grinning, I picked up a link and bit into it, moaning. “Damn, this is good. What kind is it?”

But Rafe didn’t answer me. I opened my eyes and sucked in a breath at the heat in his gaze. “Rafe?”

He shook his head and dug into his breakfast. “The sausage is from my secret source.”

“Secret source? Really? You act like it’s something from the black market or an illegal enterprise.”

He winked. “Maybe it is.”

“You can be ridiculous, you know that, right?”

After swallowing his bite, he nodded. “Although the rest of the world probably won’t believe you. Speaking of the world…”

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