Page 26 of Prophet
“Sassy?” I queried with raised brows. “Was that her nickname?”
“In a way.” He shrugged. “I will never forget her.” He shook his head.
“Oh….” I felt a bit deflated.
“I mean she was so easy to ride,” he went on. “Never brooked a bridle. Came right over whenever she saw me.”
Halting, I gaped at him. “You're talking about a horse?”
Nodding, he smiled.
My mouth popped open in shock.
Chuckling, he tipped my chin up with his finger, closing my mouth.
I gasped and grabbed a pillow to smack him with it. “A horse?”
In defense, he crossed his arms over his head. “I was kidding, Jewel! Come on!”
I kept slapping him with it.
“Stop! You know I’m a peaceful man, baby! Don’t hit me.”
I was laughing now. “Peaceful? Tell Talon that, he looked shocked at your peacefulness, alright!”
Grabbing the pillow and tossing it away, Prophet rolled me over onto my back. “There’s something special when you bond with a horse. It’s a friendship, but when it came to women, I wouldn’t even have that. Some were like blank on the inside. Pretty faces but not much going on underneath. I don’t mean like they were all dumb blondes—”
I reached up and pinched his nipple.
“Oww!” he exclaimed as he laughed.
I giggled again. “Watch it, Cowboy.”
“Sorry, I suppose that was hair profiling?” He winced a bit at his bad joke.
I rolled my eyes at his boyish look and his jokes. “So about these other girls?” I brought us back to the subject.
“Other girls?” he asked. “There are no others, Jewel. I don’t remember any of them. That’s the affect they had on me.”
I felt satisfied with that answer. This was something else I loved about this man. He would always answer honestly. Well, if he wasn’t teasing me. But the horse story was true, I will bet. I already knew he loved them. He’d said they were better than most people. We had more conversations in the last week than I’d ever had with anyone else, especially with a guy. I loved his stories about the ranch and his dad. We had many talks about what we liked and didn’t, but it wasn’t like we were simply getting to know each other, we delved deeper than that. In fact, everyone I’d known up until now had been a stranger compared to him. Even Cinnamon. She had been the closest thing I had to a best friend, but she stayed closemouthed about her past and some personal things.
“But while we are on this particular subject,” he said. “There wasn’t any guy that got your attention?”
“Not like that, no. Mostly, they were annoyances. Over cologned, swaggering pests, full of themselves. Or, they thought if they paid me enough, I would go home with them.” I scoffed.
“But you never saw a guy and said to yourself ‘wow, he’s cute.’ I mean come on, that had to have happened.”
I laughed. “Oh, you mean like...oh, my gosh! He issooocute,” I gushed dramatically as I mimicked a teen girl.
“You know what I mean.” He chuckled with me.
“I do, but it happened like two whole times and as soon as I talked to them...The same thing happened like you said, nothing there. Justcan I get your numberand some of those pickup lines we joked about earlier.”
“Earlier,” he mumbled. “Was that just today? It seems like forever ago.”
“I know. Today could have filled a whole month.” I sat up and looked down at him. “I just want to stay here in your room, in this bed. And I want reality to stay out.”
“You mean have food brought in, turn off our cell phones, only get up to shower or use the bathroom?”
