Page 20 of Take My Name
I do and nothing happens.
“C’mon, Lilith. Let’s go,” I say, squeezing my thighs to encourage her to move.
Warren comes over, riding next to me. “Get movin’, girl.” Then he gives her ass a slap.
Without warning, Lilith takes off and in my scramble to hang on, I lose my grip on the reins. I tighten my legs and fall forward, holding on for dear life, and forgetting everything about what to do when a horse runs off like this.
My heart races at the thought of being thrown off or falling to my death and I squeeze tighter.
Warren whistles at his horse to catch up and then he’s next to me, keeping the pace and reaching over to grab the fallen reins.
“Whoa, Lilith.” He gains control, and we slowly come to a stop.
His gaze finds mine, but his are hard to read.
“You okay?” he asks, but before I can respond, he adds, “Squeezin’ your thighs tells her to go faster. You need to relax.”
I release my death grip, then push myself back up into a sitting position and take the reins from him.
“I think she has a death wish for me.”
Warren’s horse starts walking, prompting mine to do the same. But this time I remember to keep my legs loose over her.
“Well, we don’t call her Lilith for no reason.”
My eyes widen at the realization he gave me a spitfire on purpose and he cracks a smile, the first real one I’ve seen on him.
“I figured you hated me but didn’t realize you wanted me dead.”
His expression softens. “I could never hate you, Maze.” Then he smirks. “Loathe, maybe.”
“Well…I definitely loathed you every time those papers returned without a signature.”
“Figured you would’ve gotten the hint.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Why are you makin’ this so difficult?”
His gaze shifts and he stays silent, making me think he’s not going to answer that, until he looks over. “You ever think you’re the one makin’ this difficult forme?”
The trail takes us higher into the mountains as his question simmers in my mind.
“I thought you knew it was over when neither of us was willin’ to budge on the long-distance or movin’ thing.”
“I wasn’t ready for it to be over. We didn’t get a real shot.”
My throat goes dry and words are caught in there before I can say them aloud. “Sometimes things don’t work out. You can’t hold onto the past forever. At some point, we need to move on with our lives and accept that it didn’t go as planned.”
His jaw twitches, but he doesn’t speak again until we get to his destination.
“Careful, the ground is uneven up here.”
Lilith follows his horse’s lead as he trots near the fence.
“Shit, it’s worse than I thought.”
Glancing over to see what Warren’s looking at, I notice metalposts bent in half and some tilted in the wrong direction. It’s probably not a huge deal since they don’t keep the horses up here anymore, but it’s still dangerous to keep it that way with guests trail riding up here.
Warren takes some pictures and then leads us to another area that’s closer to the property line. It’s not much better.
