“Maybe I will.”
“I’d really like to hear that,” Ryan said with a grin. He made that move along noise to the horses again, and they picked up their pace slightly as they rose up the trail and crested a grassy hill.
The creek ran through the middle of a woodsy area to the northeast of the main house. Before she could see it, Gen could hear it—the musical sound of water rushing over rocks, making its way toward the ocean.
Ryan dispensed with the tour-guide duties with businesslike efficiency, but it was clear to Gen that he was proud of the land and its grandeur. “The creek will be kind of low in another month if the drought keeps up,” he told her as they emerged on the trail into a shady, rocky area bisected by the creek. “Right now, it’s running pretty good, though.”
Bailey let out a gentle snort as Gen took in the scene. Dappled sunlight breaking through the leaves to scatter on the ground. The sound of birds twittering to each other, the humming of unnamed insects under the leaves and in the grass. And always, the gentle murmur of the water, in a white froth as it tumbled over rocks, then clear and clean as it rushed its way west.
“Oh,” Gen said.
“Want to get down for a bit, take a rest?” Ryan offered.
Gen did, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get back onto Bailey again without the benefit of a mounting block.
Ryan saw her hesitation and read it correctly. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you back up there.”
“Uh … okay.” She considered the prospect of climbing down from the mammoth animal and found it daunting. In a moment, Ryan was on the ground at Bailey’s side, coaching Gen.
“Okay, now, throw your right leg over to this side,” he told her. “That’s right. Now take your left foot out of the stirrup and just slide on down. I got you.”
It seemed like a long way down, but Ryan was there, and he put his hands around her waist and lowered her gently to the ground. This unexpected contact, this feeling of his hands on her, made her pale skin blush. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. She turned to him, and he was just inches away as she tipped her face up to look at him.
God, he was tall and broad, and the way he looked at her, with a kind of gentle indulgence, made her wish he were looking at her with the same kind of animal hunger she felt, but struggled not to show.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem.” He stepped back, giving her room.
“Uh … Are you going to tie the horses to a tree or something?”
He chuckled. “Nah. These two are pretty well trained. They know not to run off.” He pulled Bailey’s lead to the front and let it drop to the ground, as he’d done with his own horse. “See how I’ve got the lead hanging straight down in front of her? When you do that, they know to stay put.”
“That’s amazing,” Gen said.
Ryan shrugged. “They know their manners.”
Gen’s butt was sore, and her thighs were burning. Who’d have thought that just sitting on top of a horse would make your thighs sore? Bailey was the one who’d done all the work. Gen felt like she was walking funny as she stepped over toward the creek.
If she was, Ryan didn’t comment on it.
Chapter Nine
Ryan should have felt annoyed. He should have felt irritated. This little trail ride was taking time away from all of the things he had to do. They were heading into calving season, and he needed to check the pregnant cows to see which ones might deliver soon, make sure the calving pens were clean and ready to go. He had to check his equipment, do some work with the newer hands he’d hired for the season to make sure they’d know what to do. He didn’t have time to give tours.
But as much as he knew he should be rebelling against this thing his family had pressured him into doing, he found himself feeling relaxed and happy. It was a pretty day. He liked being out here, away from his day-to-day tasks, enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. He liked taking the time to just breathe.
And he liked being here with Gen.
Something about seeing her outside of her native environment—out of the little black dresses and the high heels and onto the back of a horse—made him feel good. Nature agreed with her. He liked her nervousness about riding, liked the way she gamely pressed forward despite her fear and awkwardness.
Truth was, she wasn’t bad at riding for a first-timer. He’d seen much worse. He could tell from the way she sat the horse, the way she carried herself, that she had a natural aptitude. Shame that it had never been nurtured.
They walked together toward the creek, and Gen appraised her surroundings, looking around her and above her, before turning to Ryan. “This spot would be great for plein air painting. Look at the light.” She nodded her head in appreciation.
“Is that the kind of painting this guy does? Landscapes, that sort of thing?”
Gen laughed. It was a nice sound. “God, no. He does abstracts. Bold colors. Big, slashing brushstrokes. Some of them look like the paint’s been shot out of a cannon. He’d scoff at landscapes.”
Ryan took off his hat and scratched at his head. “Why’d you bring him to Cambria, then? Seems like he could do that kind of thing anywhere.”
“He could.” She turned to him, her hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. “But environment influences an artist’s work—even abstract work—in ways you can’t predict. Everything he experiences—sights, sounds, the argument he had with his ex-wife—it all goes into this big blender and comes out as the artwork. You want to change the artwork …”
“You change what you put into the blender,” Ryan finished for her.
She nodded and smiled. “Right.”
He walked over to the creek and sat down on a big boulder. “So, are you setting out to change this guy’s artwork?”
“Sort of.” She sat beside him. “He’s good. He’s very good. But he hasn’t had a breakthrough yet. I think he’s going to. He just needs to shake things up a bit. Put some different stuff in the blender, see what comes out.”
Ryan considered her. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “That’s gonna be good for you, he has his big breakthrough while he’s here.”
“That’s the idea.”
They sat side by side on the boulder for a while, listening to the birds and the rushing water. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead. Nearby, a dragonfly circled lazily over a still pool of water and then lowered itself to the surface.
Gen’s hair was twisted into a bun at the back of her neck, but a few tendrils of red hair had come loose, and they curled around her face. Ryan wanted to pull her hair out of the bun and set it free.
“So, have you talked to Lacy?” Gen asked.
Lacy. He hadn’t been thinking about Lacy, not at all.
“Not lately. Why do you ask?”
“Oh.” She shrugged and avoided his gaze. “I just wondered. That time at Kate and Jackson’s party, it seemed like you really wanted to go out with her. I wondered if you’d asked her yet.”
“Nah.” He shook his head, feeling uncomfortable.
“Why not?”