Hope instinctively knew to turn around at that point, as they’d done so many times before. Today Rex pulled her reins gently, bringing her to a halt. He took a deep breath as the sun began to rise, his chest tightening at the silent three hundred acres of prime ranch land that would remain empty forever. Forty-five years earlier, his father and Earl Johnson, their neighbor and his father’s childhood friend, had jointly purchased that acreage between the two properties with the hopes of one day turning it over for a profit. After five years of arguing over everything from who would pay to subdivide the property to who they’d sell it to, both Hal and Earl took the hardest stand they could, each refusing to ever sell. The feud still had not resolved. The Hatfields’ and McCoys’ harsh and loyal stance to protect their family honor was mild compared to the loyalty that ran within the Braden veins. The Bradens had been raised to be loyal to their family above all else. Rex felt a pang of guilt as he looked over the property, and not for the first time, he wished he could make it his own.
He gave a gentle kick of his heels and tugged the rein in his right hand, Hope trotted off the path and along the property line toward the creek. Rex’s jaw clenched and his biceps bulged as they descended the steep hill toward the ravine. The water was as still as glass when they finally reached the rocky shoreline. Rex looked up at the sky as the gray gave way to powdery blues and pinks. In all the years since he’d claimed those predawn hours as his own, he’d never seen a soul while he was out riding, and he liked it that way.
They headed south along the water toward Devil’s Bend. The ravine curved at a shockingly sharp angle around the hillside and the water pooled, deepening before the rocky lip just before the creek dropped a dangerous twenty feet into a bed of rocks. He slowed when he heard a splash and scanned the water for the telltale signs of a beaver, but there wasn’t a dam in sight.
Rex took the bend and brusquely drew Hope to a halt. Jade Johnson stood at the water’s edge in a pair of cutoff jean shorts, that ended just above the dip where her hamstrings began. He’d seen her only once in the past several years, and that was weeks ago, when she’d ridden her stallion down the road and stopped at the top of their driveway. Rex raked his eyes down her body and swallowed hard. Her cream-colored T-shirt hugged every inch of her delicious curves, a beautiful contrast to her black-as-night hair, which tumbled almost to her waist. Rex noticed that her hair was the exact same color as her stallion, which was standing nearby with one leg bent at the knee.
Jade hadn’t seen him yet. He knew he should back Hope up and leave before she had the chance. But she was so goddamned beautiful that he was mesmerized, his body reacting in ways that had him cursing under his breath. Jade Johnson was Earl Johnson’s feisty daughter. She was off-limits—always had been and always would be. But that didn’t stop his pulse from racing, or the crotch of his jeans from tightening against his growing desire. Fifteen years he’d forced himself not to think about her, and now, as her shoulders lifted and fell with each breath, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it might feel like to tangle his fingers in her thick mane of hair, or how her breasts would feel pressed against his bare chest. He felt the tantalizing stir of the forbidden wrestling with his deep-seated loyalty to his father—and he was powerless to stop himself from being the prick of a man that usually resulted from the conflicting emotions.
***
JADE JOHNSON KNEW she shouldn’t have ridden Flame down the ravine, but she’d woken up from a restless, steamy dream before the sun came up, and she needed a release for the sexual urges she’d been repressing for way too long. Goddamned Weston, Colorado. How the hell was a thirty-one-year-old woman supposed to have any sort of relationship with a man in a town when everybody knew one another’s business? She’d thought she had life all figured out; after she graduated from veterinary school in Oklahoma, she’d completed her certifications for veterinarian acupuncture while also studying equine shiatsu, and then she’d taken on full-time hours at the large animal practice where she’d worked a limited schedule while completing school. She’d dated the owner’s son, Kane Law, and when she opened her own practice a year later, she thought she and Kane would move toward having a future together. How could she have known that her success would be a threat to him—or that he’d become so possessive that she’d have to end the relationship? Coming back home had been her only option after he refused to stop harassing her, and now that she’d been back for a few months, she was thinking that maybe returning to the small town had been a mistake. She’d gotten her Colorado license easily enough, but instead of building a real practice again, she’d been working on more of an as-needed basis, traveling to neighboring farms to help with their animals without any long-term commitment, while she figured out where she wanted to put down roots and try again.