“No,” I protested. “It was an acc—”

“I took it as a rejection.” He put his hand on my knee and looked me straight in the eyes. “It’s taken me all this time to figure that out. But I regretted it every day. And I’m truly sorry.” He sat back against the bench and faced the stars. The place where his hand had rested on my knee felt colder than ever.

“I’m sorry, too,” I said, “so we’re even. I didn’t visit you in the hospital when you got crushed by a horse. For much the same reasons regarding love and rejection and being young.” And being a cold bitch, born and bred, I thought to myself, because he was trying to make a connection with me, and I couldn’t even meet him halfway.

“That went on for six years,” he said. “You didn’t talk to me. I didn’t talk to you. You didn’t talk to your grandmother. And now she’s disinherited you. So in all that time, you never told her how you feel?”

“How do I feel?” I leaned forward, honestly curious about what he would tell me.

“You love horses. You love the farm. But everything about it reminds you of your mother dying and your dad leaving. You never dealt with it back then. You’re trying to deal with it now. You’ve gone far away to a place with no horses and very little grass, and you’re studying how to write a story with a happy ending. If you can write that ending for yourself, maybe you can come back.”

Listening to this was like watching a colorful origami box unfold. Only it was Hunter showing me the contents. That made me very uncomfortable. I sat back and folded my arms across my chest, hugging myself against the cold.

“When I brought you here,” he said, “I thought your grandmother would summon you. She must be waiting for you to come to her instead. Now I see that you and I may fly back to New York tomorrow without either of you giving in.”

“Hm,” I agreed.

“But if you do stumble upon each other and have a talk”—he turned to me and took my hand this time, warming it between both of his—“can’t you please tell her how you feel?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He dropped my hand and slouched against the bench. “I wish you would, because I’m not sure how long I can put up with this.”

“I’ll bet you can put up with it a little longer,” I said brightly, desperate to get out from under the heavy subject. “How much do you love college in New York?”

He grinned. “I love college in New York. I love just being in the city. I love my classes. I love the hospital. I wish I weren’t there at two in the morning because I also love sleep, but I do love the hospital. I love Manohar and Brian. In a manly love kind of way, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, the corners of my mouth stretched tight, trying not to laugh. “You get along great with everybody. Because that’s what you do.”

“Because that’s what I do,” he agreed. “Do you love college in New York?”

I sighed, a big puff of white air. “I do love college in New York. Lately I’ve been so busy with work and homework that I might as well be in Iowa, but I remember loving college in New York a month ago. I’m afraid it may be coming to a close, though.”

He leaned nearer. “Seriously?”

“If I got that internship,” I said, “I could hold on. Otherwise I’m in trouble. I wanted so badly to start my publishing career in the publishing mecca. But maybe that’s not possible for me now. I can write anywhere, I guess.” I laughed.

He didn’t laugh. “What will you do, then?”

“I might try California,” I said. “It’s almost as expensive as New York, though. And it’s tainted in my mind because my mother tried it with the worst of luck.”

Hunter’s movement toward me was so sudden that I instinctively shrank back. Then I realized he was reaching for my hand. He took it in his warm hand again, rubbing my palm with his calloused thumb. His voice was smooth like a song as he said, “I would not love college in New York if you weren’t there.”

Suddenly I was flushing hot in the freezing night. “You wouldn’t?” I whispered.

“No. When I said I love it, I listed all these things I love about it. I left you out.” He let my hand go and touched his finger to my lips. “I love you.”

I stared stupidly at him. Was he joking again, reciting another line from my story? I didn’t remember writing this.

He leaned in and kissed me. I didn’t respond for a few seconds. My mind lagged behind what my body was feeling.

“Say it,” he whispered against my lips. “I know this is hard for you. Tell me.”

“I love you.” Hearing my own words, I gasped at the rush of emotion.

He put his hands on either side of my jaw and took my mouth with his.

My mind still chattered that something was wrong with this picture. My body stopped caring. I grabbed fistfuls of his sweater and pulled him closer.

He moved his lips to my cheek, to my ear, back to my mouth. I had never been kissed like this in my life. Each time I thought I should protest because there were so many unsettled matters between us, Hunter kissed me harder, forcing those concerns out of my mind. The cold air heated up around us.

He unsnapped the top of my jacket and slipped his hand inside. His warm palm cupped my breast beneath my shirt.

Then he straightened, blinking at me, and pulled his hand away.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Okay,” he panted. “I’m going to kick myself for this in the morning, but I don’t want to do this while I’m drunk. And I don’t want to do it behind the stable. I want everything to be perfect between you and me.” He stroked my hair away from my face. “Are you mad?”

“Mad?” I squeaked. “No. Horny? Yes. Frustrated?”

“Yes.” He set his forehead against mine.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Mad? No.”

He watched me with serious eyes. His gaze fell to my chest. He fastened the snaps he’d unfastened a few moments before, then put his hands on my shoulders. “I’m just so thankful we’re finally together.”

“Me, too,” I whispered. I felt uncomfortable saying this. I wished I had a cell phone so I could call Summer for verification that I was not making a terrible mistake. But she would yell at me and tell me to stop being stupid. I did not need her permission to fall in love.

He kissed me on the forehead, then stood, holding out his hand to me. “I’ll walk you home.”

I took his hand and swung it as we rounded the stable again, back the way we’d come. “I’ll walk you home,” I said.

“No,” he said with exaggerated patience, “I’ll walk you home.” With his other hand he gestured toward the top of my grandmother’s mansion, just visible over the rise. “I’m not leaving you wandering around in the night with all these drunk people and, my God, Whitfield Farrell and his f**king bowl.”

I giggled. It made me insanely happy that he was jealous of Whitfield Farrell. “You’re drunk, though. You might stumble into the road and get hit by a car.”

“They will be sorry,” he said. “I will dent their car. I am strong like an ox.”

I burst into laughter, and he laughed with me. He was so handsome in the gentle starlight, and he looked so happy. I couldn’t remember ever being this happy myself. I was still nearly broke and my grandmother hated me and I had a history paper due Monday that I hadn’t started writing, but I could handle all of this with Hunter laughing beside me. I squeezed his warm hand.

“I’ll cross back through the pasture if it makes you feel better.” Dropping my hand, he draped his arm around me and pulled me close for another kiss on the forehead. He walked me all the way down to his house, backed me against the front door, and thoroughly kissed me good night.

16

I sprang out of bed. Sunlight streamed through the window. I hadn’t intended to sleep so late. I needed to get started on my history paper. I wanted to see Hunter.

I showered and dressed in record time. My stomach rumbled when I saw that Tommy had left me a big breakfast in the kitchen, but I could come back for that later. I shrugged on my overcoat and dashed up the lane.

Outside my grandmother’s mansion, I stood at the foot of the hickory tree, looking through the yellow leaves at my window, two elongated stories above. When I’d lived here I’d never had occasion to sneak out of my room. That part of my stable-boy story had been wishful thinking. But I’d made sure that I could sneak out if I needed to. I had been planning my escape from this place for a long time. Now I could sneak in.

My hip ached as I took massive steps up the hickory branches, careful not to let twigs scrape my face before my first time with Hunter. I snagged my overcoat a few times and panicked all over again at the idea of tearing it and freezing to death in New York City because I couldn’t afford another, but eventually I reached my windowsill. The ancient window, huge panes rippled with age, was unlocked, just as I had left it last June. I lifted it open and dropped inside my room, which looked huge to me now. It was four times the size of Hunter’s room, and sixteen times the size of my mini-bedroom in the dorm. I turned toward my bed.

It was neatly made. Hunter’s suitcase was open on the coverlet. He was up already.

After a disappointing peek around the empty bathroom, I tiptoed out into the hall. He was here somewhere. If I could find him without encountering my grandmother first, I could lure him back to my bedroom, and we could finish what we’d started last night. He had wanted perfection for our first time. This would be it.

After cursory glances into the upstairs parlor and the movie theater and the library, I sneaked down the wide, curving staircase, fingers tracing the banister rubbed silky smooth by a history of trailing hands. When I reached the bottom, I stopped short and sat on the last stair. I could hear Hunter and my grandmother through the arched doorway to the kitchen, saying my name.

“Erin found out I’m majoring in pre-med instead of business,” Hunter said.

“Hunter Allen,” my grandmother scolded him. I could picture the angry line forming between her exquisitely arched brows. “How could you let that happen?”

“I’m in the honors program with her,” Hunter explained in his most persuasive, reasonable, in-control voice, the one that made women fall in love with him. “You asked me to get into a couple of her classes so I could keep tabs on her. But it works both ways. If I’m close enough to find out things about her, she’ll find out things about me.”

My grandmother protested, “But what are we going to—”

“I took care of it,” Hunter interrupted her. Nobody interrupted my grandmother, or so I had thought. “I told her I’m just fooling you into paying for my college, and you have no idea I’m in premed.”

My grandmother cackled. “That’s rich.”

“Well, it worked,” Hunter said. “For now. But I don’t know how long—”

“Just fix it, Hunter,” my grandmother said. “You can fix anything with your charm. All you have to do is convince her to major in business and run the farm. And make certain she’s not fooling me like you’re fooling her! Surely that won’t take so long? You said she’s starving. Let’s see if she can spend a Christmas without my pralines!”

“I’ll step in before she starves,” Hunter said, and I thought I detected a disapproving tone toward my grandmother. Amazing what this boy could get away with. “But you’re right. I’m getting closer to convincing her. Bringing her here was a good idea. It reminded her of how much she loves this place. One of the guys at the stable told my dad she was out for hours on Boo-boo yesterday afternoon.”

“On whom?”

“Boo-boo. Her horse. You know, High and Mighty. By Rocky Mountain High out of Might Is Right.” The breakfast dishes clinked. “Congratulations on your win yesterday, by the way.”

“That horse certainly earned back the cost of the trip to Dubai to buy him,” my grandmother said, and the conversation turned easily enough from manipulating me to buying horses.

I sat on the stair and listened to them for a few minutes more. I could sit here until they finished breakfast and came out of the kitchen to discover me, and I could confront them. Or I could go storming into the kitchen now.

Or I could creep back up the sweeping staircase the way I’d come, because it didn’t matter that they knew that I knew. All that mattered was that both of them had betrayed me even more deeply and blatantly than I had imagined, and that the love I’d thought had grown between Hunter and me was the worst kind of lie.

Every step he’d taken toward me—acting like my stable-boy story had affected him, writing his own sexy stories, taking me to Belmont, kissing me in the hospital, dragging me home—he’d taken to make me fall in love with him so he could advise me to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps. If I did as he said, she gave him a free ride.

As I crossed my room, stepped into the tree, and closed the window behind me, I struggled to pound my feelings for Hunter into a small box, like squeezing my grief into a box when my mother died. I said to myself, Hunter never liked me. I should not want him anyway because he is in cahoots with my grandmother. He has no interest in me romantically. I am still okay, I am okay, I am okay.

It wasn’t working. The further we’d gone, the more I’d realized I wanted and needed him, needed desperately to connect with him, even if it was only physical. I needed his touch, was starved for it.

I was concentrating so hard that I missed my last foothold in the tree and fell on the ground, directly on my sore hip. Pain jabbed through me. Tears stung my eyes.

I limped back down the lane. Just as I reached the path to Tommy’s house, I heard a car topping the hill. My grandmother rode in the backseat of the limo she took to races. She watched me through the tinted window as she passed, eyes hidden by big designer sunglasses, mouth pulled into a disapproving frown.

An hour later I answered a knock on Tommy’s front door. Hunter gestured to the farm truck waiting in the lane. “Your chariot awaits.” Then he pushed me inside, where the driver couldn’t see us, and kissed me hard on the mouth. “Good morning.”

AFTER THE TAXI DROPPED US OFF in front of our dorm, Hunter walked me up to my room and pressed me against the hall wall. “Just because we’re here in New York doesn’t mean we’re going back to the way we were,” he said, nuzzling my cheek. “We have a hard day tomorrow and we need time to work through this, but things will be different between us now. Promise me.”

“Promise.” My voice sounded too bright to my own ears, my delivery ironic. But Hunter had played the devoted new boyfriend all morning in the airport. He didn’t seem to notice that I regarded him with lust and stony silence.