Chapter 3: A False Start: Chapter 3

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” I yank the floral-patterned journal back toward myself, slamming a palm over the page to cover it.

Mira’s shapely brow lifts as she stares back at me impassively. “Yeah. Definitely seems like .”

Not only is Dr. Thorne my boss and the veterinarian who runs this clinic, but she’s also my new sister-in-law. Additionally, she’s kind of my idol. I’ve never told her that, but she is. She’s smart, strong, and driven. She’s everything I’m not—everything I’ve been told I’m not.

In the time I’ve been attending the local college, she and my brother got married and had a little boy named Silas. Hell on wheels, that kid. A mop of black hair from Mom and wild green eyes from Dad. The perfect blend. He’s almost two and climbs everything he can get his hands on. Truthfully, it’s terrifying.

I love my nephew, but he’s also why I’ve now moved out. With my diploma in hand, I was lucky enough to walk back into a job just down the road at Gold Rush Ranch. It’s a prestigious racehorse training facility run by our good friends, and it’s also the site of the vet clinic Mira runs. Which made moving into the small apartment above the barn a no-brainer.

It’s convenient for a twenty-one-year-old fresh out of school. It’s also included in my salary and about a two-minute walk from the front door of the clinic. Bonus points for not having to listen to Silas throw tantrums at five a.m. Truthfully, it felt weird to keep living with my brother and his wife while they were starting a new family. It felt like it was time for me to start my journey while they do theirs.

I sigh and lean back in the front desk chair. “It’s a list that I started in therapy.” Since coming back from school, I feel like I have my entire life ahead of me—special shout out to my therapist for that. After two years of chatting with her, I figured out that I’ve let enough life to me—the good and the bad—and I’m ready to continue taking the bull by the horns and go after what I want.

My college education to become a veterinary technician was my first step. Now I’m here, searching for the next steps. I feel continually lost but accepted that giving myself attainable goals mitigates that a bit.

Hence the list.

“What kind of list?” Mira leans up on the tall counter, propping her chin on her palm as her shiny black ponytail spills over her shoulder like an onyx waterfall.

I bite at the inside of my cheek, feeling a little young and foolish admitting this to Mira even though she’s only eight years older than I am. “Like a to-do list for my life.”

But she doesn’t laugh at me. She never does. She’s almost like the mother figure I never got to have, always searching for a solution to my problems and offering to lend me a hand. Or a carton of eggs. The memory of egging my principal’s car with her two years ago never fails to make me grin.

“So, a bucket list?”

I groan. A bucket list sounds so cliché. “No,” I say, pulling my hand off the page to show her the title. “

.”

She laughs and gives her head a little shake, clearly amused by, but also accustomed to, my antics. “I think that’s smart. Goal setting is important. Keeps a person focused.” Her dark eyes trail over my face, and I can see that she wants to ask more.

I chuckle at the blatant interest painted on her face. “Mira, you look like you’re going to burst. Just ask it.”

“God. Thank you. I was trying to play it cool, but the suspense was killing me. What’s on the list?” She leans further across the counter, eyes lighting up like a kid at Christmas.

I clear my throat as I pull the pad back toward myself to read. “Number one is to build up my own savings account. I don’t want to rely on money anymore. I’ll do something with it, I’m just not sure what yet. Something good, something worthwhile.”

My late father has taken on an almost Voldemort-like presence in our lives. We don’t talk about him often, and when we do, it’s not by name. He exists in my mind. He haunts me. But if I compartmentalize him into a nameless, faceless box, he bothers me a lot less.

Mira just nods. “I think that’s an excellent goal.” She knows the full story. Stefan’s version anyway. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is the sanitized version. He wasn’t there for the worst years. He got out.

I didn’t.

Until three years ago, I lived in my own personal hell, caged by an abusive monster. Even once he died, I couldn’t leave his fucked-up family behind. Until I was eighteen. I took possession of my sizable inheritance and then I fled Romania to the safety of my brother’s farm as quickly as I could. I didn’t look back. I don’t miss it. And I’ve spent the last three years of my life recreating myself in a way that leaves no ties to that part of my life.

I’ve even completely erased my accent. Most of the time, you would never know I wasn’t born here in Ruby Creek. Which is what I was going for.

“Yeah. I thought so.” I drop her gaze for a moment, looking back at the lined sheet of paper before me. “I think . . . well . . . I think, at some point, I’d like to go to vet school.” Heat rises in my cheeks. I wanted to be a vet tech but now I’m finding I want more. “It’s silly. I’m probably too late. I’m pretty sure I’m not even smart enough. Plus, I just got back to working here and wouldn’t want to let you down.”

Just saying it out loud ratchets up my anxiety.

Mira shoots up, shoulders pinned back straight. She’s so regal looking, so put together.

I feel so young and lost around her sometimes. “Nadia. I never want to hear you say that about yourself. I swear I will spank you. Or dock your pay. Or something.”

Of course, this is the moment that the back door of the clinic swings open. “Who’s getting a spanking?” Billie calls out in the way of announcing herself.

Mira and I both laugh. Billie is the wife of one of the owners here at Gold Rush Ranch. She’s also one of the world’s most famed and respected racehorse trainers.

She’s also very, very pregnant with twins.

She waddles through the hall door grinning like a fool with a hand placed casually over the top of her bump. “I miss getting a good spanking. Vaughn handles me with kiddie gloves now that I’m pregnant. It sucks. I just want him to slap my ass and call me a whore.” She sighs wistfully, while I try not to crack up. “Does Stefan still do that for you now that you’re a mom, Mira?”

I stifle a groan as Mira rubs at her forehead with a small smile playing across her lips. Billie is forever inappropriate. I’m not sure if she ever had a filter, but it’s missing now.

“We were just talking about goal setting. I was telling Nadia here to not sell herself short. And to answer your question, our sex life is better than ever. That’s all I’m saying.”

Mira winks suggestively and I mutter, “Thank fuck for that.”

Billie’s hand lands on my shoulder with a gentle squeeze, and I’m so busy cringing over the visual of my brother Mira just created that I leave my list open to being read from where she stands behind me.

“Well, Naughty Nadia.” God, I hate that nickname. “I can help you with the learning to ride horses one. Also, the getting your own horse one. Tropical vacation! Girl’s trip anyone?” Then she stops, lips quirking playfully. “

, not so much. What was that guy’s name the other day? The one who popped in here to ask you out? Tommy?”

I snap the journal to my chest. My throat constricts and my face heats.

That was supposed to be private. I drop my head onto the desk, gently banging my forehead against the top of it.

“Not him? He was cute! But fine.” She pats my back. “It’s going to be okay, little one. You’ll find someone to make love with. I sure didn’t take you for a virgin. But no judgement.”

“Biiiillllliiieee,” I whine. “I’m not a virgin!” My head flops against the back of the chair and my eyes flash open, ready to tell her to pound sand. But that’s before my gaze snags on the man standing in the front entryway. Beside the door that’s propped open to let a breeze in on this sweltering early summer day.

“Griff! You’re here.” Billie claps her hands together. “Excellent.”

He’s got a duffel bag in hand and even though Billie is talking to him, he’s watching me.

Griff Sinclaire. The man who kissed me stupid in a dirty bar bathroom and left me feeling irretrievably childish when he walked out. I thought that would be the last of him. But the joke was on me when a few days later he walked into this very clinic to drop off some samples and refused to talk to me.

Not. A. Single. Fucking. Word.

Which should have been infuriating enough. But imagine my surprise when I walked downstairs one morning shortly before starting school to find him hanging out with my brother. Not sure how I didn’t put it together, but is my brother’s best friend, who I hadn’t met since moving here from Romania.

My stomach bottoms out, like it always does around him, and the weight of his gaze presses down on me. The disapproval in his stare is front and center. The dismissal.

The grown-up version of me knows Griffin should not have kissed me in the men’s room that night, that he made the right choice to walk away. But the childish part of me hates him for being such a dick about it. The immature part of me has blown that night up in my mind to be something that it wasn’t.

The man hasn’t said a single word to me since that night. And I know he can talk. I can still feel the low rumble of his gravel-worn voice against my skin.

No matter how hard I try to forget it.

He’s too old for me anyway. He’s got to be in his mid-thirties by now. Not to mention, I think Stefan would crucify him if he found out. He’s probably avoiding talking to me because he values his life.

The worst part is… he just heard that exchange.

“Right.” Billie rounds the desk toward him. “A man of few words. Forgot that part. No problem. I’ll talk, and you can just listen. Except to that virgin bit. Ignore Naughty Nadia over there. Let me show you around.”

My stomach lurches as I close the journal and let my eyes drop. I wish I could fold myself in between the pages and just hide there. I knew I was going to run into him again eventually but wearing faded blue scrubs with my hair in a lopsided ponytail while exclaiming that I am not a virgin is not what I envisioned. I planned to look so hot that he’d be drooling.

And kicking himself for being such a dismissive prick.

“Where did you park? Let’s get you settled first. Then I’ll give you the grand tour,” Billie prattles on, completely oblivious to the tension between us. Maybe there isn’t tension between us. Maybe I’m the only one who feels it. Maybe I’m the only one whose world turned on its axis that night.

Maybe he doesn’t even think about it.

That’s probably what an adult does after he accidentally kisses a teenager. He compartmentalizes her into the category. He doesn’t think about her, just like I don’t think about my dad—because it’s wrong.

I suck in a deep, centering breath and glance up just in time to see Billie leading him back out to the landing, hands flailing around in front of her. Major hand talker that one. “Later ladies!” she calls as they step out onto the wraparound deck.

Agitation coils in my gut. The guy is such a dick. He doesn’t deserve my embarrassment. So right here and now I resolve not to be embarrassed. It was one innocent kiss two years ago.

Mira flicks through a folder on the desk, reading a file while nibbling at her bottom lip. Not a care in the world. Completely oblivious. It’s like both are so happily married that they miss this guy’s incredible ass. He doesn’t wear the jeans.

wear “Why is Griffin here?” My hands are slick, the cool metal of the rings on the journal digging into my palm.

She doesn’t even look up at me. That’s how inconsequential this is for Mira. “Didn’t Stefan tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

The folder flicks shut, and she reaches for another one. “He’s moving into Vaughn and Billie’s old guesthouse for the summer to break the young horses because obviously Billie can’t. Something about a compromise that her and Vaughn came to. She keeps riding, but only DD. So, she hired Griff.”

“The summer?”

Mira’s finger traces the line before her, lips moving as she reads to herself—something she often does. “Yup,” she responds.

My eyes shoot to the front porch, through the big windows that overlook it. Billie is still talking at Griffin.

But Griffin is looking at me.