Free One Night in Vegas (Entangled Lovestruck) (Gambling Hearts) by C. M. Stone

grain after.” And in the process, maybe he’d cool down as well.
    “That’s fine.” She grinned as she walked alongside him with Molly. “My butt might not be able to take a long ride after all this time.”
    His eyes automatically flicked back toward her ass, so perfectly flattered by her jeans. Damn. Let’s hope we don’t do any damage to it then.

Chapter Nine
    Eliza felt her skin warm and prickle in response to Chris’s nearness, despite the distance between them. How many times had he left her flustered and unsure of what to say? His vagueness about her riding Molly in the future left her feeling especially lost. Was he trying to brush her off? She’d never slept with someone on the first date—if their New Year’s Eve together counted as a date—and couldn’t figure out how she was supposed to act now.
    “This really is a great setup you’ve got here.” She looked out toward the center arena as it came into view. She could remember sitting in the stands to watch Chris run barrels. Jackson lacked their shared interest in horses and had been bored out of his mind, but she’d been glued to the spot. “You’ve got access to all this whenever you want it? I had no idea that’s how it worked.”
    “Mostly. There are schedules for events and when something is going on I can’t use the main arena. Usually I can get into one of the smaller arenas or the round pens if I need to. If not right away, then within a few minutes.”
    She patted Molly on the neck and sighed. “You make me wish I was working out of a park service office down here.”
    Chris didn’t respond, but she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. There was a faintly pained expression on his face as he looked down at the ground, brow furrowed with some inner turmoil. Something was on his mind, but he wasn’t hinting at what it was.
    At the end of the dusty road they paused to get onto their saddles. So many years had passed, Eliza briefly wondered if she’d even remember how. Avoiding looking at Chris so as not to embarrass herself, she took a couple of deep breaths before slipping her foot into the stirrup. Pushing her weight onto that foot, she used it to pull herself up off the ground and then swing her other leg over the body of the mustang. “Hey, I didn’t fall on my face!”
    “You were always good in the saddle. I didn’t expect that to change.”
    She smiled. “Yeah, well, the day’s young. I might disappoint you yet.”
    Chris led the way onto the desert trail and she followed behind, happy to let him take the lead for the moment. Once the trail widened out enough that she could ride alongside him she urged Molly to stay abreast with Keifer. The little mustang settled into a surprisingly smooth gait, but even so, she could feel the steady jarring of her tailbone that she’d nearly forgotten in the intervening years.
    The desert stretched out as if it went on forever. Eliza squinted up into the sky to watch a hawk circling up above. “See, this is what I miss about Nevada.”
    “You make that sound like you haven’t been out in a desert since your parents moved you to Missouri.”
    She shrugged. “I haven’t. Everything since then has kept me pretty well stuck in the middle of the country, and I’ve been sharing a car with Jackson during this vacation. I haven’t had much of a chance to get out and enjoy myself.”
    A muscle in his jaw flexed, and he avoided her gaze. She watched, wishing like hell he’d make eye contact or smile or something so she could figure out what was bothering him. All she could think of was that he regretted their night together, which was such a painful thought she actually felt a stab of uncomfortable emotion straight through her heart.
    And here she’d always thought heartbreak was just a metaphor.
    Turning away from him, she breathed in deeply to ease the tension in her diaphragm. Whatever was going on inside of his head, she couldn’t control it. All she could do was