Free Untouched by Maisey Yates

yelled at me. We’re practically a couple.” He took a step around his chair and toward her, dark eyes trained on hers. “The only thing I haven’t done is kissed you.”
    “You wouldn’t.”
    “Would I still be a stranger if I kissed you, Lark? Or would you feel like you knew me a little better?”
    “You would be punched. In the face. That’s what you would be,” she said, taking a step back.
    “Would I?” He extended his hands and brushed his knuckles over her cheek, the edge of his thumb brushing her bottom lip. “Well, can’t say I’m in the mood for that.” He dropped his hand. “We’ll have to stay strangers then.”
    He turned away from her and she pushed her hand, which was shaking, through her hair. “What’s your game, Quinn?”
    “I’m not playing a game. I want my life back.”
    And underneath those words, she heard the unspoken threat. That he would do whatever he had to in order to accomplish his end.
    Good thing she was so determined not to be his means to that end. Yes, she was. That meant no sympathy, no more talking. And definitely no kissing.

Chapter Five
    “I don’t know, man. Everything looks legitimate from where I’m standing.”
    Quinn pressed the phone harder to his ear and listened to Sam’s voice, coming through the other end, sounding tired and a little bit ragged.
    “And by that you mean . . . ?”
    “He looks like hell. He looks like a guy who barely walked away from getting trampled on by an angry horse. Which I think he is.”
    “You’ve only been there one day and night. Have you seen him ride?”
    “No, but I don’t think he can, Quinn.”
    “But you don’t know,” Quinn ground out.
    “No. But I don’t how I’m supposed to be sure, if me seeing the guy limp around isn’t good enough.”
    “Stay for the week.”
    Sam hesitated. “All right.”
    “What’s wrong with staying the week?”
    “The cabin feels crowded.”
    Quinn dragged his hand down his face. “Sorry.”
    “It’s fine. It is what it is.”
    He and Sam weren’t the kind of guys who shared feelings. They shared stories about near-death experiences and which horse looked like it was in a killing mood when Quinn was drawing for an animal before competition.
    This was outside their zone. Still, some lame-ass rodeo metaphor slipped out of his mouth. “You can’t finish the ride if you aren’t trying anymore.” It got quiet on the other end. “Never mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
    Sam laughed. A humorless sound. “I don’t know, Quinn, you might be more right than you think.”
    “Well, stick it out if you can.”
    “I can.” And Quinn didn’t know if they meant the week at Elk Haven or the marriage anymore, but he hoped Sam meant both.
    “Great. Call me when you have more news.”
    “Sure.”
    Quinn hung up and put the phone on the counter, looking out the window at the wall of pine trees that surrounded the property and the blue mountains that rose up behind them. If Cade was telling the truth, if he was as injured as he claimed, that left Quinn without a scapegoat.
    He didn’t even have a guess about who else might have done it.
    And he sure as hell didn’t have evidence.
    It was like losing hold of a lifeline out at sea. Watching the damn ship float away. It would have been easier this way. Easier to prove it wasn’t him. As it was, there was nothing. Just his word, which didn’t seem to be worth a pile of horse shit to anyone.
    Hell, he didn’t seem to be worth a pile of horse shit to anyone. Not without the rodeo.
    Damn.
    He put his hands over his face and tried to scrub away the tension in his forehead. He had to figure something out, because the alternative was a life without the circuit, and that was a future he just didn’t want to face. It was one he didn’t think he could face.
    No. There was a way. There had to be a way to make it all work, no matter what Sam found out about Cade.
    He put his head in his hands and rested his elbows on