Free Wild Mustang Man by Carol Grace

me, she thought. “Yes, I’m finished. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about this. And I promise to keep my hands off you from now on.” She tried to give her words a light touch, but they came out sounding bitter. That’s how she felt. She couldn’t help it. She’d had a deeply moving experience, deeply sensual and erotic, she thought it might have meant something to him, but obviously it was just a release of tension. Or so he would have her believe.
    “Keep your hands off,” he muttered. “If it was only that simple.”
    She’d just screwed her lens cap on her camera when his mother arrived at the corral. Bridget managed to bestow a bright smile on the older woman. “It’s good seeing you again. Well, I’m off.”
    “Don’t run off on my account,” Joan Gentry said. “I’ve been trying to call you all day,” she told Josh. “I should have known you’d be out here. I wanted to remind you of your father’s birthday on Sunday. He’s sixty, so we’re having a party.”
    “A party,” Josh said scowling at Bridget. Bridget knew what it meant. He wanted her to go now, to leave before something awful happened like his mother inviting her to the party too. She shifted from one foot to the other. But she couldn’t just leave. His mother might think she was rude when she’d told her not to run off.
    “Yes, nothing extravagant. He wouldn’t like that. But the whole family will be there, Lauren, Martha and the boys. And some neighbors. Will you still be in town, Bridget?”
    “Me? Oh, I don’t think... I mean my plans are up in the air.”
    “Because we’d love to have you join us, wouldn’t we Josh?”
    “We’d love it,” he said
    “Well, in that case,” Bridget said, as if she hadn’t recognized the sarcasm in his tone. He glared at her. His discomfort was so apparent she almost laughed. To repay him for kissing her and then apologizing, for lighting her fire and then dousing it before it had a chance to burn, she told his mother she’d be delighted to come to the birthday party. Then she took her camera and left. She knew he was watching her. She felt the heat of his gaze as she walked down the path to the barn and all the way to her car. She knew she’d annoyed him. That was nothing compared to what he’d done to her.
    He’d unleashed the passion deep inside her she hadn’t known existed. He’d made her feel, and made her want what she couldn’t have. Him. And there was nothing she could do about it; he’d made that quite clear. She was beginning to regret having accepted his mother’s invitation. How awkward was it going to be, seeing him surrounded by his family? Would they guess something was going on between them by the way he would studiously ignore her? Would they know how much she was attracted to Josh? And would they feel sorry for her because they knew she hadn’t a hope in hell of attracting him?
    Two long days went by. She sent the new photos which absolutely wowed the Wild Mustang people, according to Kate. They weren’t out of focus and they weren’t overexposed. But they did need some video footage of possible settings on the ranch. Bridget walked up Main Street after a long conversation with Kate and looked around.
    There wasn’t much to see, a few wranglers sitting on a bench in front of the general store, a truckload of hay slowly lumbering down the street. The waitress from the diner standing in front of the bank, waiting for it to open. Then she thought about the noise, the traffic, the smog in the city. She thought of how Tally and Suzy had been friends since high school and would probably stay friends along with the others in their class for years. Her friends in the city were friends from work, likely to move or be transferred at any time.
    Just then Suzy came walking down the street in her direction waving to get her attention.
    “I just wanted to tell you I’m having a party,” she said. “A week from Saturday. I hope you can come. After we met