“I would have tried to help you, Bec. I wouldn’t have just walked away if I’d known the truth.”
And that’s why she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t wanted to clip his wings, would never have done that to him, but there had also been a little voice in her head telling her that after everything that had happened, she hadn’t been good enough for him anymore. That he wouldn’t want her if she couldn’t even muster the courage to get back in the saddle and try to make another team.
They rode in silence, Rebecca staring straight ahead, her nerves about being on horseback slowly disappearing. It was a strange feeling being nervous about a sport that had once been her life.
“So how do you feel right now?” Ben asked.
Bec relaxed her grip on the reins and sat deep in the saddle, actually loving how good it felt. The start of a smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth and she couldn’t resist the pull. Maybe he was going to let bygones be bygones, which meant that she had to do the same.
“You know what?” She grinned over at him, trying to push the past out of her mind, at least for the afternoon. “Now that I’m not hanging on for dear life, it feels kinda good.”
“How about a canter down to the creek?”
Ben was sitting straight-backed, comfortable in the saddle, his broad shoulders stretched wide. There was something about seeing him in his white T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap that sent her back years in her mind. He probably felt the same looking at her.
She sucked up her courage and shortened her reins. “Just remember that I’m not the rider I used to be.”
She clucked Willy first into a trot and then into his rocking horse canter. Rebecca moved back and forth, feeling her legs stretch out, calf muscles groaning with the movement. There was nothing particularly easy about riding all over again, but it was a bit like the old bike theory. Once you knew how, it was something you never truly forgot.
“Doing good, cowgirl, doing good,” called Ben with a cowboy drawl.
Rebecca stayed focused, still expecting Willy to do something out of the ordinary, but he behaved like a complete gentleman.
Ben pulled back to a walk and Rebecca followed his lead, her chest rising rapidly with the burst of exercise.
“It’s just up there.” He pointed.
“Uh-huh.” Her lungs were screaming for more air—she wasn’t capable of saying anything else.
They rode in silence the rest of the way, and Rebecca felt those darn butterflies ignite in her stomach again. Ben was gorgeous and charming and so easy to be around, and he hadn’t even given her that much of a grilling over the whole lie. He deserved to know about Lexie, too, once she figured out how to break it to him, then her. She just needed to make sure he was certain about staying, that he wasn’t going to end up sacrificing his life simply to act out of duty and stay for his daughter. Or her. That was why she’d let him go in the first place.
“You coming?”
Ben’s voice from up ahead spurred her back in to action. She urged Willy into a trot and shook her head to rid her mind of its worries.
* * *
Ben chanced a glance over his shoulder. Rebecca was sitting so elegantly on the horse it looked as though she was right at home, but he knew it had taken a lot of courage for her to get back in the saddle and open up to him. It was a weird feeling, being back out here with Rebecca. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, how to act, what to say. Did he behave like they were just old friends reunited, or was he meant to factor in that night? Maybe it was because he’d become used to casual relationships with women; women he’d meet after a polo game, drink champagne with and then realize he had absolutely zero things in common with them. Whereas with Bec...seeing her again was like finding a favorite something that he’d missed for years, then realizing it still fit like a glove. But they were only friends, had been only friends for years.
He stopped at the creek’s edge, no more than a trickle of water flowing down beneath some overhanging trees. It had been their spot, the place they’d always come to talk, when they needed to be alone. Parent troubles, friends, horse issues—it had been their place to figure life out.
It didn’t look any different now than it had then. Ben dismounted and tied his horse loosely to a blue gum tree. He turned back around to Rebecca. She had her feet out of the stirrups, stretching her ankles, and the grimace on her face was hard to ignore.
“Every single part of my body is protesting right now,” she explained.
“Want a hand down?”
Rebecca looked at him gratefully. “Oh, yeah.”
He tried his hardest not to look, not to feel, but it was impossible. She swung her far leg over and came down toward him, and Ben put both hands up, catching her around the waist and guiding her to the ground. She landed with a tiny thump.
His palms were pressed against the flimsy material of her T-shirt, he could feel her taut skin beneath his hands. Despite his best intentions he didn’t let go, not straight away, their bodies only inches apart. It wasn’t until Rebecca cleared her throat that he stepped back, hands falling away.
Ben was about to apologize, but she turned, her dark blue eyes smiling in his direction. There was nothing to be said. The attraction that had started the night before he’d left was still there, he knew it and she knew it. But things had changed. She was a mom now, and he couldn’t be a dad, not even a stepdad. And with Bec? If anything happened between them, it wasn’t going to be a casual night of sex again—she meant too much for him to treat her like that. Which left him wondering what the hell could happen between them. If he had to consider the possibility of getting close to someone’s else’s kid.
“I should be saying thank you, Bec,” he said, searching for the right words. “You shouldn’t have lied to me, but the fact that you let me follow my dreams? You were an awesome friend. It was the best thing I’ve ever done and I don’t regret it for a second.”
She nodded, her eyes leaving his as if she was nervous about something. “I wasn’t that great a friend.”
He chuckled. “Believe me, you were.” She hadn’t brought up that night and he wasn’t going to, either, because the last thing he needed was for her to be embarrassed when things were starting to feel easy between them again. “When my mom left, there wasn’t a day that went past that I didn’t feel guilty. Knowing that she’d sacrificed everything she’d ever wanted to have me, it made me feel like crap. But then I guess you already know all that, right?”
Rebecca reached out, her fingers brushing his arm in the softest caress as she met his gaze again. “She had no right to make you feel that way.”
Ben shrugged. “Maybe. But when you’re eight years old and you find out that your mom never wanted you? It’s not exactly an easy pill to swallow. No kid deserves that.”
“Maybe she regretted telling you that,” Rebecca said.
He ground his teeth together, trying to keep his anger at bay. “If she regretted it she’d have come back. She made it pretty clear that her career was more important than I was.”
Rebecca’s hand fell away, her smile sad. “You deserved better, Ben. We both know that.”
“Hey, I’m a big boy now, the past is in the past and all that,” he said, brushing it off as if it meant nothing to him, even though there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t wonder how a mother could do that to her son. “All I was trying to say was I’m not angry with you, for lying to me. You let me go, and I should be thanking you instead of being so angry. You were never the kind of person to hold someone back and that makes you special.”
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