Counting on a cowboy, p.4
Counting on a Cowboy, page 4
“Maybe.” The girl shrugged. “He’d probably want to. He’s pretty excited about the job.”
“Okay.” Lyric, however, did her best to appear not overly excited. “We can talk about it—”
The door opened, and Thatch stepped inside the studio before coming to an abrupt halt. “Hey. Didn’t realize you had a class now.”
“Oh. Yeah!” The panic flooded her, sending a warm rush through her chest. She hurried to meet him before he blew their cover in front of the girls. “But we were just finishing up. Come here, you.” She pulled him into a hug while her students serenaded them with catcalls.
“Uh.” Thatch’s body tensed, but hopefully no one else noticed. “Hey?” He gave her back a weak pat and she let him go so no one else could pick up on the awkwardness between them.
“We were just telling Ms. Valenza how hot her boyfriend is,” Skye said demurely.
Uh-oh—
Thatch visibly flinched. “Boyfr—?”
“Yep. I was telling them how happy we are together, shnookems,” Lyric said quickly.
He jerked his head to stare at her, eyes blinking faster.
“Elina and I were thinking maybe we could go on a double date with her and Franco sometime.” She murderously squeezed his hand so he would take the hint. “Wouldn’t that be a ton of fun?”
More blinking, and then after another squeeze on his hand, he stood straighter. “Sure. That sounds… good?”
“I’ll ask Franco.” Elina was already halfway out the door.
“And we should get going so you two can make out or whatever it is you’re doing tonight.” Tallie snickered.
“Yoga,” Thatch mumbled while the girls stashed their mats. “We’re doing yoga.”
“Sure. That’s what all the kids say these days.” Skye led the way out of the room, all of them laughing hysterically.
Thatch faced her the second the door closed, hands posted to his hips. “We’re together now?”
Whew. Lyric turned away from him so she could buy a moment of clarity. “Well, yeah,” she murmured as though this were no big deal. Just another normal day in Star Valley. “Fake-dating was your brilliant idea. Remember?”
“I said that as a joke,” Thatch said behind her. “And I distinctly remember you saying that pretending would be a bad idea.”
“That was before I thought it through.” She dragged two mats to the center of the floor, her hands fumbling to distance them a few feet apart. “This could help both of us, actually.”
“Yeah?” He marched to her, jaw set in a hard line, his sneakers squeaking on the bamboo floor. “How do you figure?”
“Well, you don’t want anyone to know you’re doing yoga or bronc riding.” She rushed to a shelf and selected two yoga blocks. “So a pretend relationship would explain why you’re coming to see me all the time. And it’ll help me to really see what’s going on with Elina and Franco. So I can make sure she’s safe.” She pointed to the bench with shoe storage. “Can you please take off your sneakers?” So he didn’t mark up her beautiful floors.
“Franco seems like a decent enough kid to me.” Thatch sauntered to the bench. It was hard to imagine he could look even better in a pair of sweats and a fitted tattered T-shirt than he looked in his typical cowboy jeans, but here they were.
Lyric tore her gaze away from the man while he removed his shoes.
“I mean, I didn’t get any red flags during the interview.” Thatch came back to the mats.
She couldn’t remember ever seeing him barefoot. It was almost too intimate.
“Nice guys know how to pretend,” she told him, fighting to keep her focus on the conversation. Thatch had some serious sex appeal, but she had to treat him like any other client. At least when they were alone together. Now, when they were in front of other people, she’d have to treat him like her boyfriend.
She shook away the thought. “Trust me. I know how men can pretend. If you and I are supposedly dating, then maybe we’ll have an excuse to hang out with Franco and Elina sometimes.”
“Why is this so important to you?” Thatch asked quietly.
He looked at her differently than most people. Maybe that was why her heart started to pound harder. An open curiosity defined his gaze. But there was something else in his eyes too. Tenderness.
A breathless yearning to share her burden with someone else gripped her, but she couldn’t. She’d never been able to tell anyone about the worst moments. The moments that still haunted her.
The abrupt change in energy between them threw her off. It was like he truly saw her, but she couldn’t let him in. No one knew except for Kyra, and her friend wouldn’t have betrayed her confidence. “I just have this feeling something’s not right.” Her throat tightened, but she managed to grin at him. “I know you don’t work from feelings, but I do.” Thatch was all plans and logic.
He still stood on his mat, facing off with her, studying her closely. “So how’s this going to go?” he finally asked. “What about Kyra and Tess and Silas and Aiden? They know we’re not together.”
“We’ll tell them we’ve been secretly dating for a while. Everyone in town will have to believe we’re together, or this won’t work.” Lyric traipsed to the Bluetooth speaker and started the music again. Mostly to drown out her inner panic. “And then we’ll break up in a few months after we spend some time with Franco and Elina.” When she got back to the mat, Thatch met her with a skeptical expression.
“You really want to go through with this?”
She couldn’t tell if a warning or amusement hid in his tone.
“You’ll be taking quite the risk. Because we’ll have to spend a lot of time together. And I’m pretty hard to resist, Valenza.”
Okay, definitely amusement. “I think I can manage.” Maybe. Hopefully. Normally, she didn’t like to play with fire, but this time she refused to get burned. “A fake relationship between us doesn’t have to be a big deal,” she lied. “And it’s for a good cause.”
“So you’re completely fine with acting like a couple in front of our friends?” This time, the amusement made it all the way to his eyes.
“Thankfully, you haven’t been hanging out with us much lately anyway,” she said curtly. Ever since she’d told him she didn’t want to date him, Thatch had made himself scarce. “I’m busy at the clinic. You’re busy at work and with your riding thing. It’s totally believable that neither one of us can go out much.”
“Okay.” He delivered the word with a singsongy cadence and might as well have added, We’ll see.
Yes, they would see. She would show him she could resist him, cowboy charm and all. “All right, Hearst. Let’s get down to why you’re really here.” She lowered herself to her mat and sat cross-legged. “We’ll start with some breath and focus work.”
“I don’t need to work on breathing—”
“Breath and focus are the foundation for flexibility and strength,” she informed him. “So that’s where we start every session.” She smiled up at him sweetly until he sat his butt down.
“Now hands on your knees,” she instructed, closing her eyes. “Pull your heart forward, chin up, and inhale deeply.” Lyric demonstrated, lifting her head, drawing her chest forward. “And then round the back when you exhale.” When she opened her eyes, Thatch was staring at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” He quickly looked away. “Okay, so heart forward.” He jutted out his chest.
“Careful. Try to make smooth, flowing movements.” Or he’d pull a muscle.
“And inhale,” he murmured, his muscled chest expanding even more while he lifted his chin. “Exhale and round the back.” Thatch hunched forward with a sigh. “How was that?” He sat upright, gazing at her expectantly.
“Um. Well. We’ll keep working on it. The biggest thing is you want to feel the connection between your body and your breath. You want to feel how your breath moves your body.” She demonstrated again, feeling a calm settle over her. This time, she kept her eyes open to make sure he was watching. Yes, he was watching all right. Especially as she pushed her chest forward.
Okay, maybe this wasn’t the best exercise to start with, especially when she was wearing a skintight sports bra. “Now you try.”
Thatch seemed to refocus himself and went through the breath pattern—somewhat clumsily—but they would keep working on that too.
Next, Lyric walked him through some side bends.
“My body doesn’t move that way.” He stretched his arm over his head but could hardly bend.
“That’s because you haven’t developed any flexibility yet.” Lyric got on her knees and crawled onto his mat to press her hand against his arm. “I’ll assist you with this one. Just tell me if it hurts.”
“Oh, it hurts.” He winced. “But I guess it’s also a good stretch?”
“It’s a great stretch.” She pressed a little harder. “Especially for riding. Lateral flexion will be really good for you.”
Thatch merely whimpered in response.
She urged him a bit deeper into the stretch, and his shirt came up, revealing a set of toned abdominals. Don’t check out the client, she reminded herself. But it was hard to stop.
“If you’re wondering why I’m so tan, it’s because I was working with my shirt off last week at the request of the Ladies Aid Society.”
Busted. He’d totally caught her. “I wasn’t looking. Or wondering.” Lyric quickly scrambled back to her mat. “Let’s move on.”
“I could do yoga shirtless too, if you’d like.” The innocence in his voice was such an act.
The man knew he had a nice body.
“No thanks. You should save your abs for the old ladies. They appreciate them more than I do. How about we try crow pose?” She’d make him hold it for five minutes.
Maybe that would wipe the cocky smirk off his face and encourage him to stop teasing her. Because they both knew she wasn’t as immune to his magnetism as she pretended to be.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dear God. Perspiration dripped down Thatch’s temple. How was it possible to sweat this much while stretching? A grunt threatened in his throat, but he couldn’t let it out. He couldn’t give Lyric the satisfaction of hearing him voice his discomfort and frustration. After progressing through the poses, he’d been holding warrior III for less than a minute—or thirteen years—and his standing leg had already started to cramp.
Who the hell knew yoga was so hard? He’d take riding a bronc over this shit any day.
“How’re we doing?”
Ha. That sugary tone didn’t fool him. Lyric was a sadist. He never should’ve teased her at the beginning of the session. He’d underestimated her penchant for torture.
“I’m great.” So great he could feel the vein in his forehead bulging. He gritted his teeth and swallowed a groan. “I could do this all day.”
“Oh, good,” she sang. “Because I think to get the full benefit, we should hold it for another three minutes.”
Three minutes? She might as well have said five hours. He wasn’t gonna make it.
Meanwhile, the woman standing next to him effortlessly held the pose, perched on one leg with her other leg outstretched behind her and her arms reaching out in front of her, somehow not trembling at all.
His body convulsed. Every muscle. Muscles he didn’t even know he had. Ahhh… he was losing it. Screw this. Thatch lowered to his knees on the mat. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lyric continued to hold her perfect warrior III pose.
Thatch shouldn’t have looked at her. Because now it was hard to look away. Those skintight yoga clothes kept snagging his focus. Lyric always dressed in leggings and formfitting tops, but he’d never seen her body work this way. She had such strength and control. Graceful but powerful. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen such an intoxicating combination.
“You won.” He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m done. I can’t move anymore.”
Laughing, the woman finally broke her pose to sit on her mat next to him. “It’s a common misconception to think that yoga is just a bunch of light stretching.”
“Trust me. I have a whole newfound respect for what you do.” He hadn’t counted on this session being such a workout. But he had to admit, his body felt good. Tired and worked over, but good. “I can see how this practice would help with staying on the back of a bronc.” Every sport he’d ever played before, football and lacrosse mainly, had been about powering through. But Lyric had told him yoga was about control—muscle control and mind control. Which was why he sucked at it.
“This practice will help your mind and body be more in sync when you’re riding.” Lyric lay down on her mat too. “It helps you stay in control in the midst of the chaos around you.” She raised a leg in the air and pulled on her calf with both hands. “In fact, I always like to end a session with the good stretch.” She turned her head and raised her eyebrows at him until he raised his leg too. “Yoga is very calming.”
“Mm-hmm.” He could barely grab the back of his leg. Seriously. His hamstring might rip. He might have found yoga calming if it didn’t hurt this much. If the woman lying next to him didn’t have such a direct impact on his pulse. But he planned to keep all the chaos inside his own head. “How’d you get into yoga anyway?”
Lyric pulled her knee nearly to her nose. “I went through some things that left me drifting and lost. I needed to feel centered in my life again, so I joined an online yoga community.” She released the stretch. “From there I traveled to do the trainings in Costa Rica and was eventually certified.”
She didn’t offer anything more about what she’d gone through that had left her feeling lost, and he didn’t push. It was none of his business anyway. Even with this brand-new arrangement pretending to be her boyfriend, there were boundaries he wouldn’t cross.
“You’re not stretching.” Lyric scrambled to get up and stood over him, her hand pressed against his calf.
“Ow.” Yes, that was a stretch. Suddenly the back of his leg was on fire.
“Breathe deep,” Lyric reminded him.
He tried, but breathing didn’t take the edge off the agony. And he was all too aware of her hands on him.
“Why is this upcoming competition so important to you?”
He stopped wincing to peer up at her. “I told you. I have a lot to prove.” And just like her, he would withhold the details of his own experience with being lost. “My brother will be here. We’ve always had a sibling-rivalry thing.” That had peaked when Liam had married Sienna. Since then, the two of them had hardly talked. They’d been in the same room plenty, they just opted not to have any meaningful conversations.
“So you’re going through all this pain because of a little sibling rivalry?” Lyric let go of his right leg and motioned for him to raise the left.
Did he have to? “It’s not just a little rivalry.” He grunted when she pushed him into the stretch. “We haven’t spoken much in eight years.”
The pressure on his leg subsided as the woman angled her body so she could see his face. “You haven’t spoken to your brother in eight years? What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Thatch brought his leg down and pushed off the floor. He shouldn’t have even brought up Liam. “I need to run. I promised my mom I’d call tonight. It’s her birthday.” He’d sent her a pair of earrings from a fancy jewelry shop in Jackson, but a phone call always meant more. Plus that gave him the perfect excuse to take off. Before he bared any more of his soul to Lyric.
“Right. Okay. Sure.” Lyric knelt down to roll up their mats before he could read her face. “That was a good first session,” she said formally while Thatch pulled on his shoes.
“I wasn’t good.” He grinned at her. As long as they could keep things light, he would do his best not to get any ideas in his head about this fake-relationship thing becoming real. “But the session was good. I’ll try to do better next time.” He got up off the bench and followed her out the door.
Lyric shot him an evil grin over her shoulder. “I didn’t exactly go easy on you. I’d say you held your own—”
“What’re you two doing here?”
Thatch jerked his head to see Kyra standing behind the reception counter in the main lobby of the clinic. “Uh, um…”
An awkward pause pounded his ears before Lyric threaded her arm around his waist. “It’s okay, hon. We should tell her.”
“Tell me what?” their friend asked in a high-pitched screech.
Yes. Tell her what? Alarm itched on the back of his neck. They couldn’t seriously convince their friends they were together, could they?
“We’re dating,” Lyric announced.
He had no idea how she could say those words so casually. They seemed to roll right off her tongue. He sucked at pretending. He wouldn’t be able to say anything to anyone about this supposed relationship without stumbling over every word.
“I knew it was only a matter of time!” Kyra flew to them and hugged Lyric, squealing. “I’m so happy!” She pulled back and hugged him next.
Thatch returned the embrace, grateful she couldn’t see his face.
“Does Aiden know yet?” she asked when all the hugging ended.
“No.” That question he could answer. “We’re trying to keep this on the down low.” Staying quiet would be best for him. Silas and Aiden knew him. They were basically his brothers. They’d spent months together on covert missions. They’d dodged bullets in some pretty sketchy situations. If he tried to lie to them face-to-face, they’d see right through him.
“But you’re going to tell him, right?” Kyra desperately tugged on his arm. “Because I can’t keep this from him. I can’t! I mean, he’ll be thrilled! He’s talked about you two getting together forever now. Actually, we all have.”
