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instinct spooking at the first sign of unpredictability.
    Dustin didn’t come across as even a little bit violent. Then again, neither had Sam. But I was just working with Dustin, anyway. I wasn’t involved with him. And I was just working with him long enough to get my head together, figure out where I went from here, and then I’d go home.
    Eventually.
     
     
    I’d just finished picking out stalls the following morning when I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of one of the horse trailers outside. Even in the semitransparent reflection, it was obvious sweat and dust had done wonders to my makeup. Ten o’clock in the morning and I already looked like hell, so I ducked into the tack room with the bottle of concealer I kept in my pocket, and tried not to meet my own eyes while I touched up my face.
    I felt more than a little ridiculous doing this. Under normal circumstances, the only time I wore makeup anywhere near a horse was during a competition. Otherwise it was just a massive waste of time. Really, what was the point when it was going to get smeared and dusty and make me look like I’d rubbed mud all over my cheeks?
    Dabbing at the concealer to smooth the edge, I flinched when I hit the tender spot under my cheekbone. At least it wasn’t as sore as it had been. Harder to conceal, though it was fading slowly, but my eyes didn’t water when I touched it now.
    I capped the concealer and slipped it into my pocket. Then I looked in the dusty mirror one more time, comparing my left cheek to my right. The right was still a little darker, but it wasn’t terribly obvious. If anything, it would look to anyone who noticed like a smudge of dirt. Ironically.
    Once I was put together, I stepped out of the tack room.
    Dustin was in the aisle, clipping a young paint to the cross-ties. He glanced at me, and something in his expression said he knew what I’d been doing. Maybe he’d seen me, since the door had been open. Or maybe it was just that obvious. Either way, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if, when he’d turned his attention back to the muddy colt, he rolled his eyes.
    And fuck you too, Mr. King.
    I left him to groom the horse and continued with my daily tasks. On my way out, though, I threw a few glances at Dustin. He was busy with the horse, so he didn’t look at me, but I sure looked at him.
    It would have been awesome if he’d been one of those crusty, tobacco-chewing cowboys who were a hell of a lot harder on the eyes than they liked to think. The ones who grinned lecherously at all the ladies while they strutted around like their spurs weren’t actually bigger than their dicks. It was so, so much easier to glare at the backside of a man when just looking at him warranted a wrinkled nose.
    Not Dustin. My God. He may have irritated me and made me a little nervous, but he sure was easy to look at. He’d thrown me off balance from the first moment I saw him when John and I had stepped out of the barn yesterday, and even if he’d put me off shortly thereafter, he was still pleasant to look at. Okay, more than pleasant to look at. I couldn’t remember the last time I got goose bumps just from glancing at a man, and it had happened at least three times since I’d been here.
    He’d still irritated me enough I wouldn’t have minded seeing a horse take a bite out of him just for spite, and he had perhaps inadvertently tripped some instinctive revulsion, but that didn’t change the fact that he was the clean-shaven, well-rested version of the man who’d screwed up my blood pressure yesterday. Or that jeans were invented for a butt like that. Lord help me when the time came and I saw him in the saddle.
    I shivered, then banished the thought because it made it that much harder to tell myself he was an ass, and went back to doing all the things I was paid to do, which didn’t include ogling my new boss. After I stole one last look at him just for the hell of it.
    Throughout the sweltering afternoon, as