Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 104820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
She raced downstairs and into the living room.
To her relief, she found him sitting in his usual spot in the reclining chair. His laptop was open in front of him, and she frowned. He was supposed to be taking an afternoon nap while she was gone, not working.
She was about to give him a talking-to when she noticed the expression on his face. His usually sparkling eyes were full of anguish. Immediately, her heart pounded with worry. He was so stoic, but by now she knew when he was hurting. It broke her heart to see it. But this was something more than just his aching leg.
She rushed over and asked, “What is it, Arch? Something seems really wrong.”
After what seemed like forever, Arch looked away from the screen and up at Tessa. He swallowed hard. “The director sent me a video of the stunt from the buddy movie. The one that landed me in this.” He gestured to the cast on his leg.
She walked around behind him, and he tapped Play. A golden desert scene appeared before her, the dust in the air dancing in the sun’s rays. The camera panned across the impressive landscape, over a glistening river, and then in the distance, she saw Arch on the back of a horse in full Western cowboy gear.
He looked so handsome and strong up there, she almost gasped. This was the Archer Davenport, gorgeous and magnetic, she had swooned over as a younger woman. The man she still swooned over.
Then, with a speed that wowed her, the chestnut-colored horse took off at full speed, and she watched, riveted and horrified in equal measure, as the huge, powerful animal galloped across the screen toward the river. Arch rode well, his body in rhythm with the animal’s, but then—
A terrible explosion sounded. Even though she’d known from his description of the accident that it was coming, her body still jerked. The horse spooked just as it was about to jump over the river.
And then the fall.
Oh God… the fall.
Arch’s body tumbling in slow motion, down, down. And then a closeup of the horrific pain on Arch’s face as the horse rolled over his leg.
Tessa cried out.
She couldn’t help it.
The camera moved to the hat lying on the gravel.
Arch’s fall had been terrible, and before she knew what she was doing, she put her hand on his shoulder and heard her own voice tremble as she said, “I’ll never be able to unsee that in my head.” She looked at her hand. She was actually shaking. “You could have been killed.”
He put his hand over hers as if to give her comfort. “You’re not the first person who’s told me that.”
She pulled away and came around to sit opposite him. All of a sudden, she was furious.
Angry because Arch had misled her about the accident and downplayed the whole thing.
Upset because the idea that he could have been killed turned her world upside down.
The two emotions battled for precedence, and to her dismay, she found tears pricking her eyes. She cared about him so much already, despite the lies that she’d been telling herself.
The awful truth was, he wasn’t just another client.
“Tessa,” Arch said softly.
He had noticed her tears, and she lowered her eyes, embarrassed. “Why? Why would you do a stunt that’s so dangerous?”
She wasn’t judging him. She just couldn’t understand why he would put himself in so much danger. Too many people loved him for him to be so reckless.
If she had that many people who loved her—or even one man who truly adored her, heart and soul—she would never have taken such a risk.
* * *
Arch gazed deeply into Tessa’s eyes. He couldn’t believe how much worry he saw there, and he felt terrible about showing her the clip. He’d upset her, and that was the last thing he’d intended. He swallowed and decided to tell her the truth.
“I love my family so much,” he began, “so don’t get me wrong when I say this. Nick is three years older than me. Finn is two years older. They were bigger, tougher, and could do the things I couldn’t. I wasn’t the tallest or the toughest, but whenever I heard ‘it’s too hard for you’ from one of them, or my parents, it was like something inside me went crazy. I’d have to prove to everybody that I was big enough, tough enough. It got so ingrained in me that I still react that way.”
Tessa looked to be deep in thought. “Mila says everyone in your family is stubborn and determined.”
“She’s right,” he conceded. “Although Mila’s even worse than my brothers. She’s only a year younger than me, and when we were kids, she was tougher than any of the boys. She still is. So, if I wasn’t trying to keep up with my big brothers, I was trying to keep up with one of my little sisters. And even Erin, in her quiet way… sometimes I wonder if she’s the toughest of all of us.”